A “screed” is a long speech, particularly a speech that tends to rant about this or that. It can also refer to something similar that’s written rather than spoken. Sometimes it’s used to refer to any writing, even a letter. But if you work in the building trades, there are several other “screeds” you’re probably more familiar with. A screed can be a strip of plaster or wood attached to a surface as a guide. If you’re pouring cement for a floor or a sidewalk, you probably use a long wooden board to level the surface. That board is also called a screed. If you happen to visit England, you might find that “screed’ refers to a piece of cloth, particularly if it’s been torn from something larger. And if you take the train north to Scotland, a “screed” is a bout of drinking.
“Screed” comes from the Old English word “screade,” which meant “something cut off from something larger.” Over the centuries its meaning focused on cloth in particular, and by the time it became part of modern English, around the 1300s or so, it had come to also imply a long strip of cloth torn from a bigger piece. From there the meaning began to include more than cloth (as it had originally), and it was used to mean a border, whether cloth, paper, or even land. By the 1700s the “long strip” part of the meaning expanded to refer to a long list, which could include a long diatribe, which could be described as a long list of complaints. That’s where the modern meaning comes from. By 1812 the usage you see in this quotation was common: “Mr. Manson threatens a long screed of poetry on the subject.”
At the same time that the usage of screed began to focus on the “long strip” aspect of its earlier meaning, it was adopted by plasterers, who used it for the long, straight pieces of wood they used to make sure a plastered wall was even. Eventually cement came into use, and the process of evening out the surface of a poured floor was similar enough to a plastered wall that “screed” was easily adopted to describe the similar long piece of wood used. It wouldn’t be surprising if the same piece of wood was used on some building sites. Whereupon an irate plasterer might be tempted to deliver to the cement crew a screed on the subject of “keeping the tools separate.”
