teasel
/ˈtiːz(ə)l
/(also teazle or teazel)
noun
1A tall prickly Eurasian plant with spiny purple flower heads.
- Genus Dipsacus, family Dipsacaceae: several species, including fuller’s teasel.
- The land was quiet and pleasant, with teasels, cowslips, bluebells, and dark soil ridged for spuds or glowing with oil seed rape.
- Vigorous self-seeders such as teasels and some annual poppies, and plants that tend to be too tall and lanky to stand the winter gales such as certain Achillea cultivars, are ideal contenders.
1.1A large dried head from a teasel, or a device serving as a substitute for one of these, used in the textile industry to raise a nap on woven cloth.It might have also had its nap raised by the use of teasels over the surface of the fabric.
verb [with object] (often as noun teaseling) chiefly archaic
Raise a nap on (cloth) with or as if with teasels: there was an increase in cloth-finishing, especially by teaseling...
- It is made with combed and teazled merino wool, enriched by an elegant piece of embroidery with satin motifs.
- The garments to be teaseled cannot have free yarns.
- A shaggy cloth, though coarsely woven and loose in texture, will be found warmer than an equally heavy cloth which is woven compactly, and which has been sheared, carded and teazled.
Origin
Old English tǣsl, tǣsel, of West Germanic origin; related to tease.