row = line, I guess, ot, in the sense of "a linguistic group of ~" (but just my wag)


As for the meaning(s) of screeve... Even though it apparently has that narrow application in the example Fong questioned, isn’t the basic sense an interesting range of words? Ted, my OED quotes roughly the groups you mention, but separated into a noun and 3 verb forms. It may be worth quoting more fully, since they apparently derive from no fewer than 3 different roots and are all listed as dialect or slang words!


N
Sc. and slang.
Also scrieve, scrive. [f. screeve v.2]
a. A piece of writing; †b. spec. a banknote, = screen n.2 (obs.); c. a begging letter (now the usual sense)

now dial.
V1
OF. escreve-r (usually said of wounds):—L. *excrepåre:

V2
slang.
Also scrieve. [Ultimately from L. scrWbSre to write; the proximate source is uncertain; possibly It. scrivere.
Cf. Sc. (Ayrshire) scrieve, ‘to read or write quickly or continuously’ (Jam.); but connexion of the slang word with this is very doubtful.]
1. trans. To write.
2. intr. To draw pictures on the pavement with coloured chalks; to be a ‘pavement artist’.

V3
dial.
[app. a. ON. skrefa to stride (Norw. skreva, Da. skræve, Sw. skrefva to open one's legs wide, straddle.]
pass. Of horses: To have the legs split apart in running on ice.

© Awksfahd Inglish Dikshonnree