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nch of flax, tow, or wool, from which the thread is drawn in spinning by hand. I will the distaff hold; come thou and spin. Fairfax.

dsworth. By her bridling up I perceived she expected to be treated hereafter not as Jenny Distaff, but Mrs. Tranquillus. Tatler.

supposed to determine the course of human life. They are represented, one as holding the distaff, a second as spinning, and the third as cutting off the thread.

he sees Andromache overwhelmed with terror, sends her for consolation to the loom and the distaff. Rambler.

Left, as opposed to right. [Obs.] A distaff in her other hand she had. Spenser.

A method of training trees or shrubs in the shape of a cone or distaff by tying down the branches and pruning.

A distaff.

A distaff used in spinning; the staff or frame about which flax is arranged, and from which the thread is drawn in spinning. Chapman. Sad Clotho held the rocke, the whiles the thread By grisly Lachesis was spun with pain, That cruel Atropos eftsoon undid. Spenser.

ath (Bot.), a heatherlike plant (Dabæcia polifolia), named from an Irish saint. -- Saint Distaff's Day. See under Distaff. -- Saint Elmo's fire, a luminious, flamelike appearance, sometimes seen in dark, tempestuous nights, at some prominent point on a ship, particularly at the masthead and the yardams. It has also b…

ton; that is to ride on a horse with a woman, but behind her, facing backward, carrying a distaff, and accompanied by a procession of jeering neighbors making mock music; a cavalcade in ridicule of a henpecked man. The custom was in vogue in parts of England.