Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A tag or sheath, as of plastic, on the end of a lace, cord, or ribbon to facilitate its passing through eyelet holes.
  • noun A similar device used for an ornament.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A tag or metal sheathing of the end of a lace, or of the points (see point) or ribbons generally used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to fasten or tie dresses.
  • noun In botany, a pendent anther; also, a loose pendent catkin, as of the birch.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A tag of a lace or of the points, braids, or cords formerly used in dress. They were sometimes formed into small images.
  • noun (Haberdashery) A round white staylace.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative spelling of aiglet.
  • noun The cover at the tip of a shoelace, to prevent it from fraying.
  • noun A catkin.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun metal or plastic sheath over the end of a shoelace or ribbon
  • noun ornamental tagged cord or braid on the shoulder of a uniform

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French aguillette, diminutive of aguille, needle, from Vulgar Latin *acūcula, from Late Latin acucula, diminutive of Latin acus, needle; see ak- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • And the little metal ring that reinforces the rim of the eyelet through which the aglet passes.

    Underworld Don Delillo 2008

  • And the little metal ring that reinforces the rim of the eyelet through which the aglet passes.

    Underworld Don Delillo 2008

  • And the little metal ring that reinforces the rim of the eyelet through which the aglet passes.

    Underworld Don Delillo 2008

  • Rebuilding the aglet that allows cells to divide helps those cancer cells reproduce and spread.

    You Staying Young MEHMET C. OZ 2007

  • Rebuilding the aglet that allows cells to divide helps those cancer cells reproduce and spread.

    You Staying Young MEHMET C. OZ 2007

  • Rebuilding the aglet that allows cells to divide helps those cancer cells reproduce and spread.

    You Staying Young MEHMET C. OZ 2007

  • Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind is: why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an aglet-baby; or an old trot with ne’er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as two-and-fifty horses: why, nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.

    Act I. Scene II. The Taming of the Shrew 1914

  • Page view page image: beauty of the season; the large moist flakes that fell in the morning had furred and mossed every limb and twig, each minute process and filament, each aglet and thread, as if the pure spirits of the air had undertaken to frost the trees for the marriage festival of their Prince.

    Margaret 1851

  • The telomeres being studied in Lee's project act as a kind of protective cap for chromosomal ends - much like the plastic aglet at the end of a shoelace, for example - allowing cells to retain their biological information.

    Newswise: Latest News 2009

  • January 16th, 2008 at 1: 03 pm baedo says: that’s an aglet, pauly … the shoelace thingy.

    WHAT’S ALMOST AS PLAYED OUT AS ZOMBIES? 2008

Comments

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  • Their true purpose is sinister.

    April 5, 2009

  • Fortunately practice in tying laces makes one do it dextrously.

    April 5, 2009