Textile

A flexible material made by weaving, knitting, felting, or otherwise interlacing fibers. Textiles include fabrics and nonwoven materials used for clothing, furnishings, and technical purposes.

Textile fiber: A natural or manufactured strand that can be spun or assembled into textile structures. Fibers are the raw units interlaced to form textiles.
Clothing: Items worn on the body for protection, modesty, identification, or adornment. Clothing is the most familiar use of textile materials.
Loom: A device that holds warp yarns under tension while interlacing them with weft yarns. Looms control the crossing of yarns in woven textiles.
History of textiles: The history of making and using fibers, yarns, and textile materials across human societies. Textile remains and techniques trace how people developed material culture.
Textile industry: The economic sector that produces fibers, yarns, fabrics, and textile products. The industry organizes textile making across farms, mills, factories, and supply chains.
Yarn: A continuous strand of fibers or filaments made for knitting, weaving, or other textile construction. Many textiles begin with fibers twisted or otherwise assembled into yarn.
Technical textile: A textile designed primarily for functional performance rather than appearance or fashion. These materials are engineered for properties such as filtration, reinforcement, or protection.
Textile finishing: Processes applied after fabric formation to change a textile’s appearance, feel, or performance. Finishing can add properties such as water repellency, softness, or color.
Spinning jenny: A multi-spindle spinning machine invented by James Hargreaves in eighteenth-century England. It increased the amount of yarn a worker could produce, helping transform textile manufacture.
Sweatshop: A workplace characterized by poor conditions, low pay, or excessive hours, often in garment production. Some textile and apparel supply chains rely on labor in exploitative conditions.

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