cuttle

1) A word first recorded as a noun in the Act of 1541 where the noun meant ‘a layer of cloth in the finished piece’ (OED). As a verb it was to fold cloth backwards and forwards, in cuttles, instead of rolling it.'

1758 All cloth both coalard and white broods or narrow ... miled thick enough to be taken out of stok and cuttled up so put in streight with cuttles, Wakefield. The complicated method of ‘cuttling’ cloth was described in detail by Alfred Easther who said it made cloth easier to unfold for show purposes and ‘kept it best’.

places Wakefield
dates 1758

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