Lathe definition
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.
noun
A machine for shaping an article of wood, metal, etc. by holding and turning it rapidly against the edge of a cutting or abrading tool.
noun
To shape on a lathe.
verb
(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
To cut or shape on a lathe.
verb
Advertisement
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.
noun
To shape with a lathe.
verb
Origin of lathe
- Middle English a device used by coopers, perhaps a turning lathe probably of Scandinavian origin
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- 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.
From Wiktionary
- From Middle English lathen, from Old English laþian (“to invite, summon, call upon, ask"), from Proto-Germanic *laþōnÄ… (“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").
From Wiktionary
- From Middle English *lath, from Old English lǣþ (“a division of a county containing several hundreds, a district, lathe").
From Wiktionary