Words / S / General

skein

noun/skeɪn/

C2CEFR level
80/100Rarity: very rare
LiteraryRegister

A flock of wild geese or swans in flight.

A ragged skein of pink-footed geese unravelled across the estuary at first light.

Similar: flock, wedge

Origin: from Old French escaigne 'a hank of yarn'

Topic: collective nouns in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

Get words like skein on your lock screen, a few a day, with review that makes them stick.

Download on the App Store Lexfall puts a new word on your home and lock screen through widgets, so you learn without opening an app. Free to download. After a free trial, a subscription unlocks every field. Built for iPhone, iOS 15.1 or later.
QR code that opens Lexfall on the App Store
On a computer?Scan with your iPhone camera.

More general words: collective nouns