scaf (skaf)

[Cf. scabble.] In metal -working, After supper his grace... came into the White Hall within the said Pallays, which was hanged rychely; the Hall, Chron., Hen. VIII., an. 2. 2. To lay or place on a scaffold; particularly, to place (dead bodies) on a scaffold to decay or be eaten by birds, as is customary with some uncivilized tribes. A grand celebration, or the Feast of the Dead, was sol E. H. Knight. scaff (skaf), n. [Origin obscure.] Food of any kind. [Scotch.] scaffling (skaf'ling), n. [Origin obscure.] A young eel. [Local, Eng.] scaff-net (skaf'net), n. A kind of scoop-net; a flat net about 12 feet square, stretched by two long bows, the ends of which are attached to the corners of the net, arched up high above it, and cro ed at the middle. See scap-net. scaffold (skaf old), n. [ On the tother side the i sigh a scaffolde , and in that seaf folde satte a knyght that was of a 1 wynter age, and ther satte also the feirest lady of the worlde. Merlin (E. E. T. S.), ii. 361. Pardon, gentles all, The flat unraised spirits that have dared On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an object. Shak ., Hen. V., i., Prol. Who sent thither their Amba adors with presents, who had there their scaffolds prepared for them, and furnished according to their states. Purchas, Pilgrimage, p. 302. 2t. The gallery or highest tier of seats in a theater. In Dekker's day, the price of admi ion to the galleries, or scaffolds as they are sometimes called, alike with the pit, was, at some of the inferior playhouses, one penny only. J. Nott , in Dekker's Gull's Hornbook (rep. 1812), p. 133. 3. A stage or platform, usually elevated, for the execution of a criminal. Whensoever there is to be any execution,... they erect a scaffold there, and after they have beheaded the offend ours they take it away againe. Coryat, Crudities, I. 229. The scaffold was the sole refuge from the rack. Motley, Dutch Republic, I. 324. 4. A temporary structure upon which workmen stand in erecting the walls of a building. See cut under putlog.-5. An elevated platform upon which dead bodies are placed - a mode of disposing of the dead practised by some tribes, as of North American Indians, instead of burial; a kind of permanent bier.-6. In embryol., a temporary structure outlining parts to be subsequently formed in or upon it; a framework: bodies had been scaffolded, but of all who had died on a journey, or on the war-path, and been temporarily buried, were now gathered together and interred in one common sepulchre with special marks of regard. D. Wilson , Prehistoric Man, xxi. ( Encyc . Dict.) scaffoldage (skaf'ol-dāj), n. [ F.échafaudage ; as scaffold + -age.] A scaffold; a stage; the timberwork of a stage; scaffolding. 'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage . Shak., T. and C., i. 3. 156.