SKEIN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does skein mean? 

• SKEIN (noun)
  The noun SKEIN has 1 sense:

1. coils of worsted yarn

  Familiarity information: SKEIN used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SKEIN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Coils of worsted yarn

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("skein" is a kind of...):

hank (a coil of rope or wool or yarn)

 Context examples 

Here they are in this telegram, and the other end of our tangled skein must lie among them.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Bring with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

In fact, I rather like it, for she winds one round her finger as softly and prettily as a skein of silk, and makes you feel as if she was doing you a favor all the while.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me to hold a skein of thread: while she was winding it, she talked to me from time to time, asking whether I had ever been at school before, whether I could mark, stitch, knit, &c.; till she dismissed me, I could not pursue my observations on Miss Scatcherd's movements.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Now that my memory goes back to the old place it would gladly linger, for every thread which I draw from the skein of the past brings out half a dozen others that were entangled with it.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Jane, you please me, and you master me—you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and while I am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up my arm to my heart.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)