A spindle is a straight spike, usually made from wood, used for spinning, twisting fibers such as wool, flax, hemp, cotton into yarn. It is often weighted at either the bottom, middle, or top, commonly by a disc or spherical object called a whorl; many spindles, however, are weighted simply by thickening their shape towards the bottom, e.g. Orenburg and French spindles. The spindle may also have a hook, groove, or notch at the top to guide the yarn. Spindles come in many different sizes and weights depending on the thickness of the yarn one desires to spin.
Modern top-whorl drop spindles. The hook at the top allows these to be suspended and the cop is built up below the disk-shaped whorl in a conical shape.
Spindle with cotton yarn, without whorl, representing the "spindle-shape".
A modern Turkish spindle is an example of a low-whorl suspended spindle where the whorl is made up of interlocking arms. Here the cop is wound around the arms to form a ball.
Ancient Greek spindle whorls, 10th century BC, Kerameikos Archaeological Museum, Athens
Spinning is a twisting technique to form yarn from fibers. The fiber intended is drawn out, twisted, and wound onto a bobbin. A few popular fibers that are spun into yarn other than cotton, which is the most popular, are viscose, animal fibers such as wool, and synthetic polyester. Originally done by hand using a spindle whorl, starting in the 500s AD the spinning wheel became the predominant spinning tool across Asia and Europe. The spinning jenny and spinning mule, invented in the late 1700s, made mechanical spinning far more efficient than spinning by hand, and especially made cotton manufacturing one of the most important industries of the Industrial Revolution.
Traditional spinner in her family's house in Old Bagan, Myanmar (2019).
Ring spinning
Mule spinning
1595 painting illustrating Leiden textile workers