An inkle is a colorful strip of linen woven on a miniature, portable loom. No one knows the term’s origin, but an old idiomatic expression, thick as inkle-weavers meant “extremely close or intimate.” The idea was that inkle looms are so small and narrow that the weavers who used them could sit much closer together than weavers using much larger looms. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Inkle”
I just learned the word inkle, I-N-K-L-E. It’s a kind of strip of colorful linen that’s woven on a really, really small, simple loom, and then it’s used for trimmings on shirts or dresses, that kind of thing, ankle.
And the reason that I came across that was because I was looking up the expression thick as thieves. And it turns out that another way that you can say that people are really close is to say thick as ankle weavers because the looms are so small and you could cram a lot of people into a room because ankle weavers are going to be close together because the looms are so small.
So this is like the word ankle with an I, not the part of the body.
Yeah, inkle.
Like the ink, like I-N-K-L-E.
Yeah, we don’t know the origin of the word inkle itself, but an inkle weaver is somebody who makes those little woven strips.
If you look up an inkle on Google, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
You’ve seen them before.
