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scree - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Wiktionary

scree

English

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WOTD – 11 December 2017

Pronunciation

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Scree (etymology 1, sense 1) at the Schynige Platte in Switzerland

Etymology 1

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Probably a back-formation from screes, from Old Norse skriða (“landslide, landslip”); compare skríða (“to glide”)[1] (from Proto-Germanic *skrīþaną (“to crawl; to glide; to walk”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kreyt-, *(s)ker- (“to bend, turn”)). The word is cognate with Icelandic skriða (“avalanche; landslide, landslip; steep mountain- or hillside made up of gravel and loose rocks”).

Noun

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scree (countable and uncountable, plural screes)

  1. (uncountable) Loose stony debris on a slope. [from early 18th c.]
    • 1961 October, ""Voyageur"", “The Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway”, in Trains Illustrated, page 601:
      To the north the towering scree-strewn slopes of Saddleback begin to draw nearer as we start the abrupt descent towards Keswick.
    • 1973, Peter Gabriel with Genesis, Riding the Scree:
      Struggling down the slope,
      There's not much hope.
      I begin to try to ride the scree
      But the rocks are tumbling all around me.
    • 2003, Bing (Francis J.) West, chapter XXV, in The Pepperdogs: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 328:
      Sprawled prone among the rocks, the team waited for a reply to their request to fire. […] Occasional rounds zinged off the scree, each with a different pitch.
  2. (uncountable, by extension) Similar debris made up of broken building material such as bricks, concrete, etc.
    • 2002, Catherine Merridale, Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-century Russia, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books, →OCLC, page 243:
      Acres of the industrial port had been reduced to desolation, half-walls, half-chimneys, crazy sticks of steel that looped up out of concrete scree. The temptation not to clear and rebuild must have been strong.
  3. (countable) A slope made up of loose stony debris at the base of a cliff, mountain, etc.
    • 1987, Michael J. Sallnow, Pilgrims of the Andes: Regional Cults in Cusco (Smithsonian Series in Ethnographic Inquiry), Washington, D.C., London: Smithsonian Institution Press, →ISBN, page 189:
      The next landmark was an apachita 'cairn', at the top of a steep scree. Each pilgrim carried a stone to the summit, spat on it, and threw it on to the cairn — the purpose being, I was told, to relieve the soul of its sins […]
    • 2008, I[oannis] N[ikolaou] Vogiatzakis, O. Rackham, “Crete”, in I. N. Vogiatzakis, G[loria] Pungetti, A[ntoinette] M. Mannion, editors, Mediterranean Island Landscapes: Natural and Cultural Approaches (Landscape Series; 9), Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media, →ISBN, section II (Mediterranean Island Landscapes), page 252:
      Also, special to Crete, and probably derived from some aspect of its climactic history, is cementation. Many screes are converted, in whole or in part, into concrete-like breccias. Carapaces of cemented scree encrust steep slopes. Cliffs of conglomerate or marl are covered with a layer of re-deposited limestone and look like hard rock. However, the loose contents are apt to trickle out through a breach in the crust, resulting in the jagged and hollow cliffs which are a picturesque feature of Crete
Derived terms
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Translations
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See also
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Verb

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scree (third-person singular simple present screes, present participle screeing, simple past and past participle screed)

  1. To traverse scree downhill.
    • 2006, Sean Swarner, Keep Climbing, New York, N.Y.: Atria Books, →ISBN:
      We decided it would be fun to go down the face of the mountain screeing ("skiing" on scree).
Translations
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Etymology 2

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Onomatopoeic.

Noun

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scree (plural screes)

  1. A harsh, high-pitched sound or cry (as of a hawk).
    • 2008 September 3, Brad Fear, “The ‘Captives’ Entry”, in A Macabre Myth of a Moth-man, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 130:
      I think both of our hearts must have gone into overdrive when we heard the metallic scree of a door being rolled open and the men's voices that accompanied it.
    • 2015, Carolyne Aarsen, chapter 7, in The Cowboy’s Homecoming, New York, N.Y.: Love Inspired Books, Harlequin, →ISBN, pages 113–114:
      For a few moments the only sound was the rasp of a file as Lee moved onto the last of Rowdy's hooves, the sound of John clipping, the scree of a hawk flying overhead and the occasional nicker from the horses already tied up.

Verb

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scree (third-person singular simple present screes, present participle screeing, simple past and past participle screed)

  1. To make a high-pitched cry like that of a hawk.
    • 2003, Pete Hamill, chapter 38, in Forever: A Novel, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, →ISBN:
      They smelled the land before they saw it. A rich, dark odor of sweet earth, coming at them through a misty rain. Then seabirds appeared, crying and screeing.
    • 2009, Linda Ross Meyer, The First Quest of Match, the Whining Dragon, [s.l.]: Linda Ross Meyer, →ISBN, page 62:
      She didn't want to scream to alert Malicia or a guard. What could she do to get the boy's attention? Suddenly, the memory of the mountaintop came to her. The hawk. She screed like a hawk. The boy stopped and searched the sky, […]

Etymology 3

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A variant of screed.

Verb

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scree (third-person singular simple present screes, present participle screeing, simple past and past participle screed)

  1. To flatten or level concrete while still wet, and remove protruding gravel and stones from the surface.
    • 1948, United States Tennessee Valley Authority, Concrete Production and Control: Tennessee Valley Authority Projects (Technical Report (Tennessee Valley Authority); no. 21), Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 44:
      The crushing and screeing equipment owned by the TVA was transferred from job to job, and the availability of this equipment was one of the factors in determining who would produce the aggregate.
    • 1974 September, “For the Dogs”, in Duane Raver, editor, Wildlife in North Carolina, volume XXXVIII, number 9, Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 8:
      Sequence of Construction – Circular Dog Kennel. […] Pour concrete. Use a straight 1-inch pipe about 12 feet long to scree each section. Extra help should be on hand to get screeing done. […] Specify a concrete mix that will not harden before screeing can be completed; do not order more concrete than can be property screed at one time; […]
    • 1999, Maxine Kumin, chapter VII, in Quit Monks or Die!: A Novel, Ashland, Or.: Story Line Press, →ISBN, page 44:
      He was a stupid sonofabitch who didn't scree the concrete enough, his corner post was an eighth of an inch out of plumb, and what asshole set these louvers upside down?
    • 1999, Theodore Osmundson, Roof Gardens: History, Design, and Construction, New York, N.Y., London: W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, page 196:
      The sand bed is screed in preparation for laying the precast paving.

Etymology 4

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Apparently from screen.[2]

Noun

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scree (plural screes)

  1. (Scotland) A coarse sieve.
    • 1859 March 15, John Lorimer, William E[llis] Gloag, James Paterson, “The Bargaddie of Bartonshill Coal Company (Robert Paterson, J. B. Neilson, &c.), Appellants, v. Robert Wark, Respondent”, in Geo[rge] Dingwall Fordyce, editor, The Scottish Jurist: Being Reports of Cases Decided in the Supreme Courts of Scotland, and in the House of Lords on Appeal from Scotland, volume XXXI, Edinburgh: Thomas Constable and Co. and all booksellers, →OCLC, page 324, column 1:
      A contract of lease was entered into between the pursuer, who is the proprietor of the estate of Bargaddie, on the one part, and William M'Creath and others, carrying on business under the firm of the Bargaddie Coal Company, on the other part, […] and the lessees becoming bound to pay to the pursuer the sum of £500 sterling of fixed yearly rent, or, in his option, a lordship of 5½d. per cart of the gross output of coals, such cart weighing 13 cwt., and the coals being riddled through a riddle or scree of the customary size.

References

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  1. ^ “scree”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ “scree, n.2, v.1” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.

Further reading

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See also

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Anagrams

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