Word.ws English Dictionary

skirrett

skirrett noun: a metal spike to which is attached a small drum onto which is wound string or line. In use, the spike is pushed into the ground to anchor it, and then the line is pulled out as far as needed to mark a straight edge. Also the alternative form of skirret.

Noun

skirrett (countable and uncountable, plural skirretts)

  1. (obsolete outside Freemasonry) A metal spike to which is attached a small drum onto which is wound string or line. In use, the spike is pushed into the ground to anchor it, and then the line is pulled out as far as needed to mark a straight edge.
    • In the lecture on the third degree, according to the English work, the following is adopted: “I now present to you the working tools of a Master Mason, which are the Skirrett, Pencil and Compasses..."1881, The Masonic Review - Volume 55, page 364
    • The tools of the Master Mason are the Pencil, the Skirrett, and the Compasses. The Pencil is an action tool that symbolizes the use of creative thought. The Skirrett is a tool that constrains the pencil and can symbolize understanding, but also can mean tradition or knowledge that acts as a...2004, Sangeet Duchane, The Little Book of Freemasonry, →ISBN, page 143

Also used as

skirrett is also the alternative form of skirret.

Forms of skirrett

pluralskirretts

Questions about skirrett

What does skirrett mean?
Skirrett means a metal spike to which is attached a small drum onto which is wound string or line. In use, the spike is pushed into the ground to anchor it, and then the line is pulled out as far as needed to mark a straight edge.
What part of speech is skirrett?
Skirrett is a noun.
What is the plural of skirrett?
The plural of skirrett is skirretts.

Words near skirrett in the dictionary

  1. skirp
  2. skirr
  3. skirred
  4. skirret
  5. skirrets
  6. skirrett
  7. skirretts
  8. skirrhus
  9. skirring
  10. Skirrow
  11. skirrs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: skirrett (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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