define lathe
The lathe is a circular vise that can hold a drill bit or a blade and rotates at a high rate of speed, Mr. Riggs said. Yale Student Dies in Chemistry-Lab Accident. They use a machine called a lathe to spin the wood, and special cutting tools to shape it. Wood Revolution Comes to Washington. The lathe, which is essential to make many of the more complex tools on the Forbes list, is a mechanism for rotating work to be shaped with a knife.