thread
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: business
computing
engineering
manufacturing
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
textiles
weaving
Etymology: 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.
Inflected forms:
form: threads
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: thred
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: thrid
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: threed
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: threads
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: threading
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: threaded
pos: verb
tags: past
form: thrid
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
form: threaded
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: thrid
pos: verb
tags: archaic
participle
past
form: thridden
pos: verb
tags: archaic
participle
past
form: thred
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: thrid
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: threed
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: A cord formed by spinning or twisting together textile fibers or filaments into one or more continuous strands, typically used in needlework.
pos: noun
examples: Woolen threads were an occult means, according to the Roman poet Horace, of depriving a person of virility.
gloss: A piece of yarn, especially said of warps and wefts in a woven fabric.
pos: noun
gloss: Any of various natural (as spiderweb, etc.) or manufactured filaments (as glass, plastic, metal, etc.).
pos: noun
examples: the threads of a spiderweb
He walked. To the corner of Hamilton Place and Picadilly, and there stayed for a while, for it is a romantic station by night. The vague and careless rain looked like threads of gossamer silver passing across the light of the arc-lamps.
gloss: A slender stream of water.
pos: noun
examples: a thread of water
gloss: The line midway between the banks of a stream.
pos: noun
gloss: A screw thread.
pos: noun
gloss: The continuing course of life; the thread of life.
pos: noun
gloss: An ordered course, that which connects the successive points in a discourse.
pos: noun
examples: I’ve lost the thread of what you’re saying.
I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings.
‘Let him go on. Do not interrupt him. He cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread of his thought.’
gloss: An ordered course, that which connects the successive points in a discourse.
pos: noun
examples: All of these essays have a common thread.
gloss: A unit of execution, lighter in weight than a process, usually sharing memory and other resources with other threads executing concurrently.
pos: noun
gloss: A series of posts or messages, consisting of an initial post and responses to it, generally relating to the same subject, on a newsgroup, Internet forum, or social media platform.
pos: noun
tags: Internet
gloss: A sequence of connections.
pos: noun
gloss: A precarious condition; something that which offers no real or otherwise perceived security.
pos: noun
examples: a life hanging by a thread
gloss: The degree of fineness; quality; nature.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
obsolete
examples: A neat courtier, / Of a most elegant thread.
gloss: To pass a thread through the eye of a needle.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To fix (beads, pearls, etc.) upon a thread that is passed through; to string.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To make one's way through or between (a constriction or obstacles).
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: to thread through narrow passages
I think I can thread my way through here, but it’s going to be tight.
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.
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.
gloss: To make one's way through or between (a constriction or obstacles).
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: He threaded his way through legal entanglements.
gloss: To pass through; to pierce through; to penetrate.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: 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 […]
Tom out here will have leave to thrid you with bullets.
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.
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.
gloss: To interweave as if with thread; to intersperse.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: [...] 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.
[...] dark hair threaded with gray pulled back from a face still beautiful in spite of clear evidence of the passage of time.
[...] 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[…]
[...] dark hair threaded with early silver.
gloss: To form a screw thread on or in (a bolt, hole, etc.).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Coordinate term: tap
to thread a bolt
gloss: To remove (facial hair) by way of a looped thread that is tightly wound in the middle.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
examples: to thread your eyebrows and trim them
gloss: To feed (a sewing machine or otherwise a projecting or exposing mechanism, such as a projector, a camera, etc.) with film.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
gloss: To pass (a film or tape) through a projector, recorder, etc. so as to correct its path.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: Of boiling syrup: To form a threadlike stream when poured from a spoon.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
Derived words: Abalakov thread
brahminical thread
downthread
golden thread
gold thread
goldthread
green thread
hang by a thread
hang on by a thread
hyperthreaded
interthread
life thread
lifethread
lose the thread
megathread
microthread
misthread
multithread
nanothread
needle-and-thread grass
nun's thread
packthread
Pagenstecher thread
permathread
pick up the threads
pick up the threads of
prethread
protothread
sister's thread
subthread
threadbare
thread bug
thread count
threaden
threader
threadfin
threadfish
threadful
Threadgold
threadish
threadjack
threadjacker
threadjacking
thread lace
thread-legged bug
threadless
threadlet
threadlike
threadlock
threadlocker
thread-locking fluid
threadly
threadmaker
threadmaking
threadmill
thread mode
thread necromancy
thread needle
thread of life
thread of thought
thread-paper
thread pool
thread-safe
threadsafe
thread snake
threadtail
threadwork
threadworm
thready
thrill
unthread
upthread
cross-thread
multithreaded
rethread
threadability
threadable
threaded
thread the needle
Translations:
lang: Bulgarian
word: прому́швам
roman: promúšvam
lang: Bulgarian
word: прому́ша
roman: promúša
lang: Bulgarian
word: промъ́квам
roman: promǎ́kvam
lang: Bulgarian
word: промъ́кна
roman: promǎ́kna
lang: Chinese Mandarin
word: 穿梭
roman: chuānsuō
lang: Dutch
word: passeren voorbij gaan
lang: Finnish
word: pujotella
lang: French
word: filer
lang: German
word: passieren
lang: German
word: durchkommen
lang: German
word: durchfädeln
lang: German
word: bahnen
lang: Portuguese
word: enfiar
lang: Spanish
word: pasar
lang: Swedish
word: träda
lang: Swedish
word: passera