Hackle vs Mackle - What's the difference?
hackle | mackle |
An instrument with steel pins used to comb out flax or hemp.
(fishing) A feather used to make a fishing lure or a fishing lure incorporating a feather.
A plate with rows of pointed needles used to blend or straighten hair.
A feather plume on some soldier's uniforms, especially the hat or helmet.
Any flimsy substance unspun, such as raw silk.
To dress (flax or hemp) with a hackle; to prepare fibres of flax or hemp for spinning.
* 1891 , Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country , Nebraska 2005, p. 155:
To separate, as the coarse part of flax or hemp from the fine, by drawing it through the teeth of a hackle or hatchel.
(archaic) To tear asunder; to break into pieces.
As nouns the difference between hackle and mackle
is that hackle is an instrument with steel pins used to comb out flax or hemp while mackle is obsolete form of macule.As verbs the difference between hackle and mackle
is that hackle is to dress (flax or hemp) with a hackle; to prepare fibres of flax or hemp for spinning while mackle is obsolete form of macule.hackle
English
Noun
(en noun)- When the dog got angry his hackles rose and he growled.
Usage notes
In everyday speech, primarily used in phrase “to raise one’s hackles'”, meaning “to make one angry”, as in “It raises my ' hackles when you take that condescending tone.”.Synonyms
* (instrument with pins) heckle, hatchel * (sense, plume on some soldier's uniforms) panache, plumeVerb
(hackl)- Then, with a smile that seemed to have all the freshness of the matutinal hour in it, she bent again to her work of hackling flax.
- The other divisions of the kingdom being hackled and torn to pieces. — Burke.