thread
verbEtymology From Middle English thred, þred, threed, from Old English þrǣd, from Proto-Germanic *þrēduz, from Proto-Indo-European *treh₁-tu-s, from *terh₁- (“rub, twist”). Cognates Cognate with Yola dreade (“thread”), Saterland Frisian Träid (“thread, wire”), Cimbrian draat (“string, thread”), Dutch draad (“thread, wire”), German Draht (“thread, wire”), Luxembourgish Drot (“wire”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish tråd (“thread, wire”), Faroese tráður (“thread”), Icelandic þráður (“thread”). Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian dredh (“twist, turn”). More at throw.
11 senses
- 1To pass a thread through the eye of a needle.
- 2To fix (beads, pearls, etc.) upon a thread that is…
- 3To make one's way through or between (a constriction or…
- 4To cautiously make (one's way) through a precarious…
- 5To pass through; to pierce through; to penetrate.
- 6To interweave as if with thread; to intersperse.
- 7To form a screw thread on or in (a bolt, hole, etc.).
- 8To remove (facial hair) by way of a looped thread that…
- 9To feed (a sewing machine or otherwise a projecting or…
- 10To pass (a film or tape) through a projector, recorder…
- 11Of boiling syrup: To form a threadlike stream when…
To pass a thread through the eye of a needle.
To fix (beads, pearls, etc.) upon a thread that is passed through; to string.
Figuratively To make one's way through or between (a constriction or obstacles).
- to thread through narrow passages
- I think I can thread my way through here, but it’s going to be tight.
2 more examples
- The line to Uganda goes up the side of a slope in a series of S-bends, and as the telegraph wires follow the line, from below they look like a forest as they thread backwards and forwards about six times.1950 April, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 266:
- Picking the ball up in his own half, Januzaj threaded a 40-yard pass into the path of Rooney to slice Southampton open in the blink of an eye.2013 October 19, Ben Smith, “Manchester United 1-1 Southampton”, in BBC Sport:
Figuratively To cautiously make (one's way) through a precarious place or situation.
- He threaded his way through legal entanglements.
Figuratively To pass through; to pierce through; to penetrate.
- And when the Miners by theſe Shafts or Adits do ſtrike or threed a Vein of any Metal […] then the Metal which is digged […] is called Oar […]1670, John Pettus, Fodinæ Regales […], London: Printed by H. L. and R. B. […], page 2:
- Tom out here will have leave to thrid you with bullets.1896 May 12, The Pall Mall Magazine, page 12:
2 more examples
- Only the swifts were alert and busy, flashing, poising, diving under the eaves; thridding Ned's brain as they passed with a receding sound like that made by pebbles hopping over ice.1899, Bernard Capes, chapter 16, in Lady of Darkness, New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, page 122:
- On the descent the line is often in cuttings; some are high, such as at Scarcroft, where a cut through firestone and fireclay was necessary, and near Bardsey, where the line threads a deep tree-lined gorge.1961 February, D. Bertram, “The lines to Wetherby and their traffic”, in Trains Illustrated, page 101:
To interweave as if with thread; to intersperse.
- [...] the urban landscape threaded with parks and trees to the horizon. The enormous sky over that flat line dazzled clear blue or filled with towers of cumulus clouds.2010 April 1, Gayla Marty, Memory of Trees: A Daughter’s Story of a Family Farm, U of Minnesota Press, →ISBN, page 177:
- [...] dark hair threaded with gray pulled back from a face still beautiful in spite of clear evidence of the passage of time.2014 June 30, G.B. Lindsey, Diana Copland, Libby Drew, Secrets of Neverwood: An Anthology, Carina Press, →ISBN:
2 more examples
- [...] landscape threaded with rivers, roads, tracks, pathways and an airport runway; one peppered with villages, farms, crofts and distilleries. Visitors to Islay, especially those coming from densely populated urban areas, often mistakenly[…]2021 November 4, Steven Mithen, Land of the Ilich: Journey's into Islay's Past, Birlinn Ltd, →ISBN:
- [...] dark hair threaded with early silver.2023 May 2, Lucy Clarke, One of the Girls, Penguin, →ISBN, page 6:
To form a screw thread on or in (a bolt, hole, etc.).
- Coordinate term: tap
- to thread a bolt
Ambitransitive To remove (facial hair) by way of a looped thread that is tightly wound in the middle.
- to thread your eyebrows and trim them
Ambitransitive To feed (a sewing machine or otherwise a projecting or exposing mechanism, such as a projector, a camera, etc.) with film.
To pass (a film or tape) through a projector, recorder, etc. so as to correct its path.
Of boiling syrup: To form a threadlike stream when poured from a spoon.
- Derived terms
- cross-thread, multithreaded, rethread, threadability, threadable, threaded, thread the needle