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Glite Dictionary
🧵 Making yarn 🚴 Indoor cycling
spinning

spinning

12 3.1
Making yarn by pulling and twisting fibers
  • noun
  • /ˈspɪnɪŋ/
  • Specialized
translation icon : hilado
  • That's where you find children carding wool, spinning wool for long hours.
  • spinning and weaving
  • spinning wheel
  • cotton spinning

Examples

  • She spent the afternoon spinning thread from colorful fibers to create beautiful patterns.

  • You are going over to that spinning wheel and you are going to make me a suit.

    The Shrink Is In (2001)

  • Set up my spinning wheel, girls.

    Giant (1956)

  • The king locks the girl in a room filled with straw and a spinning wheel.

    Academic text (2018)

  • Eakins's sister even took spinning lessons so she could model for him.

    Academic text (2002)

  • King Stefan ordered his men to seize every spinning wheel in the kingdom.

    Maleficent (2014)

  • A young woman sat at one of the spinning wheels, lost in her own world of daydreams.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • During the Civil War, antique spinning wheels appeared in fund-raising fairs from New York City to Saint Louis.

    Academic text (2002)

  • -I gathered the silk from my silkworms and I spun it into thread on my spinning wheel.

    Enchanted (2007)

  • La Canocchia means the distaff and a distaff is used in spinning and weaving.

Compounds

spinning wheel
4 3.7

A small machine that turns wool and other fibers into yarn by hand or foot

head-spinning
  • Informal
3 6.8

Causes strong confusion and makes you feel overwhelmed

spinning rod
  • Specialized
1 3.6

A fishing rod for throwing light lures using a spinning reel

spinning top
1 1.3

A small toy that turns quickly on a sharp point

spinning wheel
  • Specialized
1 4.2

A small circle on the screen that spins to show the computer is busy

metal spinning lathe
  • Specialized
8.3

A machine that turns a metal piece fast while a tool shapes it

spinning frame
  • Specialized
5.8

A machine that pulls, twists, and winds fibers into yarn

spinning jenny
  • Archaic
9.3

A machine that makes many threads of yarn at once

spinning machine
  • Specialized
3.4

A device that twists fibers into yarn or thread

web-spinning mite
  • Specialized
8.4

A tiny animal that makes fine webs on plant leaves and eats them

yarn-spinning
  • Informal
7.7

Tends to tell long, exciting stories about unlikely events

How Mechanized

warping machine
  • Specialized
7.9
spinning machine
  • Specialized
3.4
spinning
  • Specialized
12 3.1

Surface Forms

spinning singular
spinnings plural

Morphology

spinning = spin (transparent) = spin + ing

The noun is a direct nominalization of the verb 'spin' referring specifically to the textile process; learners who know 'spin' and the -ing nominalization pattern can infer the meaning.

Etymology

Spinning comes from the old verb spin, which means 'to twist' or 'turn'. It is the same root as spindle, a small stick used to make thread, so spinning is the twisting of fibers to make yarn.