Sley
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Reed (of a loom).
- 2 A guideway in a knitting machine.
- 3 The number of warp ends per inch in the cloth.
"An extreme draft is not desirable in the spinning of filling yarns either on a frame or mule, although yarn from the latter machines is usually spun from coarser roving than would be possible on a filling frame, and it would seem preferable to spin same from roving with a medium draft, or, from double roving, and particularly so for fine sheetings, cambrics and other styles of cloth, that require finer filling than the warp and which have a higher count or pick, than sley."
- 1 To separate or part the threads of, and arrange them in a reed. transitive
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"An extreme draft is not desirable in the spinning of filling yarns either on a frame or mule, although yarn from the latter machines is usually spun from coarser roving than would be possible on a filling frame, and it would seem preferable to spin same from roving with a medium draft, or, from double roving, and particularly so for fine sheetings, cambrics and other styles of cloth, that require finer filling than the warp and which have a higher count or pick, than sley."
Etymology
From Middle English slay, from Old English slege.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.