spindle

«spindle» in Mova's school dictionary: A thin, pointed stick used in hand spinning to twist wool… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a spindle, spindles)

meaning for a pupil

1) A thin, pointed stick used in hand spinning to twist wool or other fibres into thread. tree →

2) A rod or pin in a machine that turns round, or around which something turns. tree →

3) (adjective form spindly) Long and thin, like spindly legs. tree →

sense in the lessons

In history, people spun yarn with a spindle before spinning wheels and mills. In the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, the princess pricks her finger on a spindle and falls asleep for a hundred years. In science and DT, a spindle is a turning part of a machine. A «spindle tree» is a hedgerow tree whose wood was used for spindles.

examples

• The princess pricked her finger on the spindle. tree →
• The woman twisted the wool onto her spindle. tree →
• The spinning wheel has a spindle that turns very fast. tree →
• Spiders have long, spindly legs. tree →
• The door handle fell off its spindle. tree →
• Before mills, all thread was made with a spindle. tree →
• This good woman had never heard of the King's proclamation against spindles. tree →

note

Countable. Adjective spindly (long and thin, weak-looking).

In the corpora

• She layeth her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «spindle» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.