distaff

A device to which a bundle of natural fibres (often wool, flax, or cotton) are 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 indicat

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, […]

The part of a spinning wheel from which fibre is drawn to be spun.

Anything traditionally done by or considered of importance to women only.

A race for female horses only.

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; […]

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.

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.