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hackling

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“

It was one of the surprises of flax preparation to see how little good fibre would be left after all this hackling, even from a large mass of raw material, but it was equally surprising to see how much linen thread could be made from this small amount of fine flax.

—Home Life in Colonial Days

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Definitions (2)

American Heritage Dictionary

Century Dictionary (2)

In flax-manuf., the process of removing from the flax everything which would be detrimental in spinning, and of making the fibers smooth, parallel, and of equal length. The combs used are of zinc or steel, and are of varying degrees of fineness, the process beginning with a coarse comb and ending with a fine one. Also called combing.
Hackles collectively, as material for making artificial flies.

GNU Webster's 1913

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Examples (18)

An audience that can be quiet when in need, a clapping crowd when appreciative or hackling monsters when they must. — Brit Lit Blogs
It was one of the surprises of flax preparation to see how little good fibre would be left after all this hackling, even from a large mass of raw material, but it was equally surprising to see how much linen thread could be made from this small amount of fine flax. — Home Life in Colonial Days
The hackling was accomplished by means of the simplest devices, such as pounding with hammers or sticks. — Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States Thirteenth Annual Report of the Beaurau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1891-1892, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896 pages 3-46
All that day, whilst the industrious grummelfuhr hackled and received good cheer in the form of krapfen, for hackling is hard work, Moro attended in the character of a kind but strict overseer. — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873
I should have softened it first by a hackling process, as we used to hackle the hemp in Kentucky; but I did not. — Europe Revised

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Etymologies (1)

Century Dictionary (1)

Verbal noun of hackle, v.

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