n. A pebble; a stone; also, a heap of stones or rocky débris. [ Prov. Eng. ] Southey. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A harsh, shrill cry, as of one in acute pain or in fright; a shriek; a scream. [ 1913 Webster ]

Screech bird, or
Screech thrush (Zool.), the fieldfare; -- so called from its harsh cry before rain. --
Screech rain. --
Screech hawk (Zool.), the European goatsucker; -- so called from its note. [ Prov. Eng. ] --
Screech owl. (Zool.) (a) A small American owl (Scops asio), either gray or reddish in color. (b) The European barn owl. The name is applied also to other species. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. i. [ imp. & p. p. Screeched p. pr. & vb. n. Screeching. ] [ Also formerly, scritch, OE. skriken, skrichen, schriken, of Scand. origin; cf. Icel. skrækja to shriek, to screech, skrīkja to titter, Sw. skrika to shriek, Dan. skrige; also Gael. sgreach, sgreuch, W. ysgrechio, Skr. kharj to creak. Cf. Shriek, v., Scream, v. ] To utter a harsh, shrill cry; to make a sharp outcry, as in terror or acute pain; to scream; to shriek. “The screech owl, screeching loud.” Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. pl. (Zool.) The picarian birds, as distinguished from the singing birds. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Like a screech; shrill and harsh. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ Prov. E., a shred, the border of a cap. See Shred. ] 1. (Arch.) (a) A strip of plaster of the thickness proposed for the coat, applied to the wall at intervals of four or five feet, as a guide. (b) A wooden straightedge used to lay across the plaster screed, as a limit for the thickness of the coat. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A fragment; a portion; a shred. [ Scot. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ See 1st Screed. For sense 2 cf. also Gael. sgread an outcry. ] 1. A breach or rent; a breaking forth into a loud, shrill sound; as, martial screeds. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. An harangue; a long tirade on any subject. [ 1913 Webster ]

The old carl gae them a screed of doctrine; ye might have heard him a mile down the wind. Sir W. Scott. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ OE. scren, OF. escrein, escran, F. écran, of uncertain origin; cf. G. schirm a screen, OHG. scirm, scerm a protection, shield, or G. schragen a trestle, a stack of wood, or G. schranne a railing. ] 1. Anything that separates or cuts off inconvenience, injury, or danger; that which shelters or conceals from view; a shield or protection; as, a fire screen. [ 1913 Webster ]

Your leavy screens throw down. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Some ambitious men seem as screens to princes in matters of danger and envy. Bacon. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Arch.) A dwarf wall or partition carried up to a certain height for separation and protection, as in a church, to separate the aisle from the choir, or the like. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. A surface, as that afforded by a curtain, sheet, wall, etc., upon which an image, as a picture, is thrown by a magic lantern, solar microscope, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. A long, coarse riddle or sieve, sometimes a revolving perforated cylinder, used to separate the coarser from the finer parts, as of coal, sand, gravel, and the like. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. (Cricket) An erection of white canvas or wood placed on the boundary opposite a batsman to enable him to see ball better. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

6. a netting, usu. of metal, contained in a frame, used mostly in windows or doors to allow in fresh air while excluding insects. --
Screen door, a door of which half or more is composed of a screen. --
Screen window, a screen inside a frame, fitted for insertion into a window frame. [ PJC ]

7. The surface of an electronic device, as a television set or computer monitor, on which a visible image is formed. The screen is frequently the surface of a cathode-ray tube containing phosphors excited by the electron beam, but other methods for causing an image to appear on the screen are also used, as in flat-panel displays. [ PJC ]

8. The motion-picture industry; motion pictures. “A star of stage and screen.” [ PJC ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Screened p. pr. & vb. n. Screening. ] 1. To provide with a shelter or means of concealment; to separate or cut off from inconvenience, injury, or danger; to shelter; to protect; to protect by hiding; to conceal; as, fruits screened from cold winds by a forest or hill. [ 1913 Webster ]

They were encouraged and screened by some who were in high commands. Macaulay. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To pass, as coal, gravel, ashes, etc., through a screen in order to separate the coarse from the fine, or the worthless from the valuable; to sift. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. to examine a group of objects methodically, to separate them into groups or to select one or more for some purpose. As: (a) To inspect the qualifications of candidates for a job, to select one or more to be hired. (b) (Biochem., Med.) to test a large number of samples, in order to find those having specific desirable properties; as, to screen plant extracts for anticancer agents. [ PJC ]

n. the process of examining or testing objects methodically to find those having desirable properties. See screen{ 3 }. In the pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical screening involves testing a large number of samples of substances to find those having desirable pharmacological activity; those samples which have the property sought are called active or positive in the screen. The substances tested may be pure compounds with known structure, mixtures of pure compounds, or complex mixtures obtained by extraction from living organisms. There are often additional sets of test performed on active samples, called
counterscreening to eliminate those samples that may also possess undesirable properties. In the case of screening of mixtures from living organisms, a type of counterscreening called dereplication is usually performed, to determine if the active sample contains a known compound which has previously been studied. [ PJC ]