Weaving

(wev'ing.) [From A. S. we van, to intertwine.] (Manuf.) The act or art of forming cloth in a loom, by the union or inter texture of threads; which is done by cro ing the threads by means of a shuttle. The threads first laid in length are called the warp; those which cro them of their breadth are called the weft or woof. W. is an art of great antiquity, and gives employment in all nations to a large portion of the population. The machinery used for W. in the earliest times, though perhaps rude in its construction, was, in principle, similar to that still in use; and the proce of fulling and preparing the cloth seems to have resembled the modern practice in every particular, except that of shearing the nap, with which the ancients do not appear to have been acquainted. Muslins are to this day manufactured by the primitive loom in India, probably without alteration of the form in use during the earliest ages of its invention. In ancient times, it is probable that only enough cloth to form a single dre was woven at once; since ancient records do not speak of its being sold by measure. The manufacture of flexible stuffs by means of machinery, operating on a large scale, is an invention of the last century; it has given birth to some of the most elaborate combinations of mechanism. The Jaquard loom, a most admirable contrivance for saving time and simplifying the proce of W. silks, ., in complicated patterns, is likely to be superseded by a more simple machine, in which electromagnetism is most ingeniously applied to the produc- [s. 954]