Smyth sewing

American

[smahyth, smith] / smaɪθ, smɪθ /

Or Smythe sewing

noun

Bookbinding.

a method of sewing together folded, gathered, and collated signatures with a single thread sewn through the folds of individual signatures.

After David M. Smyth (1833–1907), Irish-born U.S. inventor, who designed a machine performing this kind of sewing

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Smyth sewing

Pages are sewn together with thread, either by hand or with a Smyth sewing machine.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023