lathe

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. 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.
2. v. To cut or shape on a lathe.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. n. A barn or granary.
4. 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.
5. To invite; bid; ask.
6. A Middle English form of loath.
7. A Middle English form of loathe.
8. n. See sanding-machine.

Wiktionary

1. 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.
2. v. transitive To invite; bid; ask.
3. n. A machine tool used to shape a piece of material, or workpiece, by rotating the workpiece against a cutting tool.
4. 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.
5. n. obsolete A granary; a barn.
6. v. To shape with a lathe.
7. v. computer graphics To produce a 3D model by rotating a set of points around a fixed axis.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. 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.
2. n. obsolete A granary; a barn.
3. 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.
4. n. The movable swing frame of a loom, carrying the reed for separating the warp threads and beating up the weft; -- called also lay and batten.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. machine tool for shaping metal or wood; the workpiece turns about a horizontal axis against a fixed tool