lathe
/leɪð/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.91 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An administrative division of the county of Kent, in England, from the Anglo-Saxon period until it fell entirely out of use in the early twentieth century.
Obsolete
noun
A machine tool used to shape a piece of material, or workpiece, by rotating the workpiece against a cutting tool.
noun
The movable swing frame of a loom, carrying the reed for separating the warp threads and beating up the weft.
verb
To shape with a lathe.
Example Sentences
- "He shaped the bedpost by turning it on a lathe."
- "The accidental amputation was due to the guard not being on the lathe."
- "1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part II Chapter IV, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling Of the windows of the village there was one yet more often occupied; for on Sundays from morning to night, and every morning when the weather was bright, one could see at the dormer-window of the garret the profile of Monsieur Binet bending over his lathe, whose monotonous humming could be heard at the Lion d'Or."
- "[…]lathe, a barn, is still used in some parts of Yorkshire, but chiefly in local designations, being otherwise obsolescent ; see the Cleveland and Whitby glossaries. ‘The northern man writing to his neighbor may say, “My lathe standeth neer the kirkegarth,” for My barn standeth neere the churchyard’"
Etymology
From Middle English lathen, from Old English laþian (“to invite, summon, call upon, ask”), from Proto-West Germanic *laþōn, from Proto-Germanic *laþōną (“to invite”), from Proto-Indo-European *lēy- (“to want, desire”). Cognate with German laden (“to invite”), Icelandic laða (“to attract”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /leɪð/
Usage
- British usage
- Transitive verb
- Obsolete