Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A machine for shaping a piece of material, such as wood or metal, by rotating it rapidly along its axis while pressing a fixed cutting or abrading tool against it.
- v. To cut or shape on a lathe.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A machine for working wood, metals, or other substances by causing the material to turn with greater or less speed, according to the nature of the material and the work to be performed, before a tool which is held at rest relatively to the peripheral motion of the object operated upon. Lathes are used for turning, cutting, chasing, filing, polishing, screw-cutting, engraving, and shaping, as in metal-spinning. They range in size from a jewelers' lathe for polishing the finest metal-work. through the various wood-turning lathes, to the large machine-lathes for turning locomotive-wheels, and the heavy machines for polishing stone and marble columns for architectural purposes. The ancient potters' wheel is probably the prototype of the modern lathe. The common wood-turning lathe may be taken as a type of these machines. It consists essentially of the bed or main horizontal frame, the poppets, and the rest or support of the tool used in operating the lathe. The poppets can be moved into different positions and clamped on the bed, and form at the left the live or moving head-stock, connected directly with the source of power, and at the right the dead or stationary head-stock, sometimes called
tail-stock . The work or material is placed between these, and is supported by a live-centre in the live head-stock and a dead-center in the dead head-stock; and in the ordinary lathe the cutting is performed concentrically with the axis joining these centers, the material being rotated by the live head-stock. By the adjustment of the poppets on the bed the lathe may be adapted to receive different lengths of material. Usually the dead head-stock only is moved toward or away from the live head-stock in making this adjustment. Facing the work, and clamped to the bed between the poppets, is the tool-rest, on which, in hand-turning, the tool rests as on a fulcrum at a point very near the work, being held in the working position by the hands of the turner, which grasp the outwardly projecting handle of the tool. Such a lathe is driven at high speed, and the amount and character of the turning are controlled by the workman who holds the tool on the tool-rest and before the work. The side-rest is a movable tool-rest carrying an adjustable tool-stock or tool-post in which the tool is rigidly clamped. It slides on longitudinal guideways formed on the bed of the lathe, this movement being controlled by a screw and sometimes being automatic. The tool-rest may be double, presenting two tools, one on each side of the work, as in the duplex lathe. The tool may also be controlled by a templet or model, and shift its position automatically, as in the lathe for turning irregular forms, the nulled-work lathe, spoke-lathe, and last-lathe, of which the Blanchard lathe is the original type. Iron-turning requires a much slower speed than brass-turning, and wood-turning a higher speed than brass. Large metal-lathes are said to be of large swing; that is, the space between the centers and the bed ia great, to admit of turning large objects. In one form of these machine-lathes an opening is made in the bed to permit the work to turn or to give large swing, as in the gap-bed lathe. In many kinds of turning the dead head-stock is not used, the material to be turned being attached to a lathe-chuck, or to a face-plate carried by the live head-stock. Lathes are nearly all described by their names, as beadwork-lathe, button-lathe, foot-lathe, shafting-lathe, etc., the name sometimes referring to some feature of the construction, as the hollow mandrel lathe, and sometimes to the material or work, as the hat-ironing lathe. - n. That part of a loom in which the reed is fixed, and by the movements of which the weft-threads are laid parallel to each other, shot after shot, in the process of weaving. According to the greater or less impulse of the lathe, the weft is laid more or less closely together in the plane of the web. Also called
batten and lay. - n. A barn or granary.
- n. In England, apart or large division of a county, comprising several hundreds: a term now confined to the county of Kent, in which there are five of these lathes or divisions. See rape.
- To invite; bid; ask.
- A Middle English form of loath.
- A Middle English form of loathe.
- n. See sanding-machine.
Wiktionary
- n. obsolete An administrative division of the county of Kent, in England, from the Anglo-Saxon period until it fell entirely out of use in the early twentieth century.
- v. transitive To invite; bid; ask.
- n. A machine tool used to shape a piece of material, or workpiece, by rotating the workpiece against a cutting tool.
- n. The movable swing frame of a loom, carrying the reed for separating the warp threads and beating up the weft; a lay, or batten.
- n. obsolete A granary; a barn.
- v. To shape with a lathe.
- v. computer graphics To produce a 3D model by rotating a set of points around a fixed axis.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Formerly, a part or division of a county among the Anglo-Saxons. At present it consists of four or five hundreds, and is confined to the county of Kent.
- n. obsolete A granary; a barn.
- n. (Mach.) A machine for turning, that is, for shaping articles of wood, metal, or other material, by causing them to revolve while acted upon by a cutting tool.
- n. The movable swing frame of a loom, carrying the reed for separating the warp threads and beating up the weft; -- called also
lay andbatten .
WordNet 3.0
- n. machine tool for shaping metal or wood; the workpiece turns about a horizontal axis against a fixed tool
Etymologies
- Middle English lath 'turning-lathe; stand', from Old Norse hlað 'pile, heap' (cf. Danish dialect lad 'stand, support frame' (as in drejelad 'turning-lathe', savelad 'saw bench'), Norwegian dialect la, lad 'pile, small wall', Swedish dialect lad 'folding table, lay of a loom'), from hlaða 'to load'. More at lade. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, a device used by coopers, perhaps a turning lathe, probably of Scandinavian origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“This casting is then placed in an instrument called a _portrait lathe_ (of which we have a very perfect one at the Mint, which I caused to be made at Paris), and reduced fac-similes of it are turned by the lathe, thus preparing for us the dies which we need.”
The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876
“Both can earn more money than each can earn separately, and the skilled man who formerly worked the second lathe is released.”
“The lathe is a circular vise that can hold a drill bit or a blade and rotates at a high rate of speed, Mr. Riggs said.”
The Wall Street Journal: Yale Student Dies in Chemistry-Lab Accident
“They use a machine called a lathe to spin the wood, and special cutting tools to shape it.”
“The lathe, which is essential to make many of the more complex tools on the Forbes list, is a mechanism for rotating work to be shaped with a knife.”
“It is selected from the in-feed scale of the lathe, which is determined by the feed gear, according to the proportion a: s.”
“A fairly high speed is desirable, and may be obtained either by foot, or, if power is available, is readily got by connecting to the speed cone of a lathe, which is presumably permanently belted to the motor.”
“The lathe was a pleasure to him, and so with bench work, and within ten days a new and larger wagon was turned out.”
“-- The important things about a lathe are the spindle bearings and the ways for the tool-holder.”
“-- The lathe is a most useful tool for boring purposes, better for some work than the drilling machine itself.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lathe’.
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SCIE - EU nomenclature
All the scientific words found in the official EU nomenclature. For the screening I used Vocabgrabber of the Visual Thesaurus.
silicon, silica, shrimp, shelve, shallot, serine, seedling, septic, secretin, seaweed, screening, Scomber and 1171 more...
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TECH - tools
A very wide category. There are possibly tens of thousands tool words in each of the world's languages.
broom, brush, feather duster, floor buffer, hataki, mop, mop bucket cart, needlegun scaler, pipe cleaner, pressure washer, sandblaster, sponge and 286 more...
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IMCO - EU nomenclature
includes words of the "Prodcom list"
veal, valve, used, yak, wax, wan, teak, vat, vas, strip, use, strap and 4515 more...
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Hazardous art materials
First, I would like to point out that the US Consumer Product Safety Commission has specific information about the Labeling of Hazardous Art Materials Act (Public Law 100-695). They say, "This law...
cadmium, cobalt, arsenic, lead, hazardous art mat..., solvents, paint thinners, turpentine, glycol ethers, chainsaw, ice pick, a well-aimed HB p... and 8 more...
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thing
apron, lard, clove, camphor, alfalfa, amber, caraway, juniper, kohl, lute, shale, glyph and 142 more...
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erinnbatykefer's Words
ewer, lace, grenadine, wick, haruspex, augur, distal, proximal, supine, labyrinthine, rivers, monongahela and 176 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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dandy's list
favourite words
cattywampus, wibble, fenagle, whisker, sneeze, wisteria, honeysuckle, clove, perihelion, glimmer, twilight, dusk and 264 more...
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Chennessy's Words
philistine, messianic, dyad, cult, bourgeois, blot, ploy, polyglot, lingua franca, cumbersome, lumber, petit-bourgeois and 446 more...
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cindywrites's Words
chiaroscuro, mollycoddle, feckless, evocative, provocative, invocation, beckon, allay, becalm, console, lull, soothe and 479 more...
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words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, L
lisle, lahar, loupe, labret, latten, luster, lagomorph, lamentation, limicole, lunge, lobtail, latifolious and 182 more...
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spicolli's Words
terrapin, ravenous, fuck, sepulchral, garlic, suss, queer, curmudgeon, foodie, intricate, omphalos, subversion and 534 more...
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beatricks's Words
tremendous, naiad, thrush, samsara, thronging, nascent, broom, aristeia, streak, susurrant, reverberate, resistentialism and 352 more...
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List Erine
cool mint antiseptic
shalom, cattywampus, bourgeoisie, aerophile, traverse, grotto, epicurean, ex cathedra, nautilus, epitaph, lathe, continuum and 753 more...
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je les adore!
fusillade, foal, celestial, abattoir, byzantium, berlin, casablanca, babylon, balkans, albion, avalon, between the devil... and 471 more...
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