Reel
Reel names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Reel a revolving contrivance on which fiber
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a revolving contrivance on which fiber, thread, cord, rope, fabric, etc., are wound, to form them into hanks or skeins, and for various other purposes; applied to: Agriculture, a device having radial arms carrying horizontal slats, and rotated by gear or pulley connected with the axle of a harvester, for pressing backward and holding the stalks of grain in position for being severed by the knives. Angling, a skeleton barrel attached to the butt of a fishing rod, around which the inner end of the line is wound, and from which it is payed out as the fish runs off with the bait, and is gradually wound in again as his struggles become less violent, bringing him to land or to the landing net. Baking, a cylinder with radial arms rotating in a heated chamber, carrying pans in which loaves of bread are placed for baking in the reel-oven. Cotton machinery, a machine on which cotton is is wound, wound, makin making hanks of thread, each 840 yards in length. Domestic, a spool or bobbin of wood on which cotton, thread, silk, etc., is wound for use in sewing. Milling, the barrel or drum on which the bolting cloth is fastened. Nautically, a revolving frame to hold a line or cord, as: (a) the log-reel; (b) the deep sea-reel; and (c) the spun-yarn-reel, etc. Rope-making, spun-yarns are wound on a reel preparatory to tarring or laying up into strands as the twisting of each length is completed. Silk-making, the revolving frame on which silk is wound from the cocoons, or yarn is wound off from the spindle of a hand-spinning machine, and reeled into cuts or hanks. Telegraphy, a barrel on which the strip of paper for receiving the message is wound in a recording telegraph.
Reel a lively rustic dance
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a lively rustic dance, peculiar to Scotland. In the United ted States, States, the Virginia reel is widely popular. Also the music for such a dance, generally written in common time, but sometimes in jig time of six quavers to a bar.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 catalogued ten trades that used a reel — baking, milling, telegraphy, rope-making — but did not mention film, even though cinema by then measured its features in reels of about 1,000 feet. Within a few decades the word's dominant senses were exactly the ones missing here: the projection reel, then the reel-to-reel magnetic tape of the 1950s and 60s, both of which have themselves largely passed into obsolescence. Today the commonest use is digital: Instagram launched Reels, its short vertical video format, in 2020, so a reel is now a clip that was never wound on anything. The older senses survive unevenly — the angler's reel was transformed by the fixed-spool spinning reel that spread after the Second World War, the harvester reel still turns on combine headers, and the Virginia reel and Scottish reels are now danced chiefly at folk and ceilidh events rather than as everyday rustic dancing.
Written for this edition, 2026.