thimbles

Noun

thimble (plural thimbles)

1. A pitted, now usually metal, cup-shaped cap worn on the tip of a finger, which is used in sewing to push the needle through material.
   • She had worn a hole through her silver thimble, and wanted Owen to repair it.1846, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Artist of the Beautiful”, in Mosses from an Old Manse
2. As much as fills a thimble (sense 1); a thimbleful.
3. (also, attributive) A thimble or similar object used in thimblerig (“a game of skill which requires the bettor to guess under which of three thimbles or small cups a pea-sized object has been placed after the person operating the game rapidly rearranges them”).
4. (also, attributive) A socket in machinery shaped like a thimble.
5. A metal ring which a cable or rope intended for attaching to other things is looped around as a protection against chafing.
   • To relieve the stern in a measure from the great weight of the [diving-]bell, a short, strong mast was stepped in the usual place, and steeving forward; from its head to the head of the davit was a span, which set up with two thimbles [footnote: A sort of iron ring.] and a lanyard, and the whole...1836, Thomas Dickinson, A Narrative of the Operations for the Recovery of the Public Stores and Treasure Sunk in H.M.S. Thetis, at Cape Frio, on the Coast of Brazil, on the 5th December, 1830. […]...
6. A ring- or tube-shaped component such as a ferrule.

See all 9 meanings of thimble