DEAL

(Sax.beVdn, to divide.) In Architecture, the small thickne es of timber into which a piece of timber of any sort is cut up; but the term is now improperly restricted in its signification to the wood of the fir tree cut up into thickne es in the countries whence deals are imported, — viz. Christian a, Dantzic, . Their usual thickne is three inches, and their width nine. They are purchased by the hundred, which contains 120 deals, be their thickne what it may, and reduced by calculation to a standard thickne of one inch and a half, and a length of twelve feet. Whole deal is that which is one inch and a quarter thick, and slit deal is half that thickne . [s. 329]