Spinning

(spinning.) (Manuf.) The act or art of uniting fibres of silk, flax, hemp, wool, hair, or other materials into thread. It is either performed on the wheel with a distaff and spindle, or by machinery. Among the Greeks and Romans, S. was the chief employment of the women; the rites of marriage directed their attention to it, and the distaff and fleece were not only the emblems, but the objects of the most important domestic duties of a wife. [s. 847]