'Spindle' is the tool that turns fiber into thread — from 'spin.' It gave us 'spinster' and fairy tales.
A rod or pin used for spinning and twisting fibers into thread; a slender rod or shaft that revolves or on which something revolves.
From Old English 'spinel' / 'spinl' (spindle), from Proto-Germanic *spinnilō (spindle), a diminutive or instrumental form from *spinnaną (to spin). The base verb 'spin' comes from PIE *spend- or *(s)pen- (to draw, to stretch, to spin). The spindle was one of the most important tools in the pre-industrial world — virtually every household had one, and spinning was the primary productive activity of women in most cultures
The word 'spinster' originally meant simply 'a woman who spins' — spinning was the default occupation of unmarried women in medieval England, so common that it became a legal designation. By the seventeenth century, 'spinster' had narrowed to mean an unmarried woman, and then acquired negative connotations of age and undesirability. The word's journey from a respected occupation to a pejorative term tells