Tenterhooks or tenter hooks are hooked nails in a device called a tenter. Tenters were wooden frames which were used as far back as the 14th century in the process of making woollen cloth. They are now superseded by stenter pins.
The phrase "on tenterhooks" has become a metaphor for nervous anticipation.
After a piece of cloth was woven, it still contained oil and dirt from the fleece. A craftsman called a fuller (also called a tucker or wa(u)lker, in Scots, from the word 'Walker', as used in most of the UK mainland), cleaned the woollen cloth in a fulling mill, and then had to dry it carefully, to prevent the woollen fabric from shrinking. To prevent this shrinkage, the fuller would place the wet cloth on a large wooden frame, called a tenter (from Latin tendere 'to stretch'), and leave it to dry outdoors. The lengths of wet cloth were stretched on the tenter using tenterhooks (hooked nails whose long shank was driven into the wood) all around the perimeter of the frame to which the cloth's edges (selvedges) were fixed, so that as it dried the cloth would retain its shape and size. [1]
There were tentergrounds (or tenter-fields), large open spaces full of tenters, wherever cloth was made, and as a result the word "tenter" is found in place names throughout the United Kingdom and its empire, for example several streets in Spitalfields, London, [2] and Tenterfield House in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, which in turn gave its name to Tenterfield in New South Wales, Australia. [3]
The word tenter is still used today to refer to production line machinery employed to stretch polyester films and similar fabrics.[ citation needed ] The spelling stenter is also found.
By the mid-18th century, the phrase on tenterhooks came to mean being in a state of tension, uneasiness, anxiety, or suspense, i.e., figuratively stretched like the cloth on the tenter. [4]
John Ford's 1633 play Broken Heart contains the lines: "There is no faith in woman. Passion, O, be contain'd! My very heart-strings Are on the tenters." [5]
In 1690 the periodical The General History of Europe used the term in the modern sense: "The mischief is, they will not meet again these two years, so that all business must hang upon the tenterhooks till then." [6]
In 1826, English periodical Monthly magazine or British register of literature, sciences, and the belles-lettres contained the line "I hope (though the wish is a cruel one) that my fair readers, if any such readers have deigned to follow me thus far, are on tenterhooks to know to whom the prize was adjudged." [7] [8] In a letter to his wife the same year, American educator Francis Wayland (waiting for his promised appointment as President of Brown University) wrote "I was never so much on tenter hooks before." [9]
The misuse of tender hooks instead of tenter hooks is one of the most common mistakes in the English language according to a survey in 2017. [10]
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal wool.
Fulling, also known as tucking or walking, is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of woven cloth to eliminate (lanolin) oils, dirt, and other impurities, and to make it shrink by friction and pressure. The work delivers a smooth, tightly finished fabric that is insulating and water-repellent. Well-known examples are duffel cloth, first produced in Flanders in the 14th century, and loden, produced in Austria from the 16th century on.
Buckram is a stiff cotton cloth with a plain, usually loose, weave, produced in various weights similar to muslin and other plain weave fabrics. For buckram, the fabric is soaked in a sizing agent such as wheat-starch paste, glue, or pyroxylin, then dried. When rewetted or warmed, it can be shaped to create durable firm fabric for book covers, hats, and elements of clothing.
The Worshipful Company of Clothworkers was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1528, formed by the amalgamation of its two predecessor companies, the Fullers and the Shearmen. It succeeded to the position of the Shearmen's Company and thus ranks twelfth in the order of precedence of Livery Companies of the City of London.
Dipsacus is a genus of flowering plant in the family Caprifoliaceae. The members of this genus are known as teasel, teazel or teazle. The genus includes about 15 species of tall herbaceous biennial plants growing to 1–2.5 metres (3.3–8.2 ft) tall. Dipsacus species are native to Europe, Asia and northern Africa.
A tarpaulin or tarp is a large sheet of strong, flexible, water-resistant or waterproof material, often cloth such as canvas or polyester coated with polyurethane, or made of plastics such as polyethylene. Tarpaulins often have reinforced grommets at the corners and along the sides to form attachment points for rope, allowing them to be tied down or suspended.
Ramie, Boehmeria nivea, is a flowering plant in the nettle family Urticaceae, native to eastern Asia. It is a herbaceous perennial growing to 1.0–2.5 m tall; the leaves are heart-shaped, 7–15 cm (2.8–5.9 in) long and 6–12 cm (2.4–4.7 in) broad, and white on the underside with dense, small hairs—this gives it a silvery appearance; unlike stinging nettles, the hairs do not sting. The true ramie or China grass is also called Chinese plant or white ramie.
Fustian is a variety of heavy cloth woven from cotton, chiefly prepared for menswear.
Hessian, burlap in North America, or crocus in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, is a woven fabric made of vegetable fibres, usually the skin of the jute plant or sisal leaves. It is generally used for duties of rough handling, such as making sacks employed to ship farm products and to act as covers for sandbags, and for wrapping tree-root balls. However, this dense woven fabric, historically coarse, more recently is being produced in a refined state, known simply as jute, as an eco-friendly material for bags, rugs, and other products.
Chuts is the name applied to Jews who immigrated to London from the Netherlands in the mid-Victorian era (1850s–1860s). They typically came from the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and brought to London their trades: most notably those of cigar-, cap-, and slipper-making, and as small-time ship chandlers.
A tenterground, tenter ground or teneter-field was an area used for drying newly manufactured cloth after fulling. The wet cloth was hooked onto frames called "tenters" and stretched taut using "tenter hooks", so that the cloth would dry flat and square.
Textile printing is the process of applying color to fabric in definite patterns or designs. In properly printed fabrics the colour is bonded with the fibre, so as to resist washing and friction. Textile printing is related to dyeing but in dyeing properly the whole fabric is uniformly covered with one colour, whereas in printing one or more colours are applied to it in certain parts only, and in sharply defined patterns.
Embroidery in India includes dozens of embroidery styles that vary by region and clothing styles. Designs in Indian embroidery are formed on the basis of the texture and the design of the fabric and the stitch. The dot and the alternate dot, the circle, the square, the triangle, and permutations and combinations of these constitute the design.
The manufacture of textiles is one of the oldest of human technologies. To make textiles, the first requirement is a source of fiber from which a yarn can be made, primarily by spinning. The yarn is processed by knitting or weaving, which turns it into cloth. The machine used for weaving is the loom. For decoration, the process of colouring yarn or the finished material is dyeing. For more information of the various steps, see textile manufacturing.
Primarily, nap is the raised (fuzzy) surface on certain kinds of cloth, such as velvet or moleskin. Nap can refer additionally to other surfaces that look like the surface of a napped cloth, such as the surface of a felt or beaver hat.
Textile manufacturing is one of the oldest human activities. The oldest known textiles date back to about 5000 B.C. In order to make textiles, the first requirement is a source of fibre from which a yarn can be made, primarily by spinning. The yarn is processed by knitting or weaving to create cloth. The machine used for weaving is the loom. Cloth is finished by what are described as wet process to become fabric. The fabric may be dyed, printed or decorated by embroidering with coloured yarns.
The woollen industry in Wales was at times the country's most important industry, though it often struggled to compete with the better-funded woollen mills in the north of England, and almost disappeared during the 20th century. There is continued demand for quality Welsh woollen products.
Dadeumi (Korean: 다듬이) or dadeumijil (다듬이질) is a Korean traditional ironing method where two women knelt on the floor, facing each other across a smoothing stone, beating out a rhythm on the cloth to press out its wrinkles and soften it. Dadeumi requires dadeumitbangmangi (다듬잇방망이) and dadeumitdol (다듬잇돌). The former is a bat that pounds on the cloth, and the latter is the stone under the cloth.
A stenter is a machine used in textile finishing. It serves multiple purposes, including heat setting, drying, and applying various chemical treatments. This may be achieved through the use of certain attachments such as padding or coating.
Bay was a napped coarse woolen fabric, not technically considered cloth, introduced to England by Flemish immigrants in the 16th century. It was produced in Essex at Colchester and Bocking, and also in various towns in the West of England. Production continued until the 19th century. Bays were made into linings for furniture, hangings, curtains, bed surroundings, and cloaks.