screed

A piece of writing (such as an article, letter, or list) or a speech, especially if long.

Eh, Mr Henry! but the carle gae him a screed o' doctrine! Ye might hae heard him a mile down the wind—He routed like a cow in a fremd loaning.

I see it's three o'clock in the morning and I've written whole screeds when I only intended to write a short note!

A speech or piece of writing which contains angry and extended criticism.

When he [Herman Melville] had finished the first part of his novel [Pierre; or, The Ambiguities], and printed it, the publishers would have nothing to do with it. They claimed they had been deluded into accepting a villainous and blasphemous screed against religion and morality and all right living.

One of our primary tasks is to replace racist screeds like The Bell Curve and The End of Racism with sound economic arguments that are relatively simple to understand and yet serious enough to encompass divergent points of view.

Chiefly in the plural form screeds: a large quantity.

It uses a lot of footage of Japanese actors, and screeds of character text, making it unlikely to see a European release.

Compared to LOB [the Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen Corpus], the BNC [British National Corpus] is an anarchic object, containing 'texts' from 25 to 250,000 words long, screeds of painfully formulaic entries from the Dictionary of National Biography, conversations monosyllabic and incoherent, sermons, pornography, and the electronic discourse of the Leeds United Football Club Fan Club.

Senses relating to building construction and masonry.

When applied to large surfaces, strips or screeds of wood should be fixed to float from; and when the plain surface is formed, it is finished with the handfloat.

The term Screed, in plastering, is a stile formed of lime and hair, about seven or eight inches wide, gauged exactly true. In floated-work these screed are made at every three or four feet distance, vertically round a room, and are prepared perfectly straight by applying the straight-edge to them to make them so; and when all the screeds are formed, the parts between them are filled up flush with lime and hair, or stuff, and made even with the face of the screeds. The straight-edge is then worked horizontally upon the screeds, to take off all superfluous stuff.

Senses relating to building construction and masonry.

The screeds and vibrator on the machine finisher are set to give the proper surface elevation and produce a dense concrete. In most cases, there should be a sufficiently thick layer of mortar ahead of the screed to insure that all low spots will be filled. The vibrator follows the front screed and the rear screed is last. The rear screed should be adjusted to carry enough grout ahead of it to insure continuous contact between screed and pavement.

To rend, to shred, to tear.

It's no very like the land o' the leal here—d'ye think it is?—wi' this cauld soakit sand anaith ye, and you in thae screeded duds, and us twa in our sark sleeves. [Footnote: Land o' the leal, land of the faithful—heaven. Screeded duds, torn rags. Sark sleeves, shirt sleeves.]

To read or repeat from memory fluently or glibly; to reel off.

He'll ſcreed you aff Effectual Calling, / As faſt as ony in the dwalling.— [...]

Syne the hale kintra's clashes he screeds them aff han'— / He's a gabbin' bit birkie, the Auld Beggar Man.

To use a screed to produce a smooth, flat surface of concrete, plaster, or similar material; also (generally) to put down a layer of concrete, plaster, etc.

For this surfacing, the concrete is screeded and then covered with crushed red granite of 2- to 2½-in. size which is spread with shovels on the wet concrete, the quantity averaging about 55 lb. of stone per square yard.

Pouring of the slab was then started and, as the concrete was brought to full height it was screeded off to the proper level, employing screed guides which had been set previously to true elevation, with support on the slab reinforcing.

To become rent or torn.

[H]ad I been in ony o' your rotten French camlets now, or your drab-de-berries, it would hae screeded like an auld rag wi' sic a weight as mine.

A (discordant) sound or tune played on bagpipes, a fiddle, or a pipe.

"Wi' hat in hand," sweet lass, quo I, / "Wer't in my power to sooth thy sigh, / My hame-bor'd whistle I wad try, / An' gie't a screed, / Atween whar Tiviot murmurs by, / An' bonny Tweed."

The sound of something scratching or tearing.

Right o'er the ſteep he leans, / When his well-pleniſh'd king-hood voiding needs; / And, ſploiting, ſtrikes the ſtane his grany hit, / Wi' piſtol ſcreed, ſhot frae his gorlin doup.— [...]