Flax
[flæks]
Definition
(noun.) plant of the genus Linum that is cultivated for its seeds and for the fibers of its stem.
(noun.) fiber of the flax plant that is made into thread and woven into linen fabric.
Checked by Balder--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) A plant of the genus Linum, esp. the L. usitatissimum, which has a single, slender stalk, about a foot and a half high, with blue flowers. The fiber of the bark is used for making thread and cloth, called linen, cambric, lawn, lace, etc. Linseed oil is expressed from the seed.
(n.) The skin or fibrous part of the flax plant, when broken and cleaned by hatcheling or combing.
Checker: Mollie
Definition
n. the fibres of the plant Linum which are woven into linen cloth: the flax-plant.—ns. Flax′-comb a toothed instrument or heckle for cleaning the fibres of flax; Flax′-dress′er one who prepares flax for the spinner by the successive processes of rippling retting grassing breaking and scutching.—adj. Flax′en made of or resembling flax: fair long and flowing.—ns. Flax′-mill a mill for working flax into linen; Flax′-seed linseed; Flax′-wench a female who spins flax.—adj. Flax′y like flax: of a light colour.—New Zealand flax a valuable fibre quite different from common flax obtained from the leaf of Phormium tenax the flax lily or flax bush.
Edited by Eileen
Unserious Contents or Definition
To see flax in a dream, prosperous enterprises are denoted.
Checker: Victoria
Examples
- It does not, however, like the American bounty, extend to the importation of undressed flax. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- Later he took English patents on a machine for spinning flax, and on a new device for twisting hemp rope. Rupert S. Holland. Historic Inventions.
- It covered carding, drawing, and roving machines for use in preparing silk, cotton, flax, and wool for spinning. Rupert S. Holland. Historic Inventions.
- Foreign materials are, upon this account, sometimes allowed to be imported duty-free; spanish wool, for example, flax, and raw linen yarn. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- Harvesters for grass and grain have been supplemented by Corn, Cotton, Potato and Flax Harvesters. William Henry Doolittle. Inventions in the Century.
- The employer of the flax dressers would, in selling his flax, require an additional five per cent. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- Flax, wool, silk, and cotton have been supplemented with the fibres of metal, of glass, of cocoanut, pine needles, ramie, wood-pulp, and of many other plants, leaves and grasses. Edward W. Byrn. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
- The price of flax resolves itself into the same three parts as that of corn. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- If, in the linen manufacture, for example, the wages of the different working people, the flax-dressers, the spinners, the weavers, etc. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- In the price of linen we must add to this price the wages of the flax-dresser, of the spinner, of the weaver, of the bleacher, etc. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
Typed by Clarissa