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Spindle   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.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spindle" Quotes from Famous Books



... on corolla tube; 1 pistil with 2 stigmas. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. high, usually branched, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, upper ones acute at tip, broadening to heart-shaped base, seated on stem. Fruit: A spindle-shaped, 2-valved capsule, containing numerous ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... blows she gave the Turk untrue, One cleft his shield, the other pierced his side; The prince the damsel by her habit knew, "See, see this mankind strumpet, see," he cried, "This shameless whore, for thee fit weapons were Thy neeld and spindle, not a ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... Implements, p. 463 (1897), writes: "A pendant, consisting of a flat pear-shaped piece of shale, 2.5 inches long, and 2 inches broad, and perforated at the narrow end, was found along with querns, stones with concentric circles, and cup- shaped indentations worked in them; stone balls, spindle whorls, and an iron axe-head, in excavating an underground chamber at the Tappock, Torwood, Stirlingshire. One face of this pendant was covered with scratches in a vandyked pattern. Though of smaller size this seems to bear some analogy with the ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang

... should have valve bodies, caps and yokes of steel castings. Spindles should be of some non-corrosive metal, such as "monel metal". Seat rings should be removable of the same non-corrosive metal as should the spindle seats and plug faces. ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... in progress, our instrument-maker had his hands full; the clockwork mechanism of the thermograph had gone wrong: the spindle was broken, I believe. This was particularly annoying, because this thermograph had been working so well in low temperatures. The other thermograph had evidently been constructed with a view to the tropics; at any rate, it would not go in the cold. Our instrument-maker has one ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... felt inclined to play the part of the young enthusiast in "Excelsior," as I looked up at the weathercock which surmounts the spire. But the man who oils the weathercock-spindle has to get up to it in some way, and that way is by ladders which reach to within thirty feet of the top, where there is a small door, through which he emerges, to crawl up the remaining distance on the outside. "The situation and appearance," says one of the guide-books, "must be terrific, yet ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... most especial prize, Since 'tis the first odd number that doth rise From the two foremost numbers' unity, That odd and even are; which are two and three; For one no number is; but thence doth flow The powerful race of number. Next, did go A noble matron, that did spinning bear A huswife's rock and spindle, and did wear A wether's skin, with all the snowy fleece, To intimate that even the daintiest piece And noblest-born dame should industrious be: That which does good disgraceth no degree. And now to Juno's temple they are come, Where her grave ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman

... war-chariot of the warrior's god. The great goddesses, too, Frigga and Freyja, were thoroughly old-fashioned domestic divinities. They help women in their greatest need, they spin themselves, they teach the maids to spin, and punish them if the wool remains upon their spindle. They are kind, and good, and bright, for Holda, Bertha, are the epithets given to them. And so, too, this mythology which, in its aspect to the stranger and the external world, was so ruthless and terrible, when looked ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... knot them together, and roll them up in balls. These "rope-yarns'' are constantly used for various purposes, but the greater part is manufactured into spun-yarn. For this purpose, every vessel is furnished with a "spun-yarn winch''; which is very simple, consisting of a wheel and spindle. This may be heard constantly going on deck in pleasant weather; and we had employment, during a great part of the time, for three hands, in drawing and knotting yarns, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... slightly surprised by her seeming to wish for no further news of her old friend. She asked if we had had a pleasant journey, and Fatima had hardly pronounced a modest yes, before she begged we would allow her to finish her letter, and went back to the spindle-legged table. Whilst she scratched we looked around us. Three or four ladies were in the room, more or less young, more or less pretty, more or less elegantly dressed, and all with more or less elaborate pieces of needlework. There was one gentleman, ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Cicatricial Tissue.—The transformation of this temporary granulation tissue into scar tissue is effected by the fibroblasts, which become elongated and spindle-shaped, and produce in and around them a fine fibrillated material which gradually increases in quantity till it replaces the cell protoplasm. In this way white fibrous tissue is formed, the cells of which are arranged in parallel lines and eventually ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... always at hand to give his old friend and master his best assistance. We have seen many original letters from Watt to Murdock, asking for counsel and help. In one of these, written in 1808, Watt says: "I have revived an idea which, if it answers, will supersede the frame and upright spindle of the reducing machine, but more of this when we meet. Meanwhile it will be proper to adhere to the frame, etc., at present, until we see how the other alterations answer." In another he says: "I have ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... locomotion. He was dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, white cravat and high collar to his shirt, blue cotton net pantaloons and Hessian boots, both fitting so tight, that it appeared as if he was proud of his spindle shanks. His hat was broad-brimmed and low, and he carried a stout black cane with a gold top in his right hand, almost always raising the gold top to his nose when he spoke, just as we see doctors represented at a consultation in the caricature prints. But if his ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... species in large tufts on old stumps. In similar localities, and also in tufts, but neither so large, nor so common, Agaricus fusipes is found. It is preferable to the foregoing as an esculent, and is easily recognized by the spindle-shaped stem. ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... mother's heart away to the fair spirit-land. Gotleib saw his mother's face growing thin and pale; he knew that she was weak—for oftentimes, in the long winter evenings, as he read to her from the holy word of God, her hand would drop wearily with the raised spindle, and she, who was never before idle, would fold her hands in a quiet, meek resignation. At such times a tremour would seize the boy's heart. The mother saw it; and, one night, when his fixed tender gaze rested on her, she raised her spiritual ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... so handily their trades, Those spinning sisters down below Were bunglers when compared with these. No care did this old woman know But giving tasks as she might please. No sooner did the god of day His glorious locks enkindle, Than both the wheels began to play, And from each whirling spindle Forth danced the thread right merrily, And back was coil'd unceasingly. Soon as the dawn, I say, its tresses show'd, A graceless cock most punctual crow'd. The beldam roused, more graceless yet, In greasy petticoat ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine

... the dining-hall. Now, as she had not been asked to the feast she was very angry, and scolded the king and queen very much, and set to work to take her revenge. So she cried out, 'The king's daughter shall, in her fifteenth year, be wounded by a spindle, and fall down dead.' Then the twelfth of the friendly fairies, who had not yet given her gift, came forward, and said that the evil wish must be fulfilled, but that she could soften its mischief; so her gift ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... than a customer's weekly salary, he never thought of enforcing it in the case of 'Gene. More than once some particularly fine story or flattering notice of the good cheer at Gaston's sufficed to restore Field's credit on George's spindle. At Christmas-time that credit was under a cloud of checks for two bits (25 cents), four bits, and a dollar or more each to the total of $135.50, when, touched by some simple piece that Field wrote in the Times, Gaston presented his bill for the amount endorsed "paid ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... were many things which could not conveniently be smuggled, and in their case the want of competition, and still more the lack of standards of comparison, tended to retard and injure production. While improved machinery for spinning and weaving was common in England, the old spindle, wheel, and house-loom still held their own in France. In the year 1786, a commercial treaty was signed between the two countries. By its provisions French wines were put on a better footing, and many manufactured articles, as hardware, cutlery, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... the sand to the east of Hull, but you will hardly care for these if you have Neptune aboard. His spirit will bid you jibe your sail to that freshening west wind off Allerton and bowl down the coast parallel with the long stretch of Nantasket sands. Again at the spindle on Harding's Ledge you may catch cunners; perhaps a stray cod. A cod! There you speak a magic word to the fisherman from the tide flats far inland. There is the golden fleece for which the Argonauts of the land-locked harbor set their prows to the eastward ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... mistresses, drew me perpetually, both before and after my marriage. The drawing-room, which runs the whole breadth of the house from the road to the garden behind, was "Paterian" in every line and ornament. There were a Morris paper; spindle-legged tables and chairs; a sparing allowance of blue plates and pots, bought, I think, in Holland, where Oxford residents in my day were always foraging, to return, often, with treasures of which the very ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... make some booty, that should be so new and so splendid that it would be a sign of his good-will to serve the Lord who had made him. So they sailed on straight to Cape Verde, and beyond that to the Cape of Masts (or Spindle Palms), their farthest of the year before, but they did not turn back here, in spite of unfriendly natives and unknown shores. Still coasting along, they found tracks of men, and a little farther on a village, "where the people came out ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... on, desperately, it seemed to me. 'Another picture, Smiles. Can you see a spindle-legged, mischievous boy of ten, who loved his little sister dearly; but teased her from morning until night. His ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... were, goad on the oxen, mitigating their sense of labour, by the usual rude song: {50} one man imitating the profession of a shoemaker; another, that of a tanner. Now you may see a girl with a distaff, drawing out the thread, and winding it again on the spindle; another walking, and arranging the threads for the web; another, as it were, throwing the shuttle, and seeming to weave. On being brought into the church, and led up to the altar with their oblations, you will be astonished ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... thin, spindle shaped, like those of very young girls, were encircled with a kind of metal ornament, and bracelets of glass beads; her hair was twisted into little cords; on her breast hung a green paste idol, identified by her whip of seven lashes ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... most Arachnida, crabs, and other articulates. It was also proposed to secure several spiders in the above manner upon the periphery of a wheel, the revolution of which would give a twist to their conjoined threads, carried through a common eyelet upon the spindle; but this can be accomplished without the inconvenience of whirling the spiders out of sight, by modifications of the apparatus which has always been used for twisting ordinary silk. It will probably be inferred ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... returned to life, and he told them what he had seen in the other world. Many wonders he related concerning the dead, for example, with their rewards and punishments: but what had impressed him as most wonderful of all was the great spindle of Necessity, reaching up to Heaven, with the planets revolving around it in graduated whorls of width and spread: yet all concentric and so timed that all complete the full circle punctually together—'The Spindle turns on the knees of ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... interests of labor, and opposed to such tinkering with the tariff as would make vain the toil of the industrious farmer, paralyze the arm of the sturdy mechanic, strike down the hand of the hardy laborer, stop the spindle, hush the loom, extinguish the furnace fires, and degrade all independent toilers to the level of the poor in other lands. The architect of his own fortune, he had a strong and abiding sympathy for those ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... Stretched full length on the hearth, flat on his stomach, his chin in his hands, baking himself, he might have been one of his own ancestors of the African forest, for he was desperately black, and true to type. A runty little spindle-legged darky of thirteen, Lazarus had come to us second-hand, so to speak, from the county home. A family in the neighborhood was breaking up, and Lazarus's temporary adoption in the household was at an end. He had come on an errand one evening, and our interview then had led to his being transferred ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... see it for yourselves," he kept repeating in great excitement. "Summerlee, will you step across and satisfy yourself upon the point? Malone, will you kindly verify what I say? The little spindle-shaped things in the centre are diatoms and may be disregarded since they are probably vegetable rather than animal. But the right-hand side you will see an undoubted amoeba, moving sluggishly ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Here and there one more diligent burnishes his arms, and another grooms his horse. A few veiled women come and go, bearing jars of water or other burdens, though most of the female population are occupied in their apartments with the preparation of food, and in the labors of the loom and spindle; while young children, half-naked, play around the house doors and through the lanes with an activity in strong contrast with the prevailing tone of grave ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie

... unhappily his policy availed him nothing; for, in turning into an alley, he met a man with his cloak muffled around his face, from a desire like his own to pass unobserved, though the slight insignificant figure, the spindle shanks, which showed themselves beneath the mantle, and the small dull eye that blinked over its upper folds, announced the pottingar as distinctly as if he had carried his sign in front of his bonnet. His unexpected ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... from the axle of the wheel across the well, and on the spindle was a drum to take the rope. There was some clutch or fastening which could be fixed or loosed at will to make the drum turn with the tread-wheel, or let it run free, and a footbreak to lower the bucket fast or slow, or stop ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... estates a corn-granary, which held ten harvests, spacious cellars for the wine-vats and corresponding wine-presses; now the master keeps flocks of peacocks, and causes his doors to be inlaid with African cypress-wood.—Formerly the housewife turned the spindle with the hand and kept at the same time the pot on the hearth in her eye, that the pottage might not be singed; now," it is said in another satire, "the daughter begs her father for a pound of precious stones, and the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... a spindle-form body and a high degree of plasticity, the contour constantly changing. A distinct, usually striped cuticle is invariably present. "Eye-spots" are ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins

... downtown after nine o'clock. On starlight nights I used to pace up and down those long, cold streets, scowling at the little, sleeping houses on either side, with their storm-windows and covered back porches. They were flimsy shelters, most of them poorly built of light wood, with spindle porch-posts horribly mutilated by the turning-lathe. Yet for all their frailness, how much jealousy and envy and unhappiness some of them managed to contain! The life that went on in them seemed to me made up of evasions and negations; shifts to save cooking, to ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... destitute of clothing, and who seemed to enjoy with infinite zest the pastime of shooting-practice with little bows and arrows. No wonder that these Indians become expert bowmen. There were urchins there, scarce two feet high, with round bullets of bodies and short spindle-shanks, who could knock blackbirds off the trees at every shot, and cut the heads off the taller flowers with perfect certainty! There was much need, too, for the utmost proficiency they could attain, for the very existence of the Indian tribes of ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... "Look'e here, you spindle-shanked dandy," said Lee, striding up and laying hold of James's collar with no friendly hand, "does yer know who yer was a heavin' rocks at? Shall we punch him for yer?" he added, ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon

... a devilish thing it is, for a Woman to be obliged to go to bed to a spindle-shanked young Squire, she doth not like, when there is a jolly Parson in the same House she ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber

... out. She moved swiftly across the floor, and in a moment more was bending over the escritoire. And now, with her body hiding the flashlight's rays from the front windows, she examined the desk. It was an old-fashioned, spindle-legged affair, with a nest of pigeonholes and multifarious little drawers. One of the drawers, wider than any of the others, and in the center, was obviously the one to which Gypsy Nan referred. She pulled out the drawer, and in the act of reaching inside, suddenly drew back her hand. What ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... this manufacture has been wonderfully rapid. In the time of Henry VIII., the spinning wheel came into use in England, superseding the spindle and distaff, which may still be seen in the south of France and Italy, and in India, where no other tools are used. In the same reign Manchester became ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... poles, weighted down with stones. The trap-door, which was at the front, was made of plank and slid up and down in a groove. When it was raised, it was held in place by a cord which passed over the top of the pen-trap and down on the back side, finally attaching to a trigger connecting with a spindle inside the pen, at the farther end. The bait was to be placed on this spindle and a tug upon it would let go the trap-door. As this was weighted with stones, it came down with a bang and anything unfortunate enough to be inside was caught in ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... the soldier, turning to his friend, "could be too good for my schoolmate Lotbiniere. Here are two chairs worthy of us, generals among this spindle-shanked regiment. Sit down in that one while I draw up here opposite. Throw off the wigs; there. We shall see now how much of each other remains after our long parting. In India I never wore a wig except to ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... gowns of plaited rushes, and the New Zealanders wore rude garments from strings made of native flax. These early products were made by the process of working the fibres by hand into a string or thread. The use of a simple spindle, composed of a stone like a large button, with a stick run through a hole in the centre, facilitated the making of thread and the construction of rude looms. It was but a step from these to the spinning-wheels ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... the usual crowd of Kirghiz post-drivers. After the presentation of documents to the starosta, who would hesitate at first about quartering our horses in the travelers' room, we would proceed at once to place our dust-covered heads beneath the spindle of the washing-tank. Although by this dripping-pan arrangement we would usually succeed in getting as much water down our backs as on our faces, yet we were consoled by the thought that too much was ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... emotion? How does he conquer every element? But by the tide of song that from his bosom springs, And draws into his heart all living things? When Nature's hand, in endless iteration, The thread across the whizzing spindle flings, When the complex, monotonous creation Jangles with all its million strings: Who, then, the long, dull series animating, Breaks into rhythmic march the soulless round? And, to the law of All each member consecrating, Bids one majestic harmony resound? Who bids the ...
— Faust • Goethe

... occupied in these pursuits, the women are very diligent in manufacturing cotton cloth. They prepare the cotton for spinning, by laying it in small quantities at a time, upon a smooth stone, or piece of wood, and rolling the seeds out with a thick iron spindle; and they spin it with the distaff. The thread is not fine, but well twisted, and makes a very durable cloth. A woman, with common diligence, will spin from six to nine garments of this cloth in one year; which, according to its fineness, will sell for a minkalli and a ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... Evening we had much rain, with some very heavy Claps of Thunder, one of which carried away a Dutch Indiaman's Main Mast by the Deck, and split it, the Maintopmast and Topgallantmast all to shivers. She had had an Iron Spindle at the Maintopgallant Mast head which had first attracted the Lightning. The ship lay about 2 Cable lengths from us, and we were struck with the Thunder at the same time, and in all probability we should have shared the same fate as the Dutchman, had it not ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... she let make a covering to the ship, of cloth of silk that should never rot for no manner of weather. Yet went that lady and made a carpenter to come to the tree which Abel was slain under. Now, said she, carve me out of this tree as much wood as will make me a spindle. Ah madam, said he, this is the tree the which our first mother planted. Do it, said she, or else I shall destroy thee. Anon as he began to work there came out drops of blood; and then would he have left, but she would not suffer him, and so he took away as much wood ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... removed, must come back. He should dwell here with her beside him, in his heart, always!—But certainly this room, save for the tambour and scattered wools, was quite unchanged: roughly-tinted buff walls, polished floor, with its delicately faded Persian rug, heavy chairs and sofa, ay, the very spindle-legged table near the bay, were all here, forming the old ensemble. It was almost incredible.—But Ivan had discounted the penetration of those servants who, in the long ago, had loved their lady as now ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... rooms was furniture belonging to many a different age. Carpets and chair-cushions worked in tent stitch and cross stitch and old-fashioned harpsichord; gaudy white and gold furniture of the Louis Quatorze time, mixed with the spindle-legged tables of the Queen ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... of all to get—from Martha Morton for six chickens as per account rendered. These receipts hang on a spindle in the little room. Under the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... is still, no flocks grazing on the shore, no picturesque groups, no songs. The spinning-wheel no longer whirls, the hand of the queen no longer turns the spindle; she has learned to hold the sceptre and the pen, and to weave public policy, and not a net of linen. The trees with their variegated autumn foliage are reflected in the dark water of the pond; some weeping-willows ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... hindrances to the study of philosophy, Heloise bade me observe what were the conditions of honourable wedlock. What possible concord could there be between scholars and domestics, between authors and cradles, between books or tablets and distaffs, between the stylus or the pen and the spindle? What man, intent on his religious or philosophical meditations, can possibly endure the whining of children, the lullabies of the nurse seeking to quiet them, or the noisy confusion of family life? ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard

... turned the wheel. Setting it to whirling with a long sweep of the stick against a spoke, she would walk backward while the roll was twisted out into a long, thin thread, and then walk forward as they yarn was wound upon the spindle. When she walked backward, the spindle hummed sharply; when she came forward it droned. There was a stately rhythm in both, to which her footsteps and graceful sway of body kept time, and all blended harmoniously with the camp-meeting melody she ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... should speak so explicitly that the import of what is said should never by excessive circumscription afford matter for disputation; which is much more in place among students in the schools, than among us, whose powers are scarce adequate to the management of the distaff and the spindle. Wherefore I, that had in mind a matter of, perchance, some nicety, now that I see you all at variance touching the matters last mooted, am minded to lay it aside, and tell you somewhat else, which concerns a man by no ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

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

... cylindrical, 2-3 cm. long, 3-4 mm. thick. Apex truncate, excavate. Perithecia linear, near apex of stroma. Asci (teste Montagne) linear, 8 spored. Spores (pale) spindle shape, dark, 6-7 ...
— Synopsis of Some Genera of the Large Pyrenomycetes - Camilla, Thamnomyces, Engleromyces • C. G. Lloyd

... of thine, Wayland," he said, "has a fair neck to have been born in a smithy, and a pretty taper hand to have been used for twirling a spindle—faith, I'll believe in your relationship when the crow's egg is hatched ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... a bit upset in the town, y' mun know," he said, "and every wench in the 'Rising Sun' 'as been a devil unknobbed all day. This red-faced hussy here, when 'er was wanted to set the table, was off to see if that spindle-shanked Sim across at the Mayor's was safe and sound. And besides, my lady and y'r 'onours, the famous steak-and-kidney puddin' o' the 'Rising Sun' must be boiled to a bubble or it's dummacked. If one got spiled, the news 'ud run down to Chester and up to London ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... mysterious lakes in the moonlight when the white mist rose from the marshes and spread all over their surface—endlessly as it seemed. He promised me to plan out a garden, and there being several fine trees about the kiln and on the border of the road—oaks, elders, elms, and spindle trees—he said he would contrive to keep them all, so as to have shade from the beginning, and to give the new garden an appearance ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... coming next, her head shaking more with spite than with age, she said that the Princess should pierce her hand with a spindle and die of the wound. This terrible gift made the whole company tremble, and everybody ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault

... drawing-room. Though in evident disarray it, however, exhibited fewer signs of the strange, long-past agitation. In dimensions it was similar to the dining-room, running from front to back of the house. Here, too, was another elaborate candelabrum, somewhat smaller than the first, queer, spindle-legged, fiddle-backed chairs, beautiful cabinets and tables, and an old, square piano, still open. The chairs stood in irregular groups of twos and threes, chumming cozily together as their occupants had doubtless done, and over the piano had been carelessly thrown a ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... the wood with various colours by means of liquors and tints boiled with penetrating oil in order to produce light and shadow with wood of various colours, making the lights with the whitest pieces of the spindle tree; to shade, some singed the wood by firing, others used oil of sulphur, or a solution of corrosive sublimate and arsenic. The "most solemn" masters of tarsia in Florence were the Majani, La Cecca, Il Francione, and the da San Gallo. The first name ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson

... should be an old woman with a wrinkled face, a furred brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaky voice, a scolding tongue, having a ragged coat on her back, a skull cap on her head, a spindle in her hand, a dog or cat by her side. There are three classes or divisions of devils—black, grey, and white. The first are omnipotent for evil, but powerless for good. The white have power to help, but not to hurt. The grey are efficient ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... girls of her own age was a certain excellently named Minnie Smellie, who was anything but a general favorite. She was a ferret-eyed, blond-haired, spindle-legged little creature whose mind was a cross between that of a parrot and a sheep. She was suspected of copying answers from other girls' slates, although she had never been caught in the act. Rebecca and Emma Jane always ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... kept, but poorly furnished, with that old-fashioned spindle-legged furniture which seems peculiar to lodging-houses. Yet the little sitting-room had an aspect of simple rustic prettiness, which is almost pleasanter to look at than fine furniture. There were pictures,—simple water-colour sketches,—and cheap engravings on the walls, and a ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... Countess,' she said, 'she has been sorely used, and has suffered much. It is a piteous thing when our little imperial fiefs go to the spindle side!' ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... glowing ashes and red-hot iron was on the ground. At a little distance lay a flat iron disc, called the "platform"; with a pole in the centre through which ran a spindle. On this metal plate lay a new cast wheel, and the wright with a bar screwed a nut so as to hold the cart-wheel down firmly ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... position of the quadrants must be only changed for reversing. In arranging the independent cut-off on the Joy gear, it is only necessary to increase the length of the vibrating link beyond the point of attachment for the main valve spindle connection to obtain a point from which motion may be taken to actuate the cut-off valve; even then the cost of the Joy gear for both cylinders is but little more than for a single ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various

... require the fisherman on pain of death to furnish a large hall with a carpet in a single piece. The fisherman's wife sends him to the well of Shoubrah where he exclaims, "O such-and-such-a-one, thy sister so-and-so salutes thee, and asks thee to send her the spindle which she forgot when she was with thee yesterday, for we want to furnish a room with it." The fisherman drives a nail into the floor at one end of the room, fixes the thread on the spindle to it, and draws out a wonderful carpet. Then the wazir demands a little boy eight days old, who shall ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... occupy both sides of our path, and the fine level road is adorned with a beautiful red flower named Bolcamaria. The markets or sleeping-places are well supplied with provisions by great numbers of women, every one of whom is seen spinning cotton with a spindle and distaff, exactly like those which were in use among the ancient Egyptians. A woman is scarcely ever seen going to the fields, though with a pot on her head, a child on her back, and the hoe over her shoulder, but she ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... bravest of his braves, and nine standards were wanting to the full tale. The two armies ceased joining battle and rested on their arms three days' space, after which Kafid wrote a letter and sent it by messenger to a King called Fakun al-Kalb (with whom he claimed kinship by the spindle side): and this kinsman forthwith mustered his men and marched to meet the King of Hind."—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... ordinary wear. In many of the houses have been found the loom-weights, mostly of stone or clay, which took the place of the more modern weaver's beam in serving to keep the threads taut; and there are also numbers of the stone discs which were attached, in spinning, to the foot of the spindle, to keep it straight and in motion. These loom-weights and spindle-discs are frequently ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie

... black in the gloom. Candle and fiddle in hand, Jinnie mounted them and halted before the unopened door. Somehow it seemed as if she would find before the grate the long, thin body of her dead father, and she distinctly remembered the spindle fire-flames falling in golden yellow licks upon his face. In her imagination she could again see the flake-like ashes, thrown out from the smoldering fire, rise grey to the ceiling, then descend silently over him like ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White

... quickly. The knife is superior to the carnivore's teeth for tearing meat; the hoe better than the mole's paw for digging earth, the trowel than the beaver's tail for beating and spreading mortar. The oar permits us to rival the fish's fin; the sail, the wing of the bird. The distaff and spindle allow our imitating the industry of insect spinners; etc. Man thus reproduces and sums up in his technical contrivances the scattered perfections of the animal world. He even succeeds in surpassing them, because, in the form ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... their steps to horn and cow-bell, and singing the heart-stirring chorus Ranz des Vachs, or the "Cowherds of the Alps," the wild notes coming back in many an Alpine echo. The festival concluded with a rustic wedding, the bride being dowered down to the broom and spindle by ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at the top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... No one said anything. The baggage man stood by his truck, waiting to get at the trunks. The engine panted heavily, and the fireman dodged in and out among the wheels with his yellow torch and long oilcan, snapping the spindle boxes. The young Bostonian, one of the dead sculptor's pupils who had come with the body, looked about him helplessly. He turned to the banker, the only one of that black, uneasy, stoop-shouldered group who seemed enough of an individual ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... obey the call of their duty, and go to that side of the kingdom which faces France, I know not why the ladies, who cannot live without them, should not follow them. The prejudices and pride of man have long presumed the sword and spindle made for different hands, and denied the other sex to partake the grandeur of military glory. This notion may be consistently enough received in France, where the salick law excludes females from the throne; but we, who allow them to be sovereigns, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... of Margaret's favourite occupations, mentioning that when she was alone in her room she more often held a book in her hand than a distaff, a pen than a spindle, and the ivory of her tablets than a needle. He then adds: "And if she applied herself to tapestry or other needlework, such as was to her a pleasant occupation, she had beside her some one who read to her, either from a historian or a poet, or some ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... methods of these new teachers of Eugenics, whom we have described as insisting on quality. For the teachers of Eugenics, as I understand, do not go about saying, "O parents, what inferior and degenerate children you have! How goose-faced, rabbit-mouthed, lantern-jawed, pot-bellied, spindle-shanked, and splay-footed they are! It was a most anti-social action to produce these puny monstrosities, and when you found yourselves falling in love, you ought to have run to opposite antipodes." ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... "Everyone shall love her." And then the wicked old cross fairy strode over to the cradle with long quick steps, and said, shaking her black crooked stick at the King and Queen: "And I say that she shall prick her hand with a spindle ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... A, a portable tank, B, containing tubes, and a detachable box, C, which can be raised or lowered by means of a screw, D. The bottom of the hopper is fitted with holes corresponding with the cooling tubes, e, and closed by plugs c, attached to a frame b, which terminates above in a screw spindle a, by means of which the frame and plugs can be raised and lowered so as to permit or stop the outflow of soap into the cooling tubes. The tubes are closed at the bottom by slides d, and the box B, in which they are mounted, is carried ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons

... be any kind of craftsman; and make him into a smith, a carpenter, a mason: he is then and thenceforth that and nothing else. And if, as Addison complains, you sometimes see a street-porter staggering under his load on spindle-shanks, and near at hand a tailor with the frame of a Samson handling a bit of cloth and small Whitechapel needle,—it cannot be considered that aptitude of Nature alone has been consulted here either!—The Great Man also, to what shall he be bound apprentice? Given your Hero, is he to become ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... he chose a design representing a cluster of flowers emanating spindle-like, from a slender stalk. Taking it to a jeweler, he sketched a border to enclose this bouquet in an oval frame, and informed the amazed lapidary that every petal and every leaf was to be designed with jewels and mounted on the ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... her conscience had long ago been pricked by her mother-in-law's spindle, and her whole moral sense infected with the belief that to keep house wisely was the end and aim of wifely duty. She reverenced Simeon for his learning and dignity, and felt proud that so simple a person ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... used by an alleged "spectre" to torture a "sufferer," the said iron spindle not being discernible by the by-standers until it became visible by being snatched by the sufferer from the spectre's hand, was there any self-delusion there? Was it not merely wicked imposture and ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... diurnal toil, "Restoring all their ardor. Whilst the steeds, "This their celestial nourishment enjoy; "And night, as 'custom'd, governs in her turn; "The god the close apartments of his nymph "Beloved, enters;—form'd to outward view, "Eurynome her mother. Her he saw "The slender threads from spindle twirling fine, "Illumin'd by the lamp; and circled round "By twice six female helpers. Warm he gave "As a lov'd daughter, his maternal kiss, "And said;—our converse secrecy demands.— "Th' attendant maids depart,—nor hinderance ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... but that is not much. There is an air of neglect that impresses you; an air of spontaneity about the picture—for the yams and the melons, and the chile-plants, half choked with weeds, seem to grow without culture, and the sun gives warmth, so as to render almost unnecessary the operations of the spindle and ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... give a glimpse of the adult's richer livery and becomes striped, still very faintly, with pale-green, white and pink. Already the two sexes are distinguished by their antennae. Those of the future mothers are thread-like; those of the future males are distended into a spindle at the lower half, forming a case or sheath whence graceful plumes will spring ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... speaking which would be set down for absurd caricature on the boards of a comic theatre.' Lamb is described by Carlyle as 'the leanest of mankind; tiny black breeches buttoned to the knee-cap and no further, surmounting spindle legs also in black, face and head fineish, black, bony, lean, and of a Jew type rather'; and Talfourd says that the best portrait of him is his own description of Braham—'a compound of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel.' William Godwin ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... of the Vulcan reared up and bent back over the main deck. In the same instant, out of the cauldron sea, an enormous cigar-shaped object was flung end-over-end, as a child flings a spindle. There was one flashing glimpse of conning tower, smashed plates. Then a clap of surging air that seemed as solid as oak picked Madden up as if he had been thistledown. He felt himself whirling through space. Somehow, he caught a glimpse of a string of signals that had been ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling

... ingenuity, as is the fate of so many a wild, free mountain torrent. While all things else are compelled to subserve some useful purpose, it idles its sluggish life away in lazy liberty, without turning a solitary spindle or affording even water- power enough to grind the corn that grows upon its banks. The torpor of its movement allows it nowhere a bright, pebbly shore, nor so much as a narrow strip of glistening sand, in any part of its course. It slumbers between ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of the mountain, and but four or five feet wide, may be called so—Caper saw at the doors of the houses, standing chatting to each other, many old women, their white hair flying in every direction, who, as they talked, knitted stockings; or, with distaff in hand, twirled the spindle, making flax into thread for spinning, or wool into woof and web for weaving. Hearing a shuttle, he looked in at an open door, and found a young girl busily weaving a heavy blue cloth at a queer old loom; not far from her, an elderly woman was weaving flax thread into coarse, heavy linen ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... payment. Dillis, fish spears, a roasted bandicoot, a species of potatoe, wax, a bundle of tea-tree bark with dry shavings; several flints fastened with human hair to the ends of sticks, and which are used as knives to cut their skin and food; a spindle to make strings of opossum wool; and several other small utensils, were in their camp. One of my Blackfellows found a fine rock-crystal [Note at end of para.] in one of their bags, when we passed the place next day with our bullocks. The ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... in the popular language of those districts. 'On entering a house there, one will find the housewife sitting with her rock (Dan., Rok; Eng., a distaff) and spoele (Dan., Spole; Eng., spool, a small wheel on the spindle); or else she has set both her rock and her garnwindle (Dan., Garnvinde; Eng., reel or yarn-winder) aside, whilst standing by her back-bword (Dan., Bagebord; Eng., baking-board) she is about to knead dough (Dan., Deig), in order to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various

... Catalogue are designed to show the manner in which the Zui and Moki Indians use certain implements in some of their arts and industries, such as the polishing stone; rotary, stone-pointed drill; the manner of combing and dressing the hair; the spindle whorl, showing the mode of preparing the woof ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona in 1881 • James Stevenson

... stairs to an upper hall where stood a tall clock and a spindle-legged table with a vast jar of pot-pourri. A door opened, framing Jacqueline, dressed in white, and wearing her mother's wedding veil. "I knew your step," she said. "Oh, Unity, you are good ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... the blood," Gray said finally, "and then you make light of my socialistic vapourings, as you call them. My mother's clan—and it is from the spindle side that a man gets his traits—are all come-outers as far back as I know anything about them. They fought with Cromwell—some of them; they came over and robbed the Indians in true sanctimonious fashion, ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... and graceful shaping of the molten substance, while airy stem or globe were blown into being by the breath of man, to be afterwards carved into exquisite designs upon the emery-wheel, or graven against the spindle, all with a dexterity that seemed simply marvelous to her ignorance, she decided in her own mind that a master at glass working was not an artisan, ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... that solemn vice of greatness, pride: I meant each softest virtue there should meet, Fit in that softer bosom to reside. Only a learned and a manly soul I purposed her, that should, with even powers, The rock, the spindle, and the shears, control, Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours. Such when I meant to feign, and wished to see, My Muse bade, BEDFORD write, and ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... aunt in the long parlor, playing Patience. She was sitting in a straight-backed chair,—for Mrs. Dale scorned the weakness of a rocking-chair,—before a spindle-legged table, covered with green baize and with a cherry-wood rim inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. On it were thirteen groups of cards, arranged with geometrical exactness at intervals ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... reformers were as great sticklers for medals as the "papelins." Of Pope John VIII., an effeminate voluptuary, we have a medal with his portrait, inscribed Pope Joan! and another of Innocent X., dressed as a woman holding a spindle; the reverse, his famous mistress, Donna Olympia, dressed as a Pope, with the tiara on her head, and the keys of St. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli



Words linked to "Spindle" :   mandril, wood, spindle-tree family, holding device, rotating shaft, spindle-shaped, arbor, fiber, spindle-shanked, piece, biology, biological science, shaft, spike, spinning wheel, spindle-legged, drive, mandrel, spinning frame, spindle tree, winged spindle tree, stick, fibre



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