skein

Etymology

From Middle English skayne, from Old French escaigne (Modern French écagne), probably of Proto-Celtic origin, from Proto-Indo-European *skend- (“to split off”). Compare Irish scáinne (“skein, clew”).

noun

1. A quantity of yarn, thread, etc. put up together, after it is taken from the reel. A skein of cotton yarn is formed by eighty turns of the thread around a fifty-four inch reel.
   Coordinate term: hank
   You hold the skein: wind, Thomas, wind / The thread of eternal life and death. 1935, T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, Part I
2. (figurative) A web, a weave, a tangle.
   The practical application of what I have said is very close to the problem which I am investigating. It is a tangled skein, you understand, and I am looking for a loose end. 1923, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Creeping Man
   But then, science is a complex skein, intricately interknotted across the arti­ficial boundaries we draw only that we may the more easily encompass its parts in our mind. Pick up any thread of that skein and the whole structure will fol­low. 1964, Issac Asimov, Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology
   Then, beginning in 1959, the skein of convention began to unravel. 2005, Tony Judt, “The Social Democratic Moment”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010
   Ted began to walk, still dazed, until he found himself among a skein of backstreets so narrow they felt dark. 2010, Jennifer Egan, “Goodbye, My Love”, in A Visit from the Goon Squad
   It was the latest in a skein of legal maneuvers by the prince’s lawyers to defuse Ms. Giuffre’s case. 2022-01-04, Mark Landler, “Prince Andrew’s Uncertain Legal Fate Casts Shadow on Britain’s Royals”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
3. (zoology) The membrane of a fish ovary.
4. (wagonmaking) A metallic strengthening band or thimble on the wooden arm of an axle.
   One of the free-state settlers went to the blacksmith's shop unarmed, carrying a waggon skein to be repaired. 1862, T. Hughes, History of the US
5. (zoology, UK, dialect, collective) A group of wild fowl (e.g. geese, goslings) when they are in flight.
   High above the swallows and 2 miles or so out into the Channel was a skein of geese, probably brent geese on the first day of their emigration from the estuaries of the Channel coast towards the high Arctic tundra of Spitsbergen or Russia. 2018, Laurence Rose, The Long Spring, Bloomsbury, page 111
6. (sports) A winning streak.
7. (radio, television, dated) A series created by a web (major broadcasting network).
   All three tele skeins are pitching furiously to snag the super Easter Day tele show to be bankrolled by Frigidaire, […] 1950, Billboard, volume 62, number 9
   Three comedy shows from the U. S. are in the CTV lineup: CBSTV's Phil Silvers and Danny Thomas skeins and NBC-TV's "Harry's Girls." 1963, Radio Television Daily, volume 93, page 5

verb

1. To wind or weave into a skein.