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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

... with it?" she cried. "I have no pretensions to morality; and I confess I have always abominated the lamb, and nourished a romantic feeling for the wolf. O, be done with lambiness! Let us see there is a prince, for I am weary of the distaff." ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... The knife is superior to the carnivore's teeth for tearing meat; the hoe better than the mole's paw for digging earth, the trowel than the beaver's tail for beating and spreading mortar. The oar permits us to rival the fish's fin; the sail, the wing of the bird. The distaff and spindle allow our imitating the industry of insect spinners; etc. Man thus reproduces and sums up in his technical contrivances the scattered perfections of the animal world. He even succeeds in surpassing them, because, in the form of tools, he uses substances and combinations of effects ...

— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... this stick is Distaff, a word which is derived from the Low German—diesse, the bunch of flax on a distaff, and staff. Originally it would be the staff on which the tow or flax was fastened, and from which the thread was drawn. The modern representative of the spindle with the twisted thread wound on it is the ...

— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson

... still more beautiful from her modesty; and Nourgehan was charmed when he saw the sage who had proposed the question agree that she had answered with her usual justness, when she said that it was a Chestnut. She answered the third without hesitation, that it was a Distaff. ...

— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... Mr. Vere, smiling mysteriously, "he had other tow on his distaff last night. Have you not heard young Elliot of the Heugh-foot has had his house burnt, and his cattle driven away, because he refused to give up his arms to some honest men that think of starting for ...

— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

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