Definitions

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

  • noun 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.
  • transitive verb To cut or shape on a lathe.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun 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.
  • noun A barn or granary.
  • A Middle English form of loath.
  • A Middle English form of loathe.
  • noun See sanding-machine.
  • noun 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.
  • noun 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.

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

  • noun 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.
  • noun obsolete A granary; a barn.
  • noun (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.
  • noun 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.
  • noun a lathe for turning irregular forms after a given pattern, as lasts, gunstocks, and the like.
  • noun a small lathe which, from its high speed, is adapted for drilling; a hand lathe.
  • noun a turning lathe in which the cutting tool has an automatic feed; -- used chiefly for turning and boring metals, cutting screws, etc.
  • noun a lathe which is driven by a treadle worked by the foot.
  • noun a lathe operated by hand; a power turning lathe without an automatic feed for the tool.
  • noun an engine lathe.
  • noun a small lathe worked by one hand, while the cutting tool is held in the other.

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

  • verb transitive To invite; bid; ask.
  • noun 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.
  • noun A machine tool used to shape a piece of material, or workpiece, by rotating the workpiece against a cutting tool.
  • noun The movable swing frame of a loom, carrying the reed for separating the warp threads and beating up the weft; a lay, or batten.
  • noun obsolete A granary; a barn.
  • verb To shape with a lathe.
  • verb computer graphics To produce a 3D model by rotating a set of points around a fixed axis.

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

  • noun machine tool for shaping metal or wood; the workpiece turns about a horizontal axis against a fixed tool

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, a device used by coopers, perhaps a turning lathe, probably of Scandinavian origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English lathen, from Old English laþian ("to invite, summon, call upon, ask"), from Proto-Germanic *laþōnan (“to invite”), from Proto-Indo-European *lēy- (“to want, desire”). Cognate with German laden ("to invite"), Icelandic laða ("to attract"), Albanian ledhë ("to flatter, spoil, caress").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English *lath, from Old English lǣþ ("a division of a county containing several hundreds, a district, lathe").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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.

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