DISTAFF • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Distaff

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noun

Distaff n. (pl. distaffs, rarely distaves)

The staff for holding a bunch of flax, tow, or wool, from which the thread is drawn in spinning by hand. "I will the distaff hold; come thou and spin."

Used as a symbol of the holder of a distaff; hence, a woman; women, collectively. "His crown usurped, a distaff on the throne." "Some say the crozier, some say the distaff was too busy." Note: The plural is regular, but Distaves occurs in Beaumont & Fletcher.

Descent by distaff, descent on the mother's side.

Distaff Day, or Distaff's Day, the morrow of the Epiphany, that is, January 7, because working at the distaff was then resumed, after the Christmas festival; called also Rock Day, a distaff being called a rock.

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Etymology of 'Distaff'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Distaff" Quotes from Famous Books

... a distaff. Humpi means perspiration. Saca is a game bird, also a comet. Chima-chaui is a proper name with no meaning. The name of the fifth son is rather unmanageable. Uchun-cuna-ascalla-rando. Uchun-cuna ...

— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

... numbers. Women preponderate in spinning places, because the work of spinning yarn has always been in their hands from time immemorial. And they tend our modern machinery as deftly as of old they twirled the distaff and worked the spinning-wheel; and as steadily as they used to trudge the rope walks and spin, like spiders, from the masses of flax or hemp ...

— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... determining force, instead of being qualified by any play of free-will, or any feasible plan of ultimate and superabounding good, has been a real fatalism, changeless, hopeless, remorseless. That the distaff of the Fates, and the ruthless sceptre of the Erinnys, entered in full force into all the religions of the Greeks and Romans, scarcely needs to be affirmed. They controlled all human affairs, and even the gods were subject to them. ...

— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... his time with the sons of the quarter, vagabonds like himself, and his father (O regret of me!) died not save of dolour for him. And I also am now in piteous plight: I spin cotton and toil at my distaff, night and day, that I may earn a couple of scones of bread which we eat together. This is his condition, O my brother-in-law; and, by the life of thee, he cometh not near me save at meal-times and none other. Indeed, I am thinking to lock the house-door ...

— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... eccentric returns. Of course, the girl left alone would be an easy prey to every fortune hunter in India, should anything happen!" There was a ferocious, wild gleam in Alan Hawke's eyes as the aide grasped his hat and stick. "I wish to probe the family records and find out what I can of the 'distaff side of the line,' as Mr. Guy Livingstone would say. I have some really valuable presents, and I am on honor to the Viceroy in this, for, of course, a baronetcy must not be given into sullied hands. Johnstone will probably hermetically seal the girl up till ...

— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

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