Lathe
Pronunciation
- UK enPR: lÄth IPA: /leɪð/
- Rhymes: -eɪð
Origin 1
From Middle English lathen, from Old English laþian ("to invite, summon, call upon, ask"), from Proto-Germanic *laþÅnÄ… ("to invite"), from Proto-Indo-European *lÄ“y- ("to want, desire"). Cognate with German laden ("to invite"), Icelandic laða ("to attract"), Albanian ledhë ("to flatter, spoil, caress").
Alternative forms
Origin 2
From Middle English *lath, from Old English lǣþ ("a division of a county containing several hundreds, a district, lathe").
Alternative forms
Noun
lathe
(plural lathes)- (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.
Origin 3
Middle English lath ("turning-lathe; stand"), from Old Norse hlað ("pile, heap")—compare dialectal Danish lad ("stand, support frame") (as in drejelad ("turning-lathe"), savelad ("saw bench")), dialectal Norwegian la, lad ("pile, small wall"), dialectal Swedish lad ("folding table, lay of a loom")—from hlaða ("to load"). More at lade.
Noun
lathe
(plural lathes)- A machine tool used to shape a piece of material, or workpiece, by rotating the workpiece against a cutting tool.He shaped the bedpost by turning it on a lathe.
- 1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part II Chapter IV, translated by Eleanor Marx-AvelingOf the windows of the village there was one yet more often occupied; for on Sundays from morning to night, and every morning when the weather was bright, one could see at the dormer-window of the garret the profile of Monsieur Binet bending over his lathe, whose monotonous humming could be heard at the Lion d'Or.
- The movable swing frame of a loom, carrying the reed for separating the warp threads and beating up the weft; a lay, or batten.
- (obsolete) A granary; a barn.