Word.ws English Dictionary

laithe

laithe is the alternative form of lathe.

Meaning of lathe

Noun (1)

lathe (plural lathes)

  1. (obsolete) An 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.

Noun (2)

lathe (plural lathes)

  1. A 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. The movable swing frame of a loom, carrying the reed for separating the warp threads and beating up the weft.
    Synonyms:
    beater, batten, lay
  3. (obsolete) A 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

See all 7 meanings of lathe

Forms of laithe

plurallaithes

Phrases with laithe

Questions about laithe

What is laithe the alternative form of?
Laithe is the alternative form of lathe.

Words near laithe in the dictionary

  1. laitances
  2. laitand
  3. laited
  4. laith
  5. Laithangbam
  6. laithe
  7. laithe house
  8. laithe houses
  9. laithe-house
  10. laithe-houses
  11. laithes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: laithe (page history and authors); lathe (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “laithe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/laithe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.