Hackling [verb]

The next operations consist of "breaking," "scutching," and "hackling" and are now done by machinery.

This first combing process is sometimes called roughing instead of hackling.

The whole operations in yarn manufacture comprise hackling, preparing and spinning.

In the construction of hackling machines, the general principles of those now most commonly adopted are identical.

In the case of hackling by machinery, the flax is first roughed and arranged in stricks, as above described under hand hackling.

It is then dried and broken, and afterwards “scutched,” and rendered still cleaner and finer by a process called “hackling.”

The prickly skin appears to have been used by the Romans for hackling hemp.

We frequently saw the inhabitants 49 washing or cooking for their pigs, and in one place hackling flax by the roadside.

The hackling was accomplished by means of the simplest devices, such as pounding with hammers or sticks.

I should have softened it first by a hackling process, as we used to hackle the hemp in Kentucky; but I did not.