screed

• IPA^(key): /skɹiːd/
• Rhymes: -iːd

From Middle English screde (“fragment, strip of cloth”) (from which also shred[1]), from Old English scrēade (“a piece cut off”).

screed (plural screeds)

1. A long discourse or harangue. [from late 18th c.]

   Synonyms: diatribe, harangue, polemic, rant, tirade

   • 2014 July 25, Paul Rees, “‘We got off the coach and the National Front was there … People spat at us’”, in The Guardian‎:

     One of the more regular correspondents to the club was an Everton fan, who’d send in an abusive screed each time Albion were due to play on Merseyside. He directed this at Atkinson, urging him not to select his “monkeys” for the game.

2. A piece of writing.
3. A tool, usually a long strip of wood or other material, for producing a smooth, flat surface on, for example, a concrete floor or a plaster wall.
4. A smooth flat layer of concrete or similar material.

   Synonym: flat

5. A piece torn off; a shred. [from early 14th c.]
6. A rent; a tear.

• shred

screed (third-person singular simple present screeds, present participle screeding, simple past and past participle screeded)

1. (construction, masonry) To produce a smooth flat layer of concrete or similar material.
2. (construction, masonry) To use a screed (tool).
3. (transitive) To repeat glibly.

• 1999, U.S. Dept. of the Army, Concrete, masonry, and brickwork: a practical handbook, page 131

  The sequence of the operation is: screed, vibrate, then screed again. If forms are in good alignment and firmly supported, and if the concrete has the correct workability, […]

scree (“loose stony debris”) +‎ -ed

screed (not comparable)

1. Strewn with scree.

   We clambered up a screed slope.

• Creeds, ceders, creeds