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A genus of bacilli occurring of the form of long, smooth and apparently branched threads, either straight or twisted.

A minute groove, or channel; a threadlike line, as of color; a narrow structural band or line; a striation; as, the striæ, or groovings, produced on a rock by a glacier passing over it; the striæ on the surface of a shell; a stria of nervous matter in the brain.

r substance, used for binding together, fastening, or tying things; a cord, larger than a thread and smaller than a rope; as, a shoe string; a bonnet string; a silken string. Shak. Round Ormond's knee thou tiest the mystic string. Prior.

Consisting of strings, or small threads; fibrous; filamentous; as, a stringy root.

To tear off (the thread) from a bolt or nut; as, the thread is stripped.

A pattern produced by arranging the warp threads in sets of alternating colors, or in sets presenting some other contrast of appearance.

on brace across the shorter diameter of the link of a chain cable. Stud bolt, a bolt with threads on both ends, to be screwed permanently into a fixed part at one end and receive a nut upon the other; -- called also standing bolt.

d or constructed; nice; fine; delicate; tenuous; finely woven. "A sotil [subtile] twine's thread." Chaucer. More subtile web Arachne can not spin. Spenser. I do distinguish plain Each subtile line of her immortal face. Sir J. Davies.

To attach to something above; to hang; as, to suspend a ball by a thread; to suspend a needle by a loadstone.

nd of mop for cleaning floors, the desks of vessels, etc., esp. one made of rope-yarns or threads.

A reel, or turning instrument, for winding yarn, thread, etc.; -- used chiefly in the plural.

flexible twig or rod. Mauritania, on the fifth medal, leads a horse with something like a thread; in her other hand she holds a switch. Addison.

The chitinous fiber forming the spiral thread of the tracheæ of insects. See Illust. of Trachea.

To fit with, or as with, a tag or tags. He learned to make long-tagged thread laces. Macaulay. His courteous host . . . Tags every sentence with some fawning word. Dryden.

on, as in a bearing; also, to make tight, as by winding, or drawing; as, to take up slack thread in sewing. (r) To make up; to compose; to settle; as, to take up a quarrel. [Obs.] Shak. -- To take up arms. Same as To take arms, above. -- To take upon one's self. (a) To assume; to undertake; as, he takes upon himself…

takes up or tightens; specifically, a device in a sewing machine for drawing up the slack thread as the needle rises, in completing a stitch.

To unite or knit together confusedly; to interweave or interlock, as threads, so as to make it difficult to unravel the knot; to entangle; to ravel.

tting tap with a slightly tapering end. -- Tap bolt, a bolt with a head on one end and a thread on the other end, to be screwed into some fixed part, instead of passing through the part and receiving a nut. See Illust. under Bolt. -- Tap cinder (Metal.), the slag of a puddling furnace.

A fabric, usually of worsted, worked upon a warp of linen or other thread by hand, the designs being usually more or less pictorial and the stuff employed for wall hangings and the like. The term is also applied to different kinds of embroidery. Tapestry carpet, a kind of carpet, somewhat resembling Brussels, in which…

attached to the corners of cushions, to curtains, and the like, ending in a tuft of loose threads or cords.