hackling

Verb

hackle (third-person singular simple present hackles, present participle hackling, simple past and past participle hackled)

1. To dress (flax or hemp) with a hackle; to prepare fibres of flax or hemp for spinning.
   • Then, with a smile that seemed to have all the freshness of the matutinal hour in it, she bent again to her work of hackling flax.1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska, published 2005, page 155
2. (transitive) To separate, as the coarse part of flax or hemp from the fine, by drawing it through the teeth of a hackle or hatchel.
3. (archaic, transitive) To tear asunder; to break into pieces.
   • the other divisions of the kingdom being hackled and torn to pieces1790 November, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. […], London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC

See all 12 meanings of hackle