▪ I. skeel Now dial.
(skiːl)
Forms: 4–6 skele, 6 skelle, 6–9 skeil, 6 skeill, skeyll, 7 skeele, 7– skeel; 7 skile, 8–9 skiel, etc.
[a. ON. (now Icel.) skjóla pail.]
1. A wooden bucket, pail, tub, or similar vessel used for some domestic purpose, chiefly for holding milk or water, and usually having a handle or handles formed by staves rising above the rim.
In early use freq. in inventories and similar documents; now only dial., chiefly Northern and West Midland.
The precise purpose for which a skeel is used varies in different localities, and this is occas. denoted by a defining word prefixed, as skeel bread, skeel butter, skeel dough, washing skeel.
| c 1330 Durh. Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 518 In Erthening, Chese⁓clathe, Meles, et Skeles,..iijs. ijd. 1387–8 Ibid. 314 In iij skelys empt. pro lacte, ixd. 1459 Ibid. 89, j caldrun, ij skelez, j kyrn. 1483 Cath. Angl. 341/2 Skele, emicadium. 1508 Dunbar Flyting 231 Fische wyvis cryis, Fy! and castis doun skillis and skeilis. 1570 Durham Deposit. (Surtees) 186 This examinate brought water in a skeill to be maid in holly water. 1629 Mem. Fountains (Surtees) 365 The greater milkinge skeele, one stone trough. 1641 Best Farm. Bks. (Surtees) 145 A little two gallon skeele to fetch water in. 1766 Museum Rust. VI. 169 She must either quit her place, or break the skeel; the vessel in which water is brought from the well. 1789 W. H. Marshall Glouc. I. 269 Skeels..are broad shallow vessels; principally for the purpose of setting milk in. 1790 Grose Prov. Gloss., Skiel, a beer-cooler, used in brewing. 1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. II. 1008 Part of the butter is spread on the bottom of another bason or skeel. 1825– in dial. glossaries (Cumb., Durh., Glouc., Heref., Northampt., Warw., Worc., Yorks.). 1864 A. Leighton Myst. Leg. Edin. (1886) 3 Mrs. Hyslop's head was over the skeil, wherein lay one of the linen shirts of Mr. Dallas. |
2. Coal-mining. (See quot.)
| 1883 Gresley Gloss. Coal-m. 224 Skeel, a kind of cage in which coals are lowered down the cuts or staples. |
Hence ˈskeelful, a bucketful, pailful.
| 1575–6 Durham Deposit. (Surtees) 296 This examinate had bein at St. Oswald's well for a skeil full of wayter. 1863 in Robson Bards of Tyne 237 But wi' skeelfuls o' wetter he brightened his jaw. |
▪ II. skeel
variant of scale n.2