Also 5 swame, 7 squamme. [ad. OF. esquame (escame, also scame, squamme, mod.F. squame or L. squāma SQUAMA.]
† 1. A scale (of iron, or on the skin or eyes).
c. 1386. Chaucer, Can. Yeom. Prol. & T., 206. What schulde I … besy me to telle you the names, As orpiment, brent bones, yren squames, That into poudre grounden ben ful smal?
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 189. Furfurea ben a maner of squamis, i. schellis þat comeþ of brennyng þat is in þe skyn.
a. 1470. Harding, Chron., lxiii. In whose bloodde bathed he should haue been, His leprous swames [v.r. squamys] to haue washed of clene.
c. 1485. Digby Myst. (1882), II. 298. The swame ys fallyn from my eyes twayne.
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., 12. The flouers bind, represse excrescencies, and cleare the eyes of the Squamme.
fig. 1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 127/2. Take thynfirmytees of humanyte and caste away the squares of pryde.
† 2. App. some species of fish or shell-fish. Obs.
1393. Earl Derby’s Exp. (Camden), 215. Item pro pikerell et creuez, j duc. lxviij s; item pro squames, xl s; item pro kokkel, xxij s. Ibid., 216. Item pro squamez, xl s.
3. Zool. = SQUAMA 1.
1877. Huxley, Anat. Inv. Anim., vi. 339. In these genera the scaphocerite, or squame, usually attached to the base of the antenna, is absent.
1888. Rolleston & Jackson, Anim. Life, 169. The second joint … bears an exopodite in the shape of a scale or ‘squame.’
