Definition of "lathe" in English

verb

1. (transitive, UK dialectal) To invite; bid; ask.

noun

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

1. (tools, metalworking, woodworking) 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.
   • 1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part II Chapter IV, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling Of the windows of the village there was one yet more often occupied; for on Sundays from morning to night, and every morning when the weather was bright, one could see at the dormer-window of the garret the profile of Monsieur Binet bending over his lathe, whose monotonous humming could be heard at the Lion d'Or.

2. (weaving) The movable swing frame of a loom, carrying the reed for separating the warp threads and beating up the weft.

3. (obsolete) A granary; a barn.

verb

1. To shape with a lathe.

2. (computer graphics) To produce a three-dimensional model by rotating a set of points around a fixed axis.