spindle

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A rod or pin, tapered at one end and usually weighted at the other, on which fibers are spun by hand into thread and then wound.
2. n. A similar rod or pin used for spinning on a spinning wheel.
3. n. A pin or rod holding a bobbin or spool on which thread is wound on an automated spinning machine.
4. n. Any of various mechanical parts that revolve or serve as axes for larger revolving parts, as in a lock, axle, phonograph turntable, or lathe.
5. n. Any of various long thin stationary rods, as:
6. n. A spike on which papers may be impaled.
7. n. A baluster.
8. n. Biology The spindle-shaped achromatic structure, composed of microtubules, along which the chromosomes are distributed in mitosis and meiosis.
9. n. Coastal New Jersey See dragonfly. See Regional Note at dragonfly.
10. v. To furnish or equip with a spindle or spindles.
11. v. To impale or perforate on a spindle: Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate this card.
12. v. To grow into a thin, elongated, or weak form.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In hand-spinning, a small bar, usually of wood, hung to the end of the thread as it is first drawn from the mass of fiber on the distaff. By rotating the spindle, the spinner twists the thread, and as the thread is spun it is wound upon the spindle.
2. n. The pin which is used in spinning-wheels for twisting the thread, and on which the thread, when twisted, is wound. See cut under spinning-wheel.
3. n. One of the skewers or axes of a spinning-machine upon which a bobbin is placed to wind the yarn as it is spun. See cut under spinning-jenny.
4. n. Any slender pointed rod or pin which turns round, or on which anything turns. A small axle or axis, in contradistinction to a shaft or large axle, as the arbor or mandrel in a lathe: as, the spindle of a vane; the spindle of the fusee of a watch. See dead-spindle, live-spindle.
5. n. Something having the form of spindle (sense 1); a fusiform object. The grip of a sword.
6. n. The roll of not yet unfolded leaves on a growing plant of Indian corn.
7. n. In conchology, a spindle shell.
8. n. In anatomy, a fusiform part or organ.
9. n. A spindle-cell.
10. n. The inner segment of a rod or cone of the bacillary layer of the retina. See cut under retina.
11. n. In embryology, one of the fusiform figures produced by chromatin fibers in the process of karyokinesis.
12. n. In geometry, a solid generated by the revolution of the arc of a curve-line about its chord, in opposition to a conoid, which is a solid generated by the revolution of a curve about its axis. The spindle is denominated circular, elliptic, hyperbolic, or parabolic, according to the figure of its generating curve.
13. n. A measure of yarn: in cotton a spindle of 18 hanks is 15.120 yards; in linen a spindle of 48 cuts is 14,400 yards.
14. n. A long slender stalk.
15. n. Something very thin and slender.
16. To shoot or grow in a long, slender stalk or body.

Wiktionary

1. n. A rod used for spinning and then winding natural fibres (especially wool), usually consisting of a shaft and a circular whorl positioned at either the upper or lower end of the shaft when suspended vertically from the forming thread.
2. n. A rod which turns, or on which something turns.
3. n. A rotary axis of a machine tool or power tool.
4. n. A worldwide tree of the genus Euonymus, originally used for making the spindles used for spinning wool.
5. n. An upright spike for holding paper documents by skewering.
6. v. To make into a long tapered shape.
7. v. To impale on a device for holding paper documents.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The long, round, slender rod or pin in spinning wheels by which the thread is twisted, and on which, when twisted, it is wound; also, the pin on which the bobbin is held in a spinning machine, or in the shuttle of a loom.
2. n. A slender rod or pin on which anything turns; an axis.
3. n. (Mach.) The shaft, mandrel, or arbor, in a machine tool, as a lathe or drilling machine, etc., which causes the work to revolve, or carries a tool or center, etc.
4. n. (Mach.) The vertical rod on which the runner of a grinding mill turns.
5. n. (Founding) A shaft or pipe on which a core of sand is formed.
6. n. The fusee of a watch.
7. n. A long and slender stalk resembling a spindle.
8. n. A yarn measure containing, in cotton yarn, 15,120 yards; in linen yarn, 14,400 yards.
9. n. (Geom.) A solid generated by the revolution of a curved line about its base or double ordinate or chord.
10. n. Any marine univalve shell of the genus Rostellaria; -- called also spindle stromb.
11. n. Any marine gastropod of the genus Fusus.
12. v. To shoot or grow into a long, slender stalk or body; to become disproportionately tall and slender.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a piece of wood that has been turned on a lathe; used as a baluster, chair leg, etc.
2. n. any holding device consisting of a rigid, sharp-pointed object
3. n. a stick or pin used to twist the yarn in spinning
4. n. (biology) tiny fibers that are seen in cell division; the fibers radiate from two poles and meet at the equator in the middle
5. n. any of various rotating shafts that serve as axes for larger rotating parts