felt 
felt 1 (felt), n. [< ME. felt, < AS. felt = D. vilt 
= LG. filt = OHG. MHG. G. flb = Sw. Dan. 
flit, felt; henco (< LG.) ML. feltrum, filtrum, > 
lt.feltro = Sp.fieltro = Pr.feutre = OF.feutre, 
fautre, V.fcutre = MGr. atffcrpov, felt : s&efelter 
and filter*, and cf. /ewter 1 .] 1. An unwoven 
fabric of short hair or wool, or of wool and fur, 
" or matted together, with the aid 
femalize 
n. and a., < OF. femelle, F. femelle = PT.feniel- 
la = Pg. femea, '< ML. femclla, n., a female, a 
woman, L. femella, only in lit. sense, a young 
woman (cf. OF. femel, femelle, F. femelle = Pr. 
femel = Pg. femeo, < ML. femellus, adj.), dim. 
Gio-gKnii v.- 6 ">"/. - -~ otfemina, a woman, a female (see feme) prob 
which splits radially across its annular rings or < / "fe, bring forth, produce : see fecund, Jetus. J 
__i_ j. ii ,4.. n ,.4i rt# -fli^i fie\r\4-\r* f^.nm-nQ i"o T 11 1 A TUTJ^TTI o.n n. TlllTYlfl.H llflllfiT Ol tDG S6X 
2177 
2. To mingle ; mix. 
II. intrans. To mingle ; associate. 
I schal fonde, hi my fayth, tofylter wyth the best, 
Er me wont the wedez, with help of my frendez. 
Sir tiinraunt and the Green Knight (E. E. T. S.), 1. 986. 
The grain of timber 
plates iS the direction of the center. Compare 
Asia ami the best ami moat mmioie ICIL i SLIII muuc in & ----- ~^.~, ,~~' " ~* "" " i * -u 
Persia ami the neighboring countries. Felt floor-mats an carp., the splitting or sawing of timber in the 
I"- 
im-h ormort thii-k ami of admirable texture and printed in direction of the felt-grain, 
rich designs _in color are used upon marble and tiled floors fglting-jnachine (fel ' ting-ma-shen"), n. 
dle P a r es a ani??ater"felt ' was'a^i'S^ateTi'ifl for hats.'and much. : (a) A machine for felting or matting to- 
was also used for stuffing or bombasting garments for both 
defense and fashion. Felt is now in general use not only 
for hats, but for clothing and upholstery, carpets, table- 
covers, and mats, jackets for steam-boilers, etc., and lin- 
ing for roofs and walls. Broadcloth and other fulled wool- 
results from an unsought felting, which draws the fibers 
gether fibers of wool or fur. This is accomplished 
either by passing them between surfaces which subject 
them to a rubbing action, or by beating them, as in a full- 
ing-mill, (b) A machine for felting material 
into a cloth or web. 
feltmaker (felt'ma"ker), . One whose occu- 
pation is the making of felt. 
of the fabric closer together. feltness (felt'nes), n. [< felt 2 + -ness.} The 
Howbeit, they are of discretion to make/cite* of Camels quality of being felt or experienced. [Rare.] 
haire, wherewith they clothe themselues, and which they 
holde against the winde. Hakluyt's Voyages, I. 67. 
It were a delicate stratagem to shoe . . _i. /*_u/_.*,v\ - 
A troopof horse with/ett. Shot., Lear, iv. 0. feltWOrk (felt werk), n. 
2. A piece of this material; some article of 
wearing-apparel made of it ; specifically, a hat 
The immediate feltness of a mental state. 
W. James, Mind, IX. 1. 
A network or felting 
as of fibers. 
The connective tissue is of the ordinary type, a dense 
feltwork of homogeneous and nbrillated fibers, against 
and among which lie many nucleated connective tissue 
K. ,/. H. Gibson, Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., XXXII. 630. 
Hakluyf, Voyages, I. 239. f e n wor tt, n. [ME. fcltwort, < AS. feltwyrt, the 
Afeltot rug, and a thin threaden cloke. mullen, <felt, felt, + wyrt, wort 1 .] The mullen, 
Verbascum Tliapsns: so called from its felty 
leaves. 
(fel'ti), a. [< felt* + -i/ 1 .] Resembling 
felt-like. 
made of felted wool. 
The most defence they haue against the wether is a 
felte, which is set against the winde and weather. 
B. Jonson, Alchemist, i. 1. 
This Fellow would have bound me to a Maker of Felts. 
Congreee, Way of the World, iii. lf>. 
The youth with joy unfeigned 
Regained the fflt, and felt what he regained, 
While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat 
Made a low bow, and touched the ransomed hat. 
J. Smith, Rejected Addresses. f eltyfare> feltyflier, . 
3. A thick matted growth of weeds, spreading fieldfare. 
by their roots. [Prov. Eng.] 4f. Fell; skin, felucca (fe-hik'a), n. 
To know whether sheep are sound or not, see that the 
felt be loose. Mortimer, Husbandry. 
Adhesive felt. See adhesive,. Felt carpet. See cor- 
pet. Lining-felt. () In building, a coarse felt placed 
between two layers of boards or on the inside surface of 
a wall, to deaden sound or as a non-conductor of heat. 
A coarse heavy paper, often saturated with tar, is much 
used for the same purpose. See lining-paper, and tarred 
paper, under paper, (ft) A fabric made of hair, or asbestos 
and hair, sometimes saturated with a lime cement, used 
on steam-pipes and -boilers as a non-conducting covering, 
(c) A compound of liquid cement and animal or vegetable 
fiber, applied with a brush for the same purpose. Paper- 
makers' felt, a coarse, twilled, loosely woven material, 
neither teazeled nor shorn, used in paper-manufacture to 
place between wet sheets. Roofing-felt, a material sim- 
ilar to lining-felt, used as a covering for roofs. This ma- 
terial is usually not a true felt, but an agglutination of 
hair or other animal fibers, compounded with a prepara- 
tion of tar, and rolled into sheets. It is nailed down upon 
the roof in overlapping strips, and is usually coated sub- 
sequently with tar, or some special heavy pigment having 
tar or asphalt as a basis and commonly called cement. 
felt 1 (felt), J). r<ME./Bw;</W 1 ,.] I. trans. 
1. To mat (fibers) together, as in the manu- 
facture of felt; make into felt or something re- 
sembling felt. 
I. H. 1. A woman; a human being of the sex 
which conceives and brings forth young. 
jif thei have ony knave child, thei kepen it a certeyn 
tyme, and than senden it to the fadir, ... and jif it be a 
female, thei don away that on [one] pappe. 
Mandenlle, Travels, p. 154. 
Therefore you, clown, abandon . . . the society . . . 
of tins female, which in the common is woman. 
Shak., As you Like it, v. 1. 
A child of our grandmother Eve, a female ; or, for thy 
more sweet understanding, a woman. Shak., L. L. L., i. 1. 
By extension 2. (a) Any animal of the sex 
which conceives and brings forth young. 
gonder standys rauens thre, 
Twa males and o [one] femel. 
Seven Sages (ed. Wright), 1. 3269. 
Compare such a bird with a large female of the barn- 
owl of Van Diemen's Land. Stand. Nat. HM., IV. 347. 
(6) In bot., a plant which produces fruit; that 
plant which bears the pistil and receives the 
pollen or fertilizing element of the male plant, 
or the analogous organ in cryptogams. 
II. a. 1. Pertaining to or concerned with 
woman or women ; belonging to or concerning 
the human sex which brings forth young. 
Who is this, what thing of sea or land ? 
Female of sex it seems, 
That so bedeck'd, ornate, and gay, 
Comes this way sailing. Milton, S. A., 1. 711. 
Behind him walk several of his female relations and 
friends. E. W. Lane, Modern Egyptians, I. 62. 
By extension 2. (a) Pertaining to the sex, of 
any animal, which brings forth young. (6) In 
6ot, pertaining to the kind of plants which 
produces fruit ; pistil-bearing; pistillate; pro- 
ducing pistillate flowers, or, in the case of cryp- 
A filamentous, felty mass ater 52 togams producing the organ analogous to the 
pistil, the organ which receives the fertilizing 
element of the male plant and produces the sex- 
Dialectal variants of 
[Formerly also filuca, 
'faliicco (= F.felouqiie = G.felucke, etc.), < It. 
felucca, feluca = Sp. falua, faluca = Pg. fa- 
lua, < Ar. faluka, < fulk, a ship, < falaka, be 
round (Engelmann, Mahn, etc.).] A long, nar- 
row vessel, used in the Mediterranean, rigged 
with two lateen sails borne on masts which have 
Hard baked or felted together. 
Holland, tr. of Ammiamis Marcellinus, p. 89. 
The felting of the woolen fibres in the fabric by means 
of pressure or friction. 
Benedikt, Coar-tar Colours (trans.), p. 54. 
2. To cover with felt, as the cylinder of a steam- 
engine. 
II. intrans. To become felted; mat together. 
felt 2 (felt). Preterit and past participle of feefl. 
felt-Cloth (felt'kloth), . Cloth made of wool 
matted together without weaving ; felt. 
felted (fel'ted), p. a. Matted together by or 
as if by felting; in hot., composed of closely 
interwoven filaments or hyphse Felted tissue, 
in fungi, tissue composed of distinct hypheo interwoven. 
feltert (fel'ter), v. [< ME. feltren, filtren, fyl- 
tren, mat together like felt, mingle, mix; a 
freq. of felten, v., felt, or after OF. feutrer, F. 
an inclination forward, and capable of being 
propelled also by oars, of which it can carry 
from eight to twelve on each side. Feluccas are 
seldom decked, but in the stern they have an awning or 
little house for shelter. The cutwater terminates in a 
long beak. Feluccas were formerly used for passengers 
and despatches where great speed was required, but are ---- 
now less common than formerly, and serve the ordinary femalely (fe mal-ll), adv. Suitably tor a woman 
ual spores, (c) Pertaining to or noting some 
inanimate object associated or contrasted with 
another as its complement or opposite. 
Thei [diamonds] growen to gedre, male and/eiefe. 
Handeville, Travels, p. 158. 
The ancients called sapphires male and female, accord- 
ing to their colours the deep coloured or indigo sap- 
phire was the male ; the pale blue, approaching the white, 
the /emote. Quoted in If. ami Q., 7th ser., V. 304. 
3. Characteristic of a woman; feminine; hence, 
weak, womanly, tender, etc. 
Boys, with women's voices, 
Strive to speak big, and clap their female Joints 
In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown. 
Shak., Rich. II., iii. 2. 
The boy is fair, 
Of female favour. Shak., As you Like H, iv. 3. 
Under a spreading Beach they sat, 
And pass'd the Time with Female Chat. 
Prior, Truth and Falsehood. 
If to her share some/nafe errors fall. 
Look on her face, and you'll forget them all. 
Pope, R. of the L., ii. 17. 
Female center-plate, the truck center-plate of a rail- 
road-car. Female flower, fluellen, etc. See the nouns. 
Female joint, the socket or faucet-piece of a spigot- 
aml-faucet joint. Female rimes, aouule rimes, such as 
motion, notion, the final syllable being unaccented : a term 
adapted from the French rimes feminines(temmme rimes), 
rimes which end with a mute syllable that is, with mute 
or feminine f. Female screw, a screw cut upon the in- 
ward surface of a cylindrical hole in a piece of metal, 
wood, or other solid substance ; a screw like that which 
is cut in a nut. =Syn. 1 and 3. E/eminate, Wmnaninh, etc. 
See feminine. 
purpose of coasters and fishing-boats. Vessels closely 
similar In model and rig are used on some of the Swiss 
lakes. 
Before the door . . . stand many horses, malely and 
saddled. 
Broughton, Cometh up as a Flower, xviii. 
I departed from Malta in a Falucco of Naples ; rowed , . ,. t . //-_= i: a 4.\ r/ f fma j f + -itf ~\ One 
by flvef and not twice so big as a wherry; yet will she for femallStt (fe ma-list), n. ^ Jen 
a space keep way with a galley. Sandys, Travailes, p. 183. devoted to the female sex; a courter of women , 
We embarqued in nfiluca for I.igorne [Leghorn]. 
Evelyn, Diary, Oct. 19, 1644. 
Do you see that Livornese felucca, 
That vessel to the windward yonder, 
Running with her gunwale under? 
Longfettow, Golden Legend, v. 
felt; felt; entangle. 
His fax and his foretoppe was fdterede. to-geders. 
Morte Arthure (E. E. T. 8.), 1. 1078. 
Their felt red hair torn with wrathful hand. 
Content (Arbor's Eng. Garner, I. 590). 
Hisfeltred locks, that on his bosom fell, 
On nigged mountains briars and thorns resemble. 
Fairfax, tr. of Tasso, iv. 7. 
137 
reg. E. 
'feldwort, 
-wyrt, < AS. feldwyrt, gentian, < feld, field, + 
wyrt, wort 1 .] A name for species of gentian, 
felyolet, . See^Kofe. 
fem. An abbreviation ot feminine, 3. 
a gallant. 
Courting her smoothly, like afemallist. 
Manton, Insatiate Countess, iv. 
femality (f e-mal'i-ti), n. [< female + -ity. Cf . 
OF. femeleie.~] The character or state of being 
female ; female nature. 
No doubt but he thought he was obliging me, and that 
my objection was all owing to femality, as he calls it. 
Jiichardson, Sir Charles Grandison, VI. 154. 
More native is it to her ... to inspire and receive the 
poem, than to create it. ... Such may be the especially 
feminine element spoken of as Femality. 
Marg. Fuller, Woman in 19th Cent., p. 115. 
female (fe'mal), n. and a. \<TAK. female, an femalizet (fe'ma-liz), v. t. [< female + -ize.~\ 
accom. form, in erroneous imitation of male, To make female or feminine ; express as f emi- 
of the correct and more common femele, femel, nine. 
