Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Firm-textured, compactly twisted woolen yarn made from long-staple fibers.
- n. Fabric made from such yarn.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A variety of woolen yarn or thread, spun from long-staple wool which has been combed, and in the spinning is twisted harder than is usual. It is knitted or woven into stockings, carpets, etc.
- n. Woolen yarn for ornamental needlework and knitting. The principal varieties are Berlin wool; zephyr-wool, which is very soft, and of which there are several grades, as single zephyr, double zephyr, split zephyr; Andalusian wool, which is tightly twisted; Shetland and Pyrenean, which are of finer qualities; and leviathan, which is very full and soft, and designed for embroidery on coarse canvas.
- Consisting of worsted; made of worsted yarn: as, worsted stockings.
Wiktionary
- n. Yarn made from long strands of wool.
- n. The fine, smooth fabric made from such wool yarn.
- v. Simple past tense and past participle of worst.
- adj. Defeated, overcome.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Well-twisted yarn spun of long-staple wool which has been combed to lay the fibers parallel, used for carpets, cloth, hosiery, gloves, and the like.
- n. Fine and soft woolen yarn, untwisted or lightly twisted, used in knitting and embroidery.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a woolen fabric with a hard textured surface and no nap; woven of worsted yarns
- n. a tightly twisted woolen yarn spun from long-staple wool
Etymologies
- Participle adjective of the verb worst. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, variant of worthstede, after Worthstede (Worstead), a village of eastern England. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Shakspeare has not been very courteous towards the _worsted gentry_; had he lived in our times, they might have _worsted_ him for a libel: he says in King Lear, "A base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three suited, hundred pound, filthy, worsted stocking knave.”
The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction Volume 14, No. 391, September 26, 1829
“For the first lesson I had two balls, one made in worsted, large and soft, the other a bullet.”
“* Yet a lady of not less than fifty years of age, placed herself at the same time under his instruction, and executed a large piece of worsted from a good mezzotinto print – a cupid and lion.”
Autobiography and Other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert, Formerly Ann Taylor
“These will be from Ann Budd’s Getting Started Knitting Socks, the 5-Stitches-Per-Inch socks in worsted-weight yarn.”
The Fiber Fulcrum – Shawls, Stoles, Scarves & Socks « Looking for Roots
“For many years, worsted-weight acrylic yarn was called 4-ply acrylic, but is increasingly known as worsted, because a 4-ply yarn might not be worsted weight if the four plies used to create it are not the size required to make that your weight.”
“On such occasions I would recommend the following method: -- First, draw the fowl, reserving the gizzard and liver to be tucked under the wings; truss the fowl with skewers, and tie it to the end of a skein of worsted, which is to be fastened to a nail stuck in the chimney-piece, so that the fowl may dangle rather close to the fire, in order to roast it.”
“Should the Turks be at all worsted, which is probable, of course we must increase our assistance.”
“In no description of manufacture connected with the woollen trade has machinery been more fertile in improvements than in what may be termed the worsted stuff trade.”
“The long is used for worsted, which is finished when it leaves the loom; the short for cloth, which is compacted together, increased in bulk and diminished in breadth, by fulling; that is, so beating as to take advantage of the serrated edges of the wool which lead it to felt together.”
“The English-Latin dictionary also had a translation for woosted: woosted being the old form of "worsted", the spinning term.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘worsted’.
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Steampunk
Words used quite often in steampunk
ansible, airship, chymical, valve, clockwork, dirigible, thaumaturgy, copper, bronze, difference engine, gear, rivets and 516 more...
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Knitting
Add anything you like--I'm sure we can stitch it all together somehow.
knit, knitting, yarn, K, P, YO, SSK, loop, cast on, stockinette, purl, knit two together and 54 more...
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and ...
Words that, as I see it, have some fond connection to the Alice stories through their creation or particular use by Lewis Carroll. I mean to tie them all together with contexty comments!
alice, daisy-chain, white rabbit, waistcoat-pocket, rabbit-hole, marmalade, antipathy, antipode, curtsey, dinah, tea-time, rat-hole and 232 more...
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Sense and Sensibility
Words from the book by Jane Austen.
shew, shewn, shewing, shewed, dupe, wither, rambled, extorting, cavil, rap, mildness, controuled and 133 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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billfence's Words
quotidian, flux, sawbuck, horsefeathers, chalcedony, harp, no, fox, tennis, badminton, flue, charm and 186 more...
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imogen's Words
coagitate, cloche, harum-scarum, foxglove, cryptolect, cant, roux, angora, duff, ulysse, schadenfreude, pepperpot and 315 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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heart of darkness
yawl, sea-reach, offing, barge, sprit, estuary, yarn, aft, mizzenmast, placid, gauzy, diaphanous and 141 more...
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Sweet Smoke of Rhetoric
The ones with which I flavor my speech, and the ones I love to find peppered in literature.
perspicacious, acerbic, vituperation, loquacious, castigate, vitriolic, scintillating, provenance, frolic, attendant, pursuant, epistemology and 313 more...
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...another list...
I've no idea where I got this page full of words, but whatever it is, I want to find it again. May have duplicate words from other lists.
bicameral, aphelion, dirigible, parhelion, flocculus, vernier, corticate, oxalis, pandanus, calabash, plumbago, jonquil and 217 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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Oh them words, them words
My fancies, my cudgels.
liquescent, ferly, lamia, basilisk, trigon, fantast, stirp, tristesse, enfleurage, stemma, formicary, lacrimation and 346 more...
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Vanity Fair
sunshiny, equipage, wherry, affidavit, gimcracks, nabobs, palanquin, toxophilite, psha, superabundant, pomatums, finikin and 128 more...
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favorite words
sawbones, grackle, celadon, brio, loam, trull, mint, saliva, serape, frisson, impasto, reek and 547 more...
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What's next here?
thunderhead, thundercloud, cumulus, cumulonimbus, fibrous, hazy, glaciated, cirrus, nimbus, meteorology, fahrenheit, thermoscope and 285 more...
Tweets
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