hackle

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a long, narrow feather from a bird's neck or back, especially one used in an artificial fishing fly

   The fly tier wound a brown hackle around the hook.

2. 2
   noun

   one of the erectile hairs or feathers along an animal's neck or back; usually plural

   The dog's hackles rose when the stranger approached.

3. 3
   noun

   a toothed comb used to separate and straighten flax or hemp fibers; historical or technical

   The worker drew the flax through a hackle before spinning it.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Hackles are the long neck feathers of a fighting cock or the hairs on top of a dog’s neck, which rise when the animal is aggressive or excited. In the Middle Ages, a hackle or heckle was also an implement with parallel steel pins used to split and straighten flax fibres. The word goes back to an ancient root related to hook. The expression make someone’s hackles rise developed in the mid-19th century.

The feather sense descends from Middle English hackle and Old English hacele 'cloak, mantle,' though its relationship to the homonymous flax comb is uncertain. The comb word is Germanic, cognate with Dutch hekel and German Hechel, from a root associated with hooks or teeth.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary