spin (spĭn), transitive verb [imperfect or past participle Spun (Archaic imperfect Span); present participle or verbal noun Spinning.] [AS. spinnan; akin to D. & G. spinnen, Icel. & Sw. spinna, Dan. spinde, Goth. spinnan, and probably to E. span. √170. Cf. Span, transitive verb, Spider.]

1. To draw out, and twist into threads, either by the hand or machinery; as, to spin wool, cotton, or flax; to spin goat’s hair; to produce by drawing out and twisting a fibrous material.

All the yarn she [Penelope] spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths. Shak.

2. To draw out tediously; to form by a slow process, or by degrees; to extend to a great length; – with out; as, to spin out large volumes on a subject.

Do you mean that story is tediously spun out? Sheridan.

3. To protract; to spend by delays; as, to spin out the day in idleness.

By one delay after another they spin out their whole lives. L'Estrange.

4. To cause to turn round rapidly; to whirl; to twirl; as, to spin a top.

5. To form (a web, a cocoon, silk, or the like) from threads produced by the extrusion of a viscid, transparent liquid, which hardens on coming into contact with the air; – said of the spider, the silkworm, etc.

6. (Mech.) To shape, as malleable sheet metal, into a hollow form, by bending or buckling it by pressing against it with a smooth hand tool or roller while the metal revolves, as in a lathe.

To spin a yarn (Naut.): to tell a story, esp. a long or fabulous tale.

To spin hay (Mil.): to twist it into ropes for convenient carriage on an expedition.

To spin street yarn: to gad about gossiping. [Collog.]

Spin, intransitive verb

1. To practice spinning; to work at drawing and twisting threads; to make yarn or thread from fiber; as, the woman knows how to spin; a machine or jenny spins with great exactness.

They neither know to spin, nor care to toll. Prior.

2. To move round rapidly; to whirl; to revolve, as a top or a spindle, about its axis.

Round about him spun the landscape,
Sky and forest reeled together. Longfellow.

With a whirligig of jubilant mosquitoes spinning about each head. G. W. Cable.

3. To stream or issue in a thread or a small current or jet; as, blood spinsfrom a vein. Shak.

4. To move swifty; as, to spin along the road in a carriage, on a bicycle, etc. [Colloq.]

Spin, noun

1. The act of spinning; as, the spin of a top; a spin a bicycle. [Colloq.]

2. (Kinematics) Velocity of rotation about some specified axis.

-- Websters 1913