HATCHEL

hatchel, heckle

(noun) a comb for separating flax fibers

heckle, hackle, hatchel

(verb) comb with a heckle; “heckle hemp or flax”

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Noun

hatchel (plural hatchels)

A comb used to separate flax fibers.

Verb

hatchel (third-person singular simple present hatchels, present participle hatcheling or hatchelling, simple past and past participle hatcheled or hatchelled)

(transitive) To separate (flax fibers) with a hatchel, or comb.

Source: Wiktionary


Hatch"el, n. Etym: [OE. hechele, hekele; akin to D. hekel, G. hechel, Dan. hegle, Sw. häkla, and prob. to E. hook. See Hook, and cf. Hackle, Heckle.]

Definition: An instrument with long iron teeth set in a board, for cleansing flax or hemp from the tow, hards, or coarse part; a kind of large comb; -- called also hackle and heckle.

Hatch"el, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Hatcheled or Hatchelled (; p. pr. & vb. n. Hatcheling or Hatchelling.] Etym: [OE. hechelen, hekelen; akin to D. hekelen, G. hecheln, Dan. hegle, Sw. häkla. See Hatchel, n.]

1. To draw through the teeth of a hatchel, as flax or hemp, so as to separate the coarse and refuse parts from the fine, fibrous parts.

2. To tease; to worry; to torment. [Colloq.]

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

24 May 2025

EARTHSHAKING

(adjective) sufficiently significant to affect the whole world; “earthshaking proposals”; “the contest was no world-shaking affair”; “the conversation...could hardly be called world-shattering”


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Coffee Trivia

According to Guinness World Records, the largest collection of coffee pots belongs to Robert Dahl (Germany) and consists of 27,390 coffee pots as of 2 November 2012, in Rövershagen, Germany.

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