hackle

Meanings

Noun

• An instrument with steel pins used to comb out flax or hemp.
• One of the long, narrow feathers on the neck of birds, most noticeable on the rooster.
• A feather used to make a fishing lure or a fishing lure incorporating a feather.
• By extension (because the hackles of a rooster are lifted when it is angry), the hair on the nape of the neck in dogs and other animals; also used figuratively for humans.
• A type of jagged crack extending inwards from the broken surface of a fractured material.
• A plate with rows of pointed needles used to blend or straighten hair.
• A feather plume on some soldier's uniforms, especially the hat or helmet.
• Any flimsy substance unspun, such as raw silk.

Verb

• To dress (flax or hemp) with a hackle; to prepare fibres of flax or hemp for spinning.
• To separate, as the coarse part of flax or hemp from the fine, by drawing it through the teeth of a hackle or hatchel.
• To tear asunder; to break into pieces.

Origin

• From Middle English hakle (compare the compound meshakele), from Old English hæcla, hacele, from Proto-Germanic *hakulǭ, equivalent to hack + -le. Cognate with Dutch hekel, German Hechel.