hank
/haŋk
/noun
1A coil or skein of wool, hair, or other material: a thick hank of her blonde hair...
- Seems her feet got dirty at the friends house a dozen times before I ripped hanks of hair from my head and tossed them into the air.
- All around are souvenir stands selling anything from T-shirts and badges through to ‘Hog Hair’ - a kind of biker Jimmy Wig with a hank of human hair attached to a bandana - and leather, leather and yet more leather.
- I so often read about people loving variegated yarns on the hank, but hating it, when it's knitted up.
Synonyms
coil, skein, length, roll, bunch, clump, loop, twist, piece;
shock, lock, ringlet, curl
2A measurement of the length per unit mass of cloth or yarn, which varies according to the type being measured. For example it is equal to 840 yards for cotton yarn and 560 yards for worsted.This enables the dyer to create hanks of yarn that aren't too tightly wound together, ensuring that the dye bath can penetrate all of the fibres and preventing streaking....
- I left the Studio with some nice stuff, pictured here. 2 hanks of the lovely Rio de la Plata (the other Uruguayan yarn), 2 hanks of Ironstone mohair, and 1 hank of Ironstone cotton tape.
- They buy the cotton from the Sangham office for Rs.25 a kg and can get 13-15 hanks if the cotton is good.
3 Sailing A ring for securing a staysail to the stay.A hank is provided for rapidly attaching a sail to a stay....
- The hank has a generally cylindrical body member with a longitudinal channel therethrough large enough to accommodate and slide on a stay on which it is adapted to be mounted.
- We can also reduce to total cost of the your roller furling package by taking your hank on sails in trade.
Origin
Middle English: from Old Norse hǫnk; compare with Swedish hank 'string' and Danish hank 'handle'.