worsted

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Yarn made from long strands of wool.

   “An old ſet-ſtitch’d chair, valanced and fringed around with party-colour’d worſted bobs, ſtood at the bed’s head, oppoſite to the ſide where my father’s head reclined.”

   “[T]he kitten had been having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had all come undone again; […]”

   “"Yes, young people are usually blind to everything but their own wishes, and seldom imagine how much those wishes cost others," said Mrs Garth. She did not mean to go beyond this salutary general doctrine, and threw her indignation into a needless unwinding of her worsted, knitting her brow at it with a grand air.”

   “Finally he took a ball of worsted and tied strings of it across the back passage and across the opposite door.”

2. (countable, uncountable)The fine, smooth fabric made from such wool yarn.

   “[T]he undertaker’s wife opened a side door, and pushed Oliver down a steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark, forming the ante-room to the coal-cellar, and denominated “the kitchen,” wherein sat a slatternly girl in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings very much out of repair.”

   “He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck—Why? Where did he get it? Was it a badge—an ornament—a charm—a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it?”

   “When Flemish weavers settled in East Anglia during the Middle Ages they introduced a technique to the wool trade which produced a cloth of fine fibres and closely twisted yarn. Worstead became the centre for the manufacture of this new material, which came to be known as worsted – after the village.”

   “The cognitive dissonance is plain to see on the faces of recruiters who pretend clothing is no big deal, but are clearly disappointed if you show up to a job interview in a dark worsted business suit.”

verb

1. (form-of, participle, past)simple past and past participle of worst

adj

1. Defeated, overcome.

   “The worsted army fled in disarray.”