Meaning

noun a long monotonous harangue

noun a long piece of writing

noun an accurately levelled strip of material placed on a wall or floor as guide for the even application of plaster or concrete

originFrom Middle English screde [and other forms], a variant of shrede (“fragment, scrap; strip of cloth; strip cut off from a larger piece; band or thread woven into fabric; element, streak”) (whence shred (noun)), from Old English sċrēad, sċrēade (“a piece cut off; paring, shred”), from Proto-Germanic *skraudō (“a piece, shred; a cut, crack”), from *skraudaną (“to cut up, shred”), from…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0