Spindle

Part of speech: noun (n.)

1. The long, round, slender rod or pin in spinning wheels by which the thread is twisted, and on which, when twisted, it is wound; also, the pin on which the bobbin is held in a spinning machine, or in the shuttle of a loom.

2. A slender rod or pin on which anything turns; an axis; as, the spindle of a vane. Specifically: --(a) (Mach.)

3. The shaft, mandrel, or arbor, in a machine tool, as a lathe or drilling machine, etc., which causes the work to revolve, or carries a tool or center, etc.

4. The fusee of a watch.

5. A long and slender stalk resembling a spindle.

6. A yarn measure containing, in cotton yarn, 15,120 yards; in linen yarn, 14,400 yards.

7. A solid generated by the revolution of a curved line about its base or double ordinate or chord.

8. Any marine univalve shell of the genus Rostellaria; -- called also spindle stromb.

9. Any marine gastropod of the genus Fusus. Dead spindle (Mach.), a spindle in a machine tool that does not revolve; the spindle of the tailstock of a lathe. -- Live spindle (Mach.), the revolving spindle of a machine tool; the spindle of the headstock of a turning lathe. -- Spindle shell. (Zoöl.) See Spindle, 7. above. -- Spindle side, the female side in descent; in the female line; opposed to spear side. Ld. Lytton. [R.] "King Lycaon, grandson, by the spindle side, of Oceanus." Lowell. -- Spindle tree (Bot.), any shrub or tree of the genus Eunymus. The wood of E. Europæus was used for spindles and skewers. See Prickwood.

Part of speech: verb (v.)

To shoot or grow into a long, slender stalk or body; to become disproportionately tall and slender. It has begun to spindle into overintellectuality. Lowell.