skein /skeɪn/noun 10verb 2forms 3 noun10 •A quantity of thread, yarn, etc., wound on a reel then removed and loosely knotted into an oblong shape; a skein of cotton is formed by eighty turns of thread around a reel with a fifty-four inch diameter.Some for very nede / Layde downe a skeyne of threde, / And some a skeyne of yarne; […] — 1517 •A thing resembling a skein of thread, yarn, etc. •The membrane of a fish ovary. •(UK) A group of wildfowl (for example, geese or swans) in flight.A group of geese is called a gaggle. […] They're only referred to as a gaggle when they're on land. When they're flying in formation they can be referred to as a skein. — 2019 •(figurative) A tangle, a weave, a web.Not that I see through his perplexed plots, / And hidden ends, nor that my parts depend / Vpon the vnvvinding this so knotted skeane, / Doe I beseech your patience. — 1625 •(figurative) A winning streak. •(figurative, old-fashioned) A series created by a web (“major broadcasting network”).Three comedy shows from the U.S. are in the CTV lineup: CBS-TV's Phil Silvers and Danny Thomas skeins and NBC-TV's "Harry's Girls." — 1963 •A thin strip of an osier (“long, pliable twig from a plant, usually a willow”) used in basketmaking. •(US, old-fashioned) A metallic strengthening band or thimble on the wooden arm of an axle of a wagon. •[before a noun] (no longer used) Synonym of spireme (“the tangled mass of strands of chromatin seen in the early stages of mitosis, originally believed to be a single continuous strand (or two in a diploid cell, etc.)”). verb2 •To weave or wind (thread, yarn, etc.) into a skein. •(figurative) To intertwine or weave (something) with another thing.Water skeined the landscape. The Shannon River, lost since Limerick city, was drawing nearer to name the airport, and a tributary quickened its way towards it. — 1955 formsskeined · skeining · skeins
