What is lint?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
April 25, 2003
killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~
Suggested Reading: Click here.
One of the earliest known uses and cultivation of flax comes from archaeological evidence of the lake dwellers in Switzerland. The prehistoric peoples plaited the fibers into cordage for nets and lines, made ropes for carrying heavy items and controlling animals, and wove the fibers into crude clothing. It is considered that the lake dwellers could not have constructed their homes or erected dolmens and menhirs (stone memorials) without the use of ropes and cords. ("Lake Geneva" and "Flax", 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica)
The common name, flax, meant both the plant and the fiber; it first appears in the Old Frisian language in the eighth century. The Anglo-Saxon name was fleax and had equivalent names in Old High German, flahs, and in Danish and Middle Low German as vlas. The names are thought derived from the ancient Gothic, flahta, plaiting or braiding, since an early use of flax was for cords and ropes. (Century Unabridged Dictionary, 1889)
By the time of the ancient Greeks, flax had been cultivated for better than 5000 years. The Greeks called the plant linon; the ancient Romans called it linum. Herbalists through the Middle Ages continued the Latin Linum; Linnaeus added the epithet, usitatissimum, meaning the common, customary, familiar, and usual, or loosely, "the flax everyone's familiar with". (Composition of Scientific Words, Brown, Smithsonian, 1956)
The Roman name was also the source of the Old Frisian and early English name for the cloth, linnen. Linnen came to mean anything manufactured from the fabric--tablecloths, towels, bedsheets, and napkins. We continue to call these items linens even though most are made today of less-expensive substitute fibers. Even the name of the short, broken fibers from spinning and weaving linen has hung around in modern usage--lint.
The Ulster Linen Company has posted the History of Linen by W.H. Webb with photographs comparing a piece of ancient Egyptian linen with a modern weave. This website also has numerous links to other interesting pages. To view the site, click on the link:
http://www.pagelinx.com/ulsterlinen/2.htm
killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~
Suggested Reading:
How did flax preserve history? Plants that Changed History - April 29, 2003
What does flax need to create fine fibers? Weird Plants - April 24, 2003
How did flax revolutionize clothing? Plants that Changed History - April 22, 2003
What was nettle cloth? Plants that Changed History - June 10, 2003
What is a spinster? What's in a Name? - September 5, 2003
What is Harry Lauder's walking stick? What's in a Name? - March 11, 2005
Why were Mennonites blamed for a Russian invasion? Plants that Changed History - July 2, 2002
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