Word.ws English Dictionary

stitchel

stitchel noun: a kind of hair found intermixed in the wool of some breeds of sheep; kemp.

Noun

stitchel

  1. (dialectal) A kind of hair found intermixed in the wool of some breeds of sheep; kemp.
    • If the Cornish farmer, and others who, like himself, are possessed of a breed of sheep yielding very coarse wool, or such as is mixed with stitchel hair ( kemps ) instead of sitting down contented with these as the best that his situation would admit of, had, with a discerning attention, studied to...1800, James Anderson, Essays Relating to Agriculture and Rural Affairs, page 168
    • This wool contains a great deal of yolk or oil, which is apt to entangle the dust of the fields, so as often to form a kind of mat nearly an inch in thickness; it is remarkably, or rather wholly free from stitchel hairs or kemps.1807, The Complete Farmer

Questions about stitchel

What does stitchel mean?
Stitchel means a kind of hair found intermixed in the wool of some breeds of sheep; kemp.
What part of speech is stitchel?
Stitchel is a noun.

Words near stitchel in the dictionary

  1. stitched
  2. stitched aloft
  3. stitched together
  4. stitched up
  5. stitched up like a kipper
  6. stitchel
  7. stitcher
  8. stitcheries
  9. stitchers
  10. stitchery
  11. stitches

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stitchel (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.

Last updated:

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