SKY 
SKY 
Shelter ; concealment. 
Fenc’d from day, by night’s eternal skreen; 
Unknown to heaven, and to myself unseen. Dry den. 
To SKREEN, v. a. To riddle; to sift. A term yet 
used among masons when they sift sand for mortar.—To 
shade from sun or light, or weather.-—To keep off light or 
■weather. 
The curtains closely drawn, the light to skreen : 
Thus cover’d with an artificial night. 
Sleep did his office. Dryden. 
To shelter; to protect. 
Ajax interpos’d 
His sevenfold shield, and skreen'd Laertes’ son, 
When the insulting Trojans urg’d him sore. Philips. 
To SKRINGE, or To Skrunge, v. a. [perhaps a 
corruption of skrew. See To Scruze.] To squeeze vio¬ 
lently : a colloquial word in many parts of England. 
SKRIPONERI, a small place of Greece, in Livadia, at 
the mouth of the canal which connects the lake of Topolias 
with the sea. 
SKRYNE, a village of Ireland, in the county of East 
Meath. It has a church, and the ruins of an old castle are 
still remaining; 19J miles north-west of Dublin. 
SKRYNNA, a small town of Poland; 57 miles south- 
south-west of Warsaw. 
SKVIRA, a small town of European Russia, in the go¬ 
vernment of Kiev, and 80 miles south-west of that town. 
SKUE, adj. [See Skew.] Oblique; sidelong. It is 
most used in the adverb askue —Several have imagined that 
this skue posture of the axis is a most unfortunate thing; and 
that, if the poles had been erect to the plane of the ecliptic, 
all mankind would have enjoyed a very paradise. Bentley. 
To SKUG, v. a. [a corruption of To Soule.] 
To SKULK, v. n. To hide ;- to lurk in fear or malice. 
See To Sculk. 
Discover’d and defeated of your prey. 
You skulk'd behind the fence, and sneak’d away. Dryden . 
SKULKA, in Geography, a mountain of Sweden, in An- 
germanland; 10 miles north of Hernosand. 
SKULL, s. [skiola, Icelandic, a head.] The bone that 
incloses the head: it is made up of several pieces, which, 
being joined together, form a considerable cavity, which 
contains the brain as in a box, and it is proportionate to the 
bigness of the brain. Quincy. 
Some lay in dead men’s skulls ; and in those holes. 
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept. 
As ’twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems. Shakspeare. 
[pceole, Saxon, a company.] A shoal. See Scull. — 
Repair to the river where you have seen them swim in skulls 
or shoals. Walton. 
SKU'LLCAP, e. A headpiece.— [cassida, Lat.] A plant. 
SKULL-CAP, in Botany. See Scutellaria. 
SKUPOPING, a lake of the United States, in North 
Carolina. Lat. 85. 45. N. long. 76. 42. W. 
SKUPPERNONG, a river of the United States, in North 
Carolina, which communicates by means of a canal, with 
the lake in Dismal Swamp. 
SKURR-CHOINICH and SKURR- DHONUIL, two 
mountains of Scotland, in Argyleshire, in the parish of 
Ardnamurchan, the former elevated 2364 feet, and the latter 
2730 feet above the level of the sea. 
SKUTE, 5. [ schuyt , Dutch.] A boat or small vessel. 
—They carried with them all the skutes and boats that 
might be found. Sir R. Williams. 
SKUTSCH, a town of Bohemia, containing 2500 inha¬ 
bitants, employed chiefly in weaving linen; 70 miles east- 
by-south of Prague. 
SKUTTOCK HILLS, eminences on the coast of Maine, 
which afford sailing marks into Gouldsborough harbour. 
SKWIRZINA. See Schwerin. 
SKY, s. [sky, Danish; from sky a, Su. Goth, to cover.] 
The region which surrounds this earth beyond the atmo- 
Vol. XXIII. No. 1569. 
269 
sphere. It is taken for the whole region without the earth.— 
Raise all thy winds, with night involve the skies. Dryden. 
—The heavens. 
The thunderer’s bolt you know 
Sky planted, batters all rebelling coasts. Shakspeare. 
The weather; the climate.—Thou wert better in thy 
grave, than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity 
of the skies. Shakspeare. — [Sky, Su. Goth.] A cloud ; 
a shadow. 
She passeth, as it were a sky. 
All clean out of the lady’s sight. Gower. 
SKY'COLOUR, s. An azure colour; the colour of the 
sky.—A solution as clear as water, with only a light touch 
of skycolour, but nothing near so high as the ceruleous 
tincture of silver. Boyle. 
SKY'COLOURED, adj. Blue ; azure ; like the sky.— 
This your Ovid himself has hinted, when he tells us that the 
blue water-nymphs are dressed in skycoloured garments. 
Addison. 
SKY'DYED, adj. Coloured like the sky.—There figs, 
skydyed, a purple hue disclose. Pope. 
SKYE, one of the most considerable of the Hebrides, on 
the coast of Scotland, and in the county of Inverness, sepa¬ 
rated from the mainland of Scotland by a channel three 
leagues broad, but at the ferry of Glenelg not more than half 
a mile from the nearest part of the mainland. It lies between 
57. and 57. 38. north lat. and between 5. 33. and 6. 40. 
west long.; is 54 miles in its greatest length, and in breadth 
from 35 to 3 miles, being on an average 13. It contains 
342,400 English acres, of which about 30,000 are arable; 
the rest, consisting of mountain and hill pasture, lakes, mo¬ 
rasses, rocks, and other waste lands, may be 750 square miles, 
deeply indented with inlets of the sea; and those inlets are 
so distributed, that no spot in the island is four miles from 
salt water. The climate is mild, in proportion to its latitude 
and the height of the mountains, some of which are com¬ 
puted to be 3000 feet above the level of the sea: but the wea¬ 
ther, on the whole, is not agreeable; for one half of the year 
is deluged with rain. The air seldom continues long of the 
same temperature; sometimes it is dry, oftener moist, and, in 
the latter end of winter, and early in the spring, cold and 
piercing. Three days in the year are scarcely free from 
clouds and rain. The clouds, attracted by the hills, some¬ 
times break in useful and refreshing showers; at other times, 
suddenly bursting like a water spout, pour down their con¬ 
tents with tremendous noise, deluging the plains below, and 
often destroying the hopes of the husbandman. The crops 
also suffer by the stormy winds, which set in about the end 
of August and beginning of September. To this variable 
temperature of the air and weather agues, fevers, rheuma¬ 
tisms, and dysenteries, the prevailing distempers, may be 
ascribed. That the climate, however, is far from being 
unhealthy, the long life of the inhabitants sufficiently 
testifies. 
The surface is very irregular. In several districts are bleak 
elevated ridges of hills, covered with heath ; and below are 
valleys watered by rapid streams, fresh-water lakes, morasses 
in which trunks of trees are found, gently sloping declivities, 
and level fields. The bare rocks often appear near the sum¬ 
mits of the hills; brown heath darkens their declivities; the 
morasses are covered with grey moss; and spots of lively 
verdure are thinly interspersed. Most of the hills in the 
central and southern quarters were anciently clothed with 
wood ; but little forest timber now remains in the island, ex¬ 
cept on the south-east coast of Sleat, where there is still some 
natural wood. There is every diversity of soil, except pure 
sand. In the fine district of Trotternish, there are 4000 acres 
of loam, and loam and clay, upon a bottom of gravel. In 
Sleat and Strath, and what is called Macleod’s country, are 
extensive tracts of light friable mould upon gravel, and also 
some loam mixed with peat earth, well calculated for the 
established rotations of crops on the best of soils; notwith¬ 
standing, improvements in agriculture have hitherto made 
3 Z little 
