How to use skein in a sentence

15 example sentences · noun, verb

Skein means 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. Example: “"And well I know it, for he borrowed two skeins of my black wool to make it with!”

Examples of skein by meaning

nounA quantity of thread, yarn, etc., wound on a reel then removed and loosely knotted into an oblong shape; a skein of...

"And well I know it, for he borrowed two skeins of my black wool to make it with!1920 October, Agatha Christie, “Fresh Suspicions”, in The Mysterious Affair at Styles […], New York, N.Y.; London: Grosset & Dunlap...

nounA group of wildfowl (for example, geese or swans) in flight.

When they're flying in formation they can be referred to as a skein.[2019 June 6, “Newsround: A Gaggle, a Confusion and a Conspiracy – Bizarre Animal Collective Group Names”, in CBBC, BBC, archived from the...

nounA tangle, a weave, a web.

But when she turned her thoughts to Morningside Park she perceived the tangled skein of life was now to be further complicated by his romantic importunity.1909 October, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Sapphire Ring”, in Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y....
It is a tangled skein, you understand, and I am looking for a loose end.1923 March, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Creeping Man”, in The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi]...
Pick up any thread of that skein and the whole structure will follow.1964, Issac Asimov, “How to Use this Book”, in Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology […], revised edition, Garden...

nounA 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, Radio Television Daily, volume 93, New York, N.Y.: Scheuer Publications, →OCLC, page 5, column 4

verbTo intertwine or weave (something) with another thing.

Water skeined the landscape.1955, Elizabeth Bowen, chapter XI, in A World of Love, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, part I, pages 219–220

More sentences with skein

The mixture is worked to give numerous fine, parallel threads, rather like a skein of silk.2014, Alan Davidson, Tom Jaine, The Oxford Companion to Food, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 136. From the entry saray helva
In a privatized world, government becomes “diffuse, unstable, unpredictable,” and the skein of responsibility more and more attenuated.2025 June 3, Cullen Murphy, “Feudalism Is Our Future: What the next Dark Ages could look like”, in The Atlantic. From the entry sub
The color sequence in the palindrome skein is the same no metter whether you start from the left or right.2015, Syne Mitchell, Inventive Weaving on a Little Loom. From the entry palindrome
Other kinds—you could get a skein for only an anna.2002, Kathryn S. March, “III. Nhanu: Parsing a Life, Naming What Matters”, in “If Each Comes Halfway”: Meeting Tamang Women in Nepal…. From the entry overcloth
Is't more knotful or bewildered than the skein o'life itself, that a good tale tangles the better to unsnarl?2001, Lahsen Benaziza, Romancing Scheherazade: John Barth and the One thousand and one nights. From the entry knotful
We provide examples demonstrating that the new invariants are not determined by the biquandle counting invariant, the knot quandle, the knot group or the traditional skein invariants..2015, Sam Nelson, Michael E. Orrison, Veronica Rivera, “Quantum Enhancements and Biquandle Brackets”, in arXiv. From the entry biquandle
But when you've just dyed your first skein of handpainted yarn, you'll be more than eager to see what it looks like worked up into a pattern.2010, Gail Callahan, “Show-off Patterns”, in Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece: Dip-Dyeing, Hand-Painting, Tie-Dyeing, and Other Creative…. From the entry swatch
When the soldiers were not lost among tattered skeins of fog, they could see far out into the cirque, as if it were a bay of black water.1991, Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great War, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, →ISBN, page 569. From the entry cirque

Meaning of skein

noun 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.
noun The membrane of a fish ovary.
noun A group of wildfowl (for example, geese or swans) in flight.

Full definition of skein

Questions about skein in a sentence

How do you use skein in a sentence?: Skein is used as a noun and verb. For example: “"And well I know it, for he borrowed two skeins of my black wool to make it with!”
What is a short sentence with skein?: “Water skeined the landscape.”
What does skein mean?: Skein means 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.

Adapted from Wiktionary: skein (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use skein in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/skein. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.