1. A workman who spins yarn.
1813. Examiner, 28 Feb., 137/2. Bankrupts…. T. Kemp, Knaresborough, yarn-spinner.
1895. Daily News, 10 May, 9/3. Yarn spinners are, generally speaking, very busy on old orders.
2. One who ‘spins a yarn’; a story-teller. colloq.
1865. Mrs. Whitney, Gayworthys, xxvi. ‘Captain Vorse, we want a yarn—a real sailor’s yarn!’… ‘Oh, I’m no yarn-spinner said the young captain, evasively.
1883. Harper’s Mag., Jan., 323/2. For many a day the story was ‘improved’ by the marine yarn-spinners of that port.
So Yarn-spinning.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Yarn-spinning, a figurative expression for telling a story.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIV. 731/1. These inventions are at the foundation of all modern systems of yarn-spinning.
