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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

scree.

Loose stony debris on a slope.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/skɹiː/Received-Pronunciation/skɹi/General-American
  1. Loose stony debris on a slope.

    uncountable
  2. Similar debris made up of broken building material such as bricks, concrete, etc.

    broadly · uncountable
  3. A slope made up of scree at the base of a cliff, mountain, etc.

    countable
Where this word comes from

Probably a back-formation from screes, from Old Norse skriða (“landslide, landslip”); compare skríða (“to glide”) (from Proto-Germanic *skrīþaną (“to crawl; to glide; to walk”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kreyt-, *(s)ker- (“to bend, turn”)). The word is cognate with Icelandic skriða (“avalanche; landslide, landslip; steep mountain- or hillside made up of gravel and loose rocks”).

verb/skɹiː/Received-Pronunciation/skɹi/General-American
  1. To traverse scree downhill.

Where this word comes from

Probably a back-formation from screes, from Old Norse skriða (“landslide, landslip”); compare skríða (“to glide”) (from Proto-Germanic *skrīþaną (“to crawl; to glide; to walk”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kreyt-, *(s)ker- (“to bend, turn”)). The word is cognate with Icelandic skriða (“avalanche; landslide, landslip; steep mountain- or hillside made up of gravel and loose rocks”).

noun/skɹiː/Received-Pronunciation/skɹi/General-American
  1. A harsh, high-pitched sound or cry (as of a hawk).

Where this word comes from

Onomatopoeic. However, some connection to a lost dialect term (Old Norse influence? cf. shriek, screech) from Old English sċrēon is not impossible.

verb/skɹiː/Received-Pronunciation/skɹi/General-American
  1. To make a high-pitched cry like that of a hawk.

Where this word comes from

Onomatopoeic. However, some connection to a lost dialect term (Old Norse influence? cf. shriek, screech) from Old English sċrēon is not impossible.

verb/skɹiː/Received-Pronunciation/skɹi/General-American
  1. To flatten or level concrete while still wet, and remove protruding gravel and stones from the surface.

Where this word comes from

A variant of screed.

noun/skɹiː/Received-Pronunciation/skɹi/General-American
  1. A coarse sieve.

    Scotland
Where this word comes from

Apparently from screen.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.