Hackled

Part of speech: verb, adjective

Definitions

1. Combed out fibers such as flax or hemp into parallel strands for spinning ; subjected someone to heckling or rough questioning while speaking
2. Separated and aligned fibers by drawing them through a comb-like tool ; interrupted and annoyed a speaker with hostile questions or remarks
3. Worked fibers into parallel arrangements using a hackle tool ; disrupted a speaker with aggressive heckling or hostile interjections

Etymology: The word is an inflected form, so its story really belongs to its base, "hackle", which meant the comb-like feathers or the rough bristled comb itself. That noun came into English from Old English "hæcla" or "hacele", descended from a Proto-Germanic root "*hakulǭ" built on the same base as "hack", with the diminutive-style ending "-le". German "Hechel" and Dutch "hekel" are close relatives, all pointing to a shared sense of something with sharp, hooked points. The verb form took on the sense of raising the neck feathers of a fowl, which gave rise to the idiom "to make one's hackles rise", meaning to provoke anger or hostility. Used as a verb, "hackled" thus describes something whose hackles have been raised, though the same form also covers the older sense of combing flax or hemp with a hackle.

Synonyms: combed, dressed, prepared