heddle

Meanings

Noun

• A component in a loom, being one of a number of similar components, through the eye of each of which a distinct strand of the warp is threaded.
• One of the sets of parallel doubled threads which, with mounting, compose the harness employed to guide the warp threads to the lathe or batten in a loom.

Verb

• To thread each strand of the warp through the eye of a heddle.

Related

Similar words

• heald

Origin

• From Middle English helde, from Old English hefeld, from the root of Proto-Germanic *habjaną ("to have, heave"), from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂p-. Cognate with Old Saxon hevild, Middle Low German hevelte, Icelandic hafald.