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One of the cells which, in sponges, secrete the spongin, or the material of the horny fibers.

A machine for combining and drawing fibers of flax to form a sliver preparatory to spinning.

as on a military expedition. -- Spun silk, a cheap article produced from floss, or short-fibered, broken, and waste silk, carded and spun, in distinction from the long filaments wound from the cocoon. It is often mixed with cotton. -- Spun yarn (Naut.), a line formed of two or more rope-yarns loosely twisted.…

The fiber of wool, cotton, flax, or the like; as, a coarse staple; a fine staple; a long or short staple.

A euphemism or child's word for "a lie;" a fib; as, to tell a story. [Colloq.]

One of the twists, or strings, as of fibers, wires, etc., of which a rope is composed.

olor; showing narrow structural bands or lines; as, a striated crystal; striated muscular fiber.

Tense; not relaxed; as, a strict fiber.

A fiber, as of a plant; a little, fibrous root. Duckweed putteth forth a little string into the water, from the bottom. Bacon.

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

To remove fiber, flock, or lint from; -- said of the teeth of a card when it becomes partly clogged.

ntium carbonate, a mineral of a white, greenish, or yellowish color, usually occurring in fibrous massive forms, but sometimes in prismatic crystals.

any kind; specifically, any one of various fabrics of wool or worsted; sometimes, worsted fiber. What stuff wilt have a kirtle of Shak. It [the arras] was of stuff and silk mixed, though, superior kinds were of silk exclusively. F. G. Lee.

An East Indian leguminous plant (Crotalaria juncea) and its fiber, which is also called sunn hemp. [Written also sun.]

A fibrous brown coal or bituminous wood.

f saliva, produced from some of the salivary glands by stimulation of a sympathetic nerve fiber. Sympathetic ink. (Chem.) See under Ink. -- Sympathetic nerve (Anat.), any nerve of the sympathetic system; especially, the axial chain of ganglions and nerves belonging to the sympathetic system. -- Sympathetic powder (Al…

Affecting successively the different parts of the system or set of nervous fibres; as, systematic degeneration. Systematic theology. See under Theology.

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

The suet or fat of animals of the sheep and ox kinds, separated from membranous and fibrous matter by melting.

Gunny cloth made from the fiber of the Corchorus olitorius, or jute. [India]