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Spinning wheel   /spˈɪnɪŋ wil/   Listen
noun
Spinning  n.  A. & n. from Spin.
Spinning gland (Zool.), one of the glands which form the material for spinning the silk of silkworms and other larvae.
Spinning house, formerly a common name for a house of correction in England, the women confined therein being employed in spinning.
Spinning jenny (Mach.), an engine or machine for spinning wool or cotton, by means of a large number of spindles revolving simultaneously.
Spinning mite (Zool.), the red spider.
Spinning wheel, a machine for spinning yarn or thread, in which a wheel drives a single spindle, and is itself driven by the hand, or by the foot acting on a treadle.


Wheel  n.  
1.
A circular frame turning about an axis; a rotating disk, whether solid, or a frame composed of an outer rim, spokes or radii, and a central hub or nave, in which is inserted the axle, used for supporting and conveying vehicles, in machinery, and for various purposes; as, the wheel of a wagon, of a locomotive, of a mill, of a watch, etc. "The gasping charioteer beneath the wheel Of his own car."
2.
Any instrument having the form of, or chiefly consisting of, a wheel. Specifically:
(a)
A spinning wheel. See under Spinning.
(b)
An instrument of torture formerly used. "His examination is like that which is made by the rack and wheel." Note: This mode of torture is said to have been first employed in Germany, in the fourteenth century. The criminal was laid on a cart wheel with his legs and arms extended, and his limbs in that posture were fractured with an iron bar. In France, where its use was restricted to the most atrocious crimes, the criminal was first laid on a frame of wood in the form of a St. Andrew's cross, with grooves cut transversely in it above and below the knees and elbows, and the executioner struck eight blows with an iron bar, so as to break the limbs in those places, sometimes finishing by two or three blows on the chest or stomach, which usually put an end to the life of the criminal, and were hence called coups-de-grace blows of mercy. The criminal was then unbound, and laid on a small wheel, with his face upward, and his arms and legs doubled under him, there to expire, if he had survived the previous treatment.
(c)
(Naut.) A circular frame having handles on the periphery, and an axle which is so connected with the tiller as to form a means of controlling the rudder for the purpose of steering.
(d)
(Pottery) A potter's wheel. See under Potter. "Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels." "Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar A touch can make, a touch can mar."
(e)
(Pyrotechny) A firework which, while burning, is caused to revolve on an axis by the reaction of the escaping gases.
(f)
(Poetry) The burden or refrain of a song. Note: "This meaning has a low degree of authority, but is supposed from the context in the few cases where the word is found." "You must sing a-down a-down, An you call him a-down-a. O, how the wheel becomes it!"
3.
A bicycle or a tricycle; a velocipede.
4.
A rolling or revolving body; anything of a circular form; a disk; an orb.
5.
A turn revolution; rotation; compass. "According to the common vicissitude and wheel of things, the proud and the insolent, after long trampling upon others, come at length to be trampled upon themselves." "(He) throws his steep flight in many an aery wheel."
A wheel within a wheel, or Wheels within wheels, a complication of circumstances, motives, etc.
Balance wheel. See in the Vocab.
Bevel wheel, Brake wheel, Cam wheel, Fifth wheel, Overshot wheel, Spinning wheel, etc. See under Bevel, Brake, etc.
Core wheel. (Mach.)
(a)
A mortise gear.
(b)
A wheel having a rim perforated to receive wooden cogs; the skeleton of a mortise gear.
Measuring wheel, an odometer, or perambulator.
Wheel and axle (Mech.), one of the elementary machines or mechanical powers, consisting of a wheel fixed to an axle, and used for raising great weights, by applying the power to the circumference of the wheel, and attaching the weight, by a rope or chain, to that of the axle. Called also axis in peritrochio, and perpetual lever, the principle of equilibrium involved being the same as in the lever, while its action is continuous. See Mechanical powers, under Mechanical.
Wheel animal, or Wheel animalcule (Zool.), any one of numerous species of rotifers having a ciliated disk at the anterior end.
Wheel barometer. (Physics) See under Barometer.
Wheel boat, a boat with wheels, to be used either on water or upon inclined planes or railways.
Wheel bug (Zool.), a large North American hemipterous insect (Prionidus cristatus) which sucks the blood of other insects. So named from the curious shape of the prothorax.
Wheel carriage, a carriage moving on wheels.
Wheel chains, or Wheel ropes (Naut.), the chains or ropes connecting the wheel and rudder.
Wheel cutter, a machine for shaping the cogs of gear wheels; a gear cutter.
Wheel horse, one of the horses nearest to the wheels, as opposed to a leader, or forward horse; called also wheeler.
Wheel lathe, a lathe for turning railway-car wheels.
Wheel lock.
(a)
A letter lock. See under Letter.
(b)
A kind of gunlock in which sparks were struck from a flint, or piece of iron pyrites, by a revolving wheel.
(c)
A kind of brake a carriage.
Wheel ore (Min.), a variety of bournonite so named from the shape of its twin crystals. See Bournonite.
Wheel pit (Steam Engine), a pit in the ground, in which the lower part of the fly wheel runs.
Wheel plow, or Wheel plough, a plow having one or two wheels attached, to render it more steady, and to regulate the depth of the furrow.
Wheel press, a press by which railway-car wheels are forced on, or off, their axles.
Wheel race, the place in which a water wheel is set.
Wheel rope (Naut.), a tiller rope. See under Tiller.
Wheel stitch (Needlework), a stitch resembling a spider's web, worked into the material, and not over an open space.
Wheel tree (Bot.), a tree (Aspidosperma excelsum) of Guiana, which has a trunk so curiously fluted that a transverse section resembles the hub and spokes of a coarsely made wheel. See Paddlewood.
Wheel urchin (Zool.), any sea urchin of the genus Rotula having a round, flat shell.
Wheel window (Arch.), a circular window having radiating mullions arranged like the spokes of a wheel. Cf. Rose window, under Rose.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Spinning wheel" Quotes from Famous Books



... were raised on the same plantation where I was born. Ma was a field hand, and this time of the year when work was short in the field—laying-by time, we called it—and on rainy days she spun thread and wove cloth. As the thread left the spinning wheel it went on a reel where it was wound into hanks, and then it was carried to the loom to be woven into cloth. Pa had a little trade; he made shoes and baskets, and Old Boss let him sell them. Pa didn't ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... poem is feminine witchery, the triumphant struggle of weakness. The spinning wheel is a mere pretext, chosen from the point of view of rhythm and the general atmosphere ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... are among the earliest arts. In the twisting of fibers, hairs, grasses, and sinews by rolling them between the thumb and fingers, palms of the hands, or palms and naked thigh, we have the original of the spinning wheel and the steam-driven cotton spindle; in the roughest plaiting we have the first hint of the finest woven cloth. The need of securing things or otherwise strengthening them then led to binding, fastening, and sewing. The wattle-work hut with ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... to Saatzig from the execution, he seemed much disturbed in his mind, which was unusual to him, and sat by the stove plunged in deep thought. At length he calls his little daughter Diliana from the spinning wheel where she sat. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... his brain, That he would cross th' Atlantic Ocean, And seek the land of Spanish Main; And there amass a routh of treasure, And then come back with bosom leal To his own Marjory, and release her From rock and reel and spinning wheel. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... his brief career and lack of systematic schooling, he was one of the most prolific as well as original of German composers. His earliest extant song, "Hagar's Lament," was written at the age of fourteen. Such early master works as "Margaret at the Spinning Wheel," and the "Erl-King," both written for Goethe's words, mark the swift development of his genius. During his eighteenth year, when he wrote the "Erl-King," he composed no less than 144 songs. On one day alone he wrote eight. Besides this he composed two operettas, three song plays, three other stage ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... were returning to their normal cycles of Meet the Press, the Doctor's Dilemma, and the Lives of Lucy, and other juicier items of the imagination that, now that their lab was a functioning reality, seemed far more exciting than the pictures of the interminably spinning wheel and the interviews with scientists aboard that had filled their screens during ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond


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