Wefte

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The horizontal threads that pass over and under the vertical warp threads to form woven fabric
2. The yarn run crosswise through a loom's warp so that it interlaces with the lengthwise threads of cloth
3. Threads laid across the warp on a loom, creating the interlaced pattern that forms the body of a textile

Etymology: "Weft" is the Old English "weft" (also "wefta"), meaning something woven or the act of weaving, from the verb "wefan," "to weave." The word is Germanic and goes back to a common ancestor in other Germanic languages, such as Old Norse "vefr" and Old High German "weft," so it has been part of English since the earliest recorded texts rather than arriving by borrowing. Its core meaning has stayed remarkably stable. Weavers have always distinguished the threads that run lengthwise on the loom, the warp, which are set in place first, from the threads that are passed across them, which is the weft. The sense "that which is woven" has since come to name the crosswise threads specifically, and the noun also appears in the phrase "warp and weft," used figuratively for the fundamental structure of something.