thread
Forms
- Plural
- threads
- present (v1)
- thread
- past (v2)
- threaded
- past participle (v3)
- threaded
- present participle
- threading
- 3rd person singular
- threads
Definitions
1.A cord formed by spinning or twisting together textile fibers or filaments into one or more continuous strands, typically used in needlework.
- Woolen threads were an occult means, according to the Roman poet Horace, of depriving a person of virility.
2.A piece of yarn, especially said of warps and wefts in a woven fabric.
3.Any of various natural (as spiderweb, etc.) or manufactured filaments (as glass, plastic, metal, etc.).
4.A slender stream of water.
1.To make one's way through or between (a constriction or obstacles).
- He threaded his way through legal entanglements.
- I think I can thread my way through here, but it’s going to be tight.
- Picking the ball up in his own half, Januzaj threaded a 40-yard pass into the path of Rooney to slice Southampton open in the blink of an eye.
2.To pass through; to pierce through; to penetrate.
- Tom out here will have leave to thrid you with bullets.
- Only the swifts were alert and busy, flashing, poising, diving under the eaves; thridding Ned's brain as they passed with a receding sound like that made by pebbles hopping over ice.
- On the descent the line is often in cuttings; some are high, such as at Scarcroft, where a cut through firestone and fireclay was necessary, and near Bardsey, where the line threads a deep tree-lined gorge.
3.To pass a thread through the eye of a needle.
4.To fix (beads, pearls, etc.) upon a thread that is passed through; to string.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #3301
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Etymology
From Middle English thred, þred, threed, from Old English þrǣd, from Proto-Germanic *þrēduz, from Proto-Indo-European *treh₁-tu-s, from *terh₁- (“rub, twist”).
Cognates