[f. FELT sb.1]
1. trans. To make into felt; to bring into a consistence like that of felt; to mat or press together. Also, To felt together.
1513. [see pp. a.].
1601. Holland, Pliny, XI. xxiii. They fal to beat, to felt, and thicken it close with their feet. Ibid. (1609), Amm. Marcell., XVII. vii. 89. The sides thereof, hard baked or felted together.
1677. Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind, II. iv. 157. One Man [printed Men] felts it into a Hat.
1605. Luccock, Nat. Wool, 164. So little is known of the proceedings of nature in the operation of felting, that the manufacturer who would institute judicious experiments, superintend them with care, and publish the results, would perform a service useful to his country.
1835. Ure, Philos. Manuf., 153. Too great a velocity in these parts would be apt to knot and felt the wool.
1861. Hulme, trans. Maquin-Tandon, II. III. 68, note. Hairy (agagrophiles). Concretions which form in the stomach and intestines of various quadrupeds, from the accumulation of hairs swallowed by the animals in licking themselves. The hairs become felted together in balls.
1862. C. A. Johns, Brit. Birds (1874), 73. A compact nest of moss, felted so as to be impervious to water.
1874. M. Cooke, Fungi (1875), iii. 75. The fertile threads are either free or only slightly felted.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 342/1. The cloth is felted, that is, the fibres of the wool, by reason of their minutely jagged or serrated edges, interlock or hook into each other, thereby strengthening, thickening, and forming, as it were, a new matted surface on the cloth.
b. To make of felt.
1325, 1513, 1854 [see ppl. a.].
2. intr. for refl. To form into felt-like masses, to become matted together.
1791. Hamilton, Berthollet’s Dyeing, I. I. II. i. 129. This structure is the principal cause of the disposition to felting (feûtrage) which the hair of animals generally possesses.
1805. Luccock, Nat. Wool, 135. The tendency of the coat to felt upon the back of the sheep is a very curious property of wool, and deserves more minute attention than it has yet received.
1879. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 9), IX. 68/2. Unwashed wool, being coated with the natural grease does not felt.
1881. St. George Jackson Mivart, The Cat, 23. True hair, such as the cat’s, has not the property of ‘felting,’ because its surface is smooth.
3. trans. To cover with felt.
1883. Daily News, 17 Sept., 3/2. The roof of one of the huts has just been newly felted.
Mod. The cylinder of that steam-engine should be felted.
Hence Felted ppl. a.
c. 1325. Poem Times Edw. II., 145, in Pol. Songs (Camden), 330. Hii weren sockes in here shon, and felted botes above.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VI. v. 11. Lyart feltat tatis.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., Opin. of Phil., xxv. 824. The Moone is a thicke, compact, and felted cloud.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res. (1858), 35. In vain did the sleet beat round thy temples; it lighted only on thy impenetrable, felted or woven, case of wool.
1847. Ansted, Anc. World, xiii. 319. A curly felted mane at the fore part of the body.
1854. Marion Harland, Alone, xxv. A pair of felted slippers.
1878. Huxley, Physiography, 233. Muddy matter is likewise washed during floods, and helps to consolidate the felted mass and to produce a deposit of considerable firmness.
