SPINDLE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Spindle

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/spˈɪndəl/ Listen

noun

Spindle n.

1.

The long, round, slender rod or pin in spinning wheels by which the thread is twisted, and on which, when twisted, it is wound; also, the pin on which the bobbin is held in a spinning machine, or in the shuttle of a loom.

2.

A slender rod or pin on which anything turns; an axis; as, the spindle of a vane. Specifically:

(a)

(Mach.) The shaft, mandrel, or arbor, in a machine tool, as a lathe or drilling machine, etc., which causes the work to revolve, or carries a tool or center, etc.

(b)

(Mach.) The vertical rod on which the runner of a grinding mill turns.

(c)

(Founding) A shaft or pipe on which a core of sand is formed.

3.

The fusee of a watch.

4.

A long and slender stalk resembling a spindle.

5.

A yarn measure containing, in cotton yarn, 15,120 yards; in linen yarn, 14,400 yards.

6.

(Geom.) A solid generated by the revolution of a curved line about its base or double ordinate or chord.

7.

(Zool.)

(a)

Any marine univalve shell of the genus Rostellaria; called also spindle stromb.

(b)

Any marine gastropod of the genus Fusus.

Dead spindle (Mach.), a spindle in a machine tool that does not revolve; the spindle of the tailstock of a lathe.

Live spindle (Mach.), the revolving spindle of a machine tool; the spindle of the headstock of a turning lathe.

Spindle shell. (Zool.) See Spindle, 7. above.

Spindle side, the female side in descent; in the female line; opposed to spear side. (R.) "King Lycaon, grandson, by the spindle side, of Oceanus."

Spindle tree (Bot.), any shrub or tree of the genus Eunymus. The wood of Eunymus Europaeus was used for spindles and skewers. See Prickwood.

verb

Spindle v. i. (past & past part. spindled; pres. part. spindling) To shoot or grow into a long, slender stalk or body; to become disproportionately tall and slender. "It has begun to spindle into overintellectuality."

See images of 'Spindle'

Etymology of 'Spindle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Spindle" Quotes from Famous Books

... rising. I saw Bellincione Berti walk abroad In leathern girdle and a clasp of bone; And, with no artful colouring on her cheeks, His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw Of Nerli and of Vecchio well content With unrob'd jerkin; and their good dames handling The spindle and the flax; O happy they! Each sure of burial in her native land, And none left desolate a-bed for France! One wak'd to tend the cradle, hushing it With sounds that lull'd the parent's infancy: Another, with her maidens, drawing ...

— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... she said, "if anybody does. Look, here's the place where I pricked my finger with the spindle." She showed a ...

— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... exhibited in 1850 by M. Jullien, a clockmaker of Paris, and flew successfully against a slight breeze. The first successful man-carrying airship was built in 1852 by Henry Giffard, the French engineer, and was flown at Paris on the 24th of September in that year. It was spindle-shaped, with a capacity of 87,000 cubic feet, and a length of 144 feet. The airscrew, ten feet in diameter, was driven by a steam-engine of three horse-power, and the speed attained was about six miles an hour. It would take long to record ...

— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... of these toys is not quite so disparaging as it seems. The sceptre is indeed the symbol of rule; but the tile too has an honourable signification, a tile being used in ancient China as a weight for the spindle,—and consequently as a symbol of woman's work ...

— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... day early I was put forth from the house and garth, and forbidden to go back thither till dusk. While the days were long and the grass was growing, I had to lead our goats to pasture in the wood-lawns, and must take with me rock and spindle, and spin so much of flax or hair as the woman gave me, or be beaten. But when the winter came and the snow was on the ground, then that watching and snaring of wild things was ...

— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

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