SCANTLING  , measurement or prescribed

size, dimensions, particularly used of timber and stone and also of vessels . In regard to timber the scantling is the thickness and breadth, the sectional dimensions; in the case of stone the dimensions of thickness, breadth and length; in shipbuilding the collective dimensions of the various parts . The word is a variation of scantillon," a carpenter's or mason's measuring tool, also used of the measurements taken by it, and of a piece of timber of small size cut as a sample . The 0 . Fr. escantillon, mod: echantillon, is usually taken to be related to Ital. scandaglio, sounding-line (Lat. scandere, to climb; cf. scansio, the metrical scansion) . It was probably influenced by cancel, cantle, a small piece, a corner piece . The English form " scantling " was no 2 Cf J . A . Lundell, " Skandinavische Mundarten " (Grundriss der germanischen Philologie; 2 . Aufl . 1901) . s The substance of these researches was presented in' a magazine, called Norvegia (1887), which employed an alphabet invented by Storm .

doubt partly due to a confusion with " scant," stinted, of

short I measure; this is for scamt, cf . " skimpy," " scamp " (q.v.), and is related to O.N. skammr, short, brief .