lathe

present singular third person lathes · participle present lathing · participle past lathed · past lathed · alternative laith

1. UKdialectaltransitiveTo invite; bid; ask.

plural lathes · alternative lath

1. obsoleteAn administrative division of the county of Kent, in England, from the Anglo-Saxon period until it fell entirely out of use in the early twentieth century.

plural lathes

1. artsA machine tool used to shape a piece of material, or workpiece, by rotating the workpiece against a cutting tool.

   He shaped the bedpost by turning it on a lathe.

   2 more examples

   The accidental amputation was due to the guard not being on the lathe.

   1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part II Chapter IV, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling Of the windows of the village there was one yet more often occupied; for on Sundays from morning to night, and every morning when the weather was bright, one could see at the dormer-window of the garret the profile of Monsieur Binet bending over his lathe, whose monotonous humming could be heard at the Lion d'Or.

2. businessThe movable swing frame of a loom, carrying the reed for separating the warp threads and beating up the weft.

   Synonyms: beater, batten, lay

3. obsoleteA granary; a barn.

   […]lathe, a barn, is still used in some parts of Yorkshire, but chiefly in local designations, being otherwise obsolescent ; see the Cleveland and Whitby glossaries. ‘The northern man writing to his neighbor may say, “My lathe standeth neer the kirkegarth,” for My barn standeth neere the churchyard’

   2008 [1894], Walter William Skeat, Notes on The Canterbury Tales. Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Vol. 5, page 124

present singular third person lathes · participle present lathing · participle past lathed · past lathed

1. To shape with a lathe.
2. computer graphicsTo produce a three-dimensional model by rotating a set of points around a fixed axis.