thread
/ˈθɹɛd/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.44 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A cord formed by spinning or twisting together textile fibers or filaments into one or more continuous strands, typically used in needlework.
noun
A piece of yarn, especially said of warps and wefts in a woven fabric.
noun
Any of various natural (as spiderweb, etc.) or manufactured filaments (as glass, plastic, metal, etc.).
noun
A screw thread.
noun
The continuing course of life; the thread of life.
Example Sentences
- "Woolen threads were an occult means, according to the Roman poet Horace, of depriving a person of virility."
- "the threads of a spiderweb"
- "He walked. To the corner of Hamilton Place and Picadilly, and there stayed for a while, for it is a romantic station by night. The vague and careless rain looked like threads of gossamer silver passing across the light of the arc-lamps."
- "a thread of water"
- "I’ve lost the thread of what you’re saying."
- "I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings."
Etymology
From Middle English thred, þred, threed, from Old English þrǣd, from Proto-Germanic *þrēduz, from Proto-Indo-European *treh₁-tu-s, from *terh₁- (“rub, twist”). Cognates Cognate with Yola dreade (“thread”), Saterland Frisian Träid (“thread, wire”), Cimbrian draat (“string, thread”), Dutch draad (“thread, wire”), German Draht (“thread, wire”), Luxembourgish Drot (“wire”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish tråd (“thread, wire”), Faroese tráður (“thread”), Icelandic þráður (“thread”). Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian dredh (“twist, turn”). More at throw.