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spindle

spindle is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 7 senses. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.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.
  2. 2.The fusee of a watch.
  3. 3.A long and slender stalk resembling a spindle.
  4. 4.A yarn measure containing, in cotton yarn, 15,120 yards; in linen yarn, 14,400 yards.
  5. 5.(Geom.) A solid generated by the revolution of a curved line about its base or double ordinate or chord.
  6. 6.(Zoöl.) (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. (Zoöl.) See Spindle, 7. above. -- Spindle side, the female side in descent; in the female line; opposed to spear side. Ld. Lytton. [R.] "King Lycaon, grandson, by the spindle side, of Oceanus." Lowell. -- Spindle tree (Bot.), any shrub or tree of the genus Eunymus. The wood of E. Europæus was used for spindles and skewers. See Prickwood.
  7. 7.To shoot or grow into a long, slender stalk or body; to become disproportionately tall and slender. It has begun to spindle into overintellectuality. Lowell.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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