worsted

Named after Worsted (now Worstead), a town in Norfolk, England.

• (UK) enPR: wo͝osʹtĭd, IPA^(key): /ˈwʊs.tɪd/
• (US): enPR: wo͝osʹtĭd, wûrstʹĭd, IPA^(key): /ˈwʊs.tɪd/, /ˈwɝ.stɪd/

worsted (countable and uncountable, plural worsteds)

1. Yarn made from long strands of wool.
   • 1761, Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Volume III, Chapter 29,

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

   • 1871, Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 1:

     […] the 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 […]

   • 1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter LVII, in Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life, volume III, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, OCLC 948783829, book VI (The Widow and the Wife), page 266:

     "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.

2. The fine, smooth fabric made from such wool yarn.
   • 1838, Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, Chapter 4,

     [...] the 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 ‘kitchen’; wherein sat a slatternly girl, in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings very much out of repair.

   • 1902, Joseph Conrad, chapter I, in Heart of Darkness:

     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?

• (fine wool fabric): gabardine, serge, tamin, whipcord

Participle adjective of the verb worst.

• (UK) enPR: wûstʹĭd, IPA^(key): /ˈwəː.stɪd/
• (US) enPR: wûrstʹĭd, IPA^(key): /ˈwɝ.stɪd/

worsted

1. simple past tense and past participle of worst

worsted (comparative more worsted, superlative most worsted)

1. Defeated, overcome.

   The army was worsted in battle.

• Tedrows, strowed, trowsed, wedtros