skilling

Pluralskillings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of skill.

   Many firms are skilling their employees to handle increasing automation.

   Skilling the workforce in modern methods became the factory's main goal.

   Note

   One spelling, two jobs: the -ing form of skill works as a participle (firms are skilling their employees) and as a gerund (skilling the workforce became the goal). The verb behind it reaches well beyond training. It can mean to set apart or to discern, and an archaic use meant to matter or make a difference. Keep it apart from the unrelated nouns spelled the same way, the Scandinavian coin and the barn bay.

2. 2
   nounhistoricalcountable

   A Scandinavian monetary unit and coin used until the 19th century, a subdivision of the riksdaler in Sweden and of the rigsdaler and speciedaler in Denmark and Norway.

   Note

   The name came into English from Danish, Norwegian and Swedish skilling, and it is a doublet of shilling. The two words share an ancestor but reached English by separate routes, which is why the coins sound alike. It is a historical term. Use it for Scandinavian money of the past, keep the native name rather than translating it as shilling, and write the plural as skillings.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A bay of a barn: one of the interior divisions, set apart by the main upright timbers.

   The farmer swept out the empty skilling before the harvest came in.

   Grain filled the barn's three skillings well before autumn ended.

   Similarbay

   Note

   A farm builder's word, worth comparing with sheeling. James Atkinson's An Account of the State of Agriculture and Grazing in New South Wales (1844) pairs it with the lean-to: a barn "may be built with lean-to's or skillings all round." That pairing suggests the term could cover an attached side space as readily as an inner division.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A small extension or outbuilding added onto a cottage.

   A low skilling extended from the cottage's north wall.

   The cottagers used the skilling to shelter their tools and firewood.

   Similarlean-to, annex

   Note

   The domestic twin of the barn bay, sharing its origin. In both uses a skilling is a lesser space joined to a larger building. On a cottage it is the low added room where tools and firewood go, not living space in its own right.

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