▪ I. screeve, n. Sc. and slang.
(skriːv)
Also scrieve, scrive.
[f. screeve v.2]
a. A piece of writing; † b. spec. a banknote, = screen n.2 (obs.); c. a begging letter (now the usual sense).
| 1788 W. Brodie 10 Apr. in Roughead Trial of Brodie (1906) 154 Acquaint him I glimed the scrive I had of him. 1801 Sporting Mag. XIX. 88 Fearns asked, what he gave for the one-pound screeves? 1812 J. H. Vaux Flash Dict., Screeve, a letter, or written paper. 1897 Crockett Lad's Love xxix, Juist gie me a screeve o' a note to that effect. |
▪ II. screeve, v.1 Now dial.
(skriːv)
Also 5 scryve, 9 screive.
[Aphetic a. OF. escreve-r (usually said of wounds):—L. *excrepāre: see es- and creve.]
intr. Of a wound: To open and discharge matter. In mod. dial., to ooze, exude moisture.
| a 1450 Le Morte Arth. 382 His woundis scryved and stille he lay And in his bedde he swownyd thrye. 1882 Lancs. Gloss., Screeve, to froth at the mouth as in a fit. 1886 Cheshire Gloss., Screeve, to ooze out, to exude moisture. 1887 S. Cheshire Gloss. s.v., A sack of corn may screive; liquid manure in a pigsty is said to screive out. But the word is specially used of moisture exuding from a corpse. |
Hence ˈscreeving vbl. n.
| c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 121 In scryuyngis of þe brayn panne. |
▪ III. screeve, v.2 slang.
(skriːv)
Also scrieve.
[Ultimately from L. scrībĕre to write; the proximate source is uncertain; possibly It. scrivere.
Cf. Sc. (Ayrshire) scrieve, ‘to read or write quickly or continuously’ (Jam.); but connexion of the slang word with this is very doubtful.]
1. trans. To write.
| 1851 Mayhew Lond. Labour I. 246 Ah! once I could ‘screeve a fakement’ (write a petition). |
2. intr. To draw pictures on the pavement with coloured chalks; to be a ‘pavement artist’.
| 1851 Mayhew Lond. Labour I. 415, I then took to screeving (writing on the stones). 1876 J. H. Ewing Jan of Windmill xxxi. 302 A street-artist who was ‘screeving’, or drawing pictures on the pavement in coloured chalks. 1887 Henley Villon's Straight Tip 1 Suppose you screeve? |
▪ IV. screeve, v.3 dial.
(skriːv)
[app. a. ON. skrefa to stride (Norw. skreva, Da. skræve, Sw. skrefva to open one's legs wide, straddle.]
pass. Of horses: To have the legs split apart in running on ice.
| 18.. Wheeler Fens App. 12 (E.D.D.) Screeve, a term used to describe an accident which occasionally happened to horses in the fens when running over ice in winter their legs became parted and torn off at the joint. 1895 Naturalist 321 The poor horses..got on the ice in winter, and were screeved. |