Word of the Day: Thursday February 9, 2012: screed

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screed \skreed\ , noun:

1. A long discourse or essay, especially a diatribe.

2. An informal letter, account, or other piece of writing.

3. Building Trades. A. A strip of plaster or wood applied to a surface to be plastered to serve as a guide for making a true surface. B. A wooden strip serving as a guide for making a true level surface on a concrete pavement or the like. C. A board or metal strip dragged across a freshly poured concrete slab to give it its proper level.

4. British Dialect. A fragment or shred, as of cloth.

5. Scot. A. A tear or rip, especially in cloth. B. A drinking bout.

verb:

1. Scot. To tear, rip, or shred, as cloth.

By the time this screed gets to you the drafts may have come, but as I've heard nothing yet and been writing for two months now, you'd better have a look anyway. Will you please?
-- Ernest Hemingway, Selected Letters

I bet I could turn out a rattling good screed. Why, last year I almost got the prize. I sent in fearfully hot stuff.
-- P. G. Wodehouse, The Prefect's Uncle

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