WORD OF THE DAY: Scantling
[SKANT-ling]
Part of speech: Noun
Origin: Old French, early 16th century
Definition: A specimen, sample, or small amount of something; the size to which a piece of wood or stone is measured and cut.
Examples of Scantling in a sentence
“There’s only a scantling of milk left, so please pick up a new carton.”
“The shed door was built to a scantling of 7 feet tall.”
About Scantling
In addition to describing a small amount, scantling can apply to measurements of all sizes in woodworking or building. It can be the size of a certain cut of wood or stone. Or it could be a set of standard dimensions in shipbuilding. Then scantling could also just be a name for a particular type of wood. Use your context clues to decipher the scantling.
Did you Know?
Scantling, a little bit of something, comes from the Old French word “escantillon,” which means sample. While the words look very similar, scant (barely amounting to a specified number or quantity) does not share this root. Scant comes from the Od Norse word “skammr,” meaning short.
