- 1
A distaff is a stick people used when they spun wool or flax by hand. You held a bunch of fibre on it, and you drew the fibre out toward a spindle, which did the twisting. The distaff itself did not spin; it only held the stuff ready. You meet the object now in museums, old pictures, and stories about the past, not in ordinary rooms. Because spinning was long treated as women's work, the word grew extra senses. Older English speaks of the distaff side of a family, meaning the mother's side. It could also mean women as a group, or work thought of as women's. Though actually, younger people almost never call women the distaff — it sounds dated, and a bit boxed-in. You still find that talk in old novels, family history, and writing that copies old speech. As an adjective, distaff can mean of women or on the mother's side, with the same old flavour.
紡紗桿（以前紡羊毛時用來掛纖維的棍子，不是紡錘）。舊說法 the distaff side 指母系、女方。
組成From Middle English distaf, from Old English distæf: dis- (a bunch of flax) + stæf (staff, stick). Later senses about women grew because spinning was traditionally women's work.
同家族的字
- staffthe second half is the old word for a stick
原始詞典資料7 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
distaffnoun/ˈdɪstɑːf/
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A device to which a bundle of natural fibres (often wool, flax, or cotton) is attached for temporary storage, before being drawn off gradually to spin thread. A traditional distaff is a staff with flax fibres tied loosely to it (as indicated by the etymology of the word), but modern distaffs are often made of cords weighted with beads, and attached to the wrist.
- Then hadſt thou had an excellent head of haire. […] Excellent, it hangs like flax on a diſtaffe: & I hope to ſee a huſwife take thee between her legs, & ſpin it off.
- I muſt change armes at home, and giue the diſtaffe Into my Husbands hands, […]
- 2
The part of a spinning wheel from which fibre is drawn to be spun.
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Anything traditionally done by or considered of importance to women only.
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A race for female horses only.
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A woman, or women considered as a group.
- But O, passenger, if thou art desirous to know the cause of these fatal discomposures, of this inextricable war, truly I must deal plainly: I cannot resolve thee herein to any full satisfaction. Grievances there were, I must confess, and some incongruities in my civil government, (wherein, some say, the crozier, some say, the distaff was too busy,) but I little thought, God knows, that those grievances required a redress this way.
- [C]an I ſooth Tyranny? Seem pleas'd to ſee my Royal Maſter murther'd, His crown uſurp'd, a Diſtaff in the Throne [Anne, Queen of Great Britain], A Council made up of ſuch as dare not ſpeak, And could not if they durſt; […]
distaffadj/ˈdɪstɑːf/
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Of, relating to, or characteristic of women.
- Henry knew. If he were blackballed by this distaff Mafia, he was doomed: Endless, but always justifiable, delays would occur in the work he wanted typed.
- Women predominate not only, I think, because of matriarchal considerations, or claims to divine paternity, but also because Boiotian tradition leans in every way toward the distaff side.
- 2
Of the maternal side of a family.
- Lord Robert Walsingham de Vere St. Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral— […] They inherit Plantagenet blood by direct descent, and Tudor on the distaff side.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。