spindle

Meaning

1. A rod used for spinning and then winding fibres (especially wool), usually consisting of a shaft and a circular whorl positioned at either the upper or lower end of the shaft when suspended vertically from the forming thread.
2. A rod which turns, or on which something turns.
3. A rotary axis of a machine tool or power tool.
4. The axle of a bottom bracket.
5. Certain of the species of the genus Euonymus, originally used for making the spindles used for spinning wool.
6. An upright spike for holding paper documents by skewering.
7. The fusee of a watch.
8. Any long and slender stalk resembling a spindle from Euonymus.
9. A yarn measure containing, in cotton yarn, 15,120 yards; in linen yarn, 14,400 yards.
10. A solid generated by the revolution of a curved line about its base or double ordinate or chord.
11. Any marine univalve shell of the genus Tibia; a spindle stromb.
12. Any marine gastropod with a spindle-shaped shell formerly in one of the three invalid genera called Fusus.
13. To make into a long tapered shape.
14. To take on a long tapered shape.
15. To impale on a device for holding paper documents.
16. A surname transferred from the nickname.

Etymology / origin

From Middle English spyndel, spindle, spyndylle, from Old English spindle, spindel, alteration of earlier spinel, spinil, spinl (“spindle”), from Proto-West Germanic *spinnilu (“spindle”), equivalent to spin + -le. Cognate with Scots spindil, spinnell (“spindle”), Dutch spindel ("spindle"; < Middle Dutch spille, spinle), German Spindel (“spindle”), Danish spindel (“spindle”), Swedish spindel (“spindle”). The dragonfly sense (noun sense 14) is a calque of Swedish slända (dragonfly/spindle); this word was introduced by New Sweden settlers.

Related words

Descendant words

• Spëndel(Luxembourgish) (cog)

Sources

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