Pull a single thread from a tapestry and it becomes meaningless — just a strand of coloured yarn. That is the image behind context. Latin contexere meant 'to weave together,' joining con- ('together') with texere ('to weave'), and its past participle contextus described the resulting fabric, the coherent whole. When English borrowed context in the 15th century, it initially referred to the written words surrounding a passage — the textual weave that gave a quoted phrase its meaning. The broader sense of 'circumstances surrounding an event' developed by the 17th century. The root texere produced one of English's most productive word families: text (a woven composition), textile (woven fabric), texture (the feel of a weave), and pretext (a cloth held up in front as a screen — a cover story). Each preserves the ancient metaphor of weaving. In an age of screenshots and soundbites, the cry 'taken out of context' is essentially a complaint that someone has pulled a thread from its tapestry and declared it the whole design.