Weaver Bird
a popular name for any species of the family Ploceidæ.
Both the scientific and trivial names of yarn threads or other filaments by means of a loom, so as to form a web of cloth or other woven fabric. In this process two sets of threads are employed, which traverse the web at right angles to each other. The first set extends from end to end of the web in parallel lines, and is commonly called the warp; while the other set of threads crosses and interlaces with the warp from side to side of the web, and is generally called the weft or woof. In all forms of weaving the warp threads are first set up in the loom, and then the weft threads are worked into the warp, to and fro, by means of a shuttle. It was by this fundamental process of interlacing two sets of thread in looms of simple mechanism that the mummy cloths of Egypt, the fine damasks and tapestries of the Greeks and Romans, the Indian muslins, the shawls of Cashmere, and the famed textile fabrics of Italy and the Netherlands were produced. From the latter countries weaving by means of a hand loom was introduced into England.