Talk:Spindle (textiles)

The term "Drop Spindle" is used in several wikipedia articles where it really means "Hand spindle" which is more inclusive and includes supported spindles. Ranvaig 06:49, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

The accompanying image is not a picture of a spindle, it is a spinning wheel. Spindles are typically small, hand-held devices resembling a child's top. (Spinning wheels do have an attached spindle, but it is very small compared to the wheel itself.) See  for examples. -- samwyse, 70.130.133.221 08:56, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

The entry feels odd to me, equating as it does spindle and drop/hand spindle. It implies that spinning wheels don't have spindles. I think a better approach is to say that a spindle is either a) a certain part of a spinning wheel or b) a drop spindle or a hand spindle (which should be separate entries, or at least sections). I don't feel I know spinning well enough to make the corrections myself, however. krg 216.231.35.38 (talk) 02:31, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

History
The complete latter half of the paragraph "History" has nothing to do with history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.13.40.30 (talk) 19:07, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Etymology
The Dutch word for spindle is 'spintol'. Which sounds almost the same, which suggests a common origin. But 'spintol' is a descriptive word; 'spin' stands for the spinning of fibres and 'tol' means 'spinning top'. This suggests that the English word comes from the Dutch word. However, the Dutch verb 'spinnen' is used specifically for spinning fibres, not rotational motions in general. This suggests that that comes from English word 'spinning'. So the influence would then be 'to and fro'. Which would be neat. :) But the English word 'spindle' also has other meanings. Which would then have to come from this specific meaning. That sounds more likely the other way around; this meaning coming from a more general one. But then 'spindle' and 'spintol' would be of different origins leading to the same meaning whilst sounding almost the same. Which sounds like too big a coincidence to me. DirkvdM (talk) 06:36, 3 April 2012 (UTC)