Dictionary

schindery en · NOUN

Etymology

Probably from German Schinder (“person who renders animal carcasses”) + -ery (“place of”).

Meanings

1. (Pennsylvania, Western, dialectal, obsolete) A facility in which animal carcasses are rendered into useful by-products, such as hides, fertilizer, soap, etc.; a rendering plant.
   • It is the rendering establishment of Dr. E. L. Czarnieki, the City Fallmaster. It is better known to the daily newspaper reader as the schindery, a German term which like that of Dr. Czarnieki's office—Fallmaster—is unknown to Webster's unabridged. It is at the schindery where the carcasses picked up from the street are utilized for nearly one hundred and one purposes. 1881 February 23, “Beats Cremation”, in The Daily Post, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, page 4:
   • Previous to the outbreak at West Elizabeth the Board had, at the urgent request of Crosby Gray, Esq., the efficient and energetic health officer of Pittsburgh, made an investigation into the condition of certain bone-boiling establishments, known in the dialect of that region as "schinderies," which it was feared might pollute the Monongahela river, from which what is called South Pittsburgh draws its water supply. 1887, Benjamin Lee, “Note on an Epidemic of Typhoid Fever at South Pittsburgh”, in Pennsylvania State Board of Health, Second Annual Report of the State Board of Health and Vital Statistics of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Edwin K. Meyers, page 125:

Forms

Synonyms

knacker's yard · knackery