spool
Americannoun
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spools
plural
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any cylindrical piece or device on which something is wound.
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a small cylindrical piece of wood or other material on which yarn is wound in spinning, for use in weaving; a bobbin.
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a small cylinder of wood or other material on which thread, wire, or tape is wound, typically expanded or with a rim at each end and having a hole lengthwise through the center.
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the material or quantity of material wound on such a device.
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Angling. the cylindrical drum in a reel that bears the line.
verb (used with object)
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spools,
present (3rd person singular)
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spooled,
past participle, past
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spooling
present participle
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to wind on a spool.
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to unwind from a spool (usually followed by off orout ).
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Computers. to operate (an input/output device) by using buffers in main and secondary storage.
verb (used without object)
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spools,
present (3rd person singular)
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spooled,
past participle, past
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spooling
present participle
-
to wind.
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to unwind.
noun
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a device around which magnetic tape, film, cotton, etc, can be automatically wound, with plates at top and bottom to prevent it from slipping off
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anything round which other materials, esp thread, are wound
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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spoolsimple
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spoolssimple
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have spooledperfect
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has spooledperfect
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am spoolingprogressive
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are spoolingprogressive
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is spoolingprogressive
-
have been spoolingperfect progressive
-
has been spoolingperfect progressive
Past
-
spooledsimple
-
had spooledperfect
-
was spoolingprogressive
-
were spoolingprogressive
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had been spoolingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of spool
1275–1325; Middle English spole < Middle Dutch spoele or Middle Low German spōle; cognate with German Spule
Explanation
Fishing line, thread, and wire are usually wound around a special cylinder called a spool. If you enjoy sewing, you might buy spools of colored thread at the crafts store. Back in the days of cassette tapes, the magnetic tape would occasionally get tangled in the tape player and have to be wound back on its spool. You can use this word as a verb, too: "Will you spool that loose thread back on the bobbin for me?" Computer experts use spool to mean "store data temporarily," so they might spool computer files to a desktop folder, for example.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
DNA is tightly packed into chromosomes, similar to thread wound around a spool, and is often present in multiple copies that must be reliably passed on during division.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 20, 2026
She points out the spool of paper tickets in the box office, now coiling on the floor and ready to be counted.
From Salon ● Dec. 18, 2025
A pinched approximation of a muted trumpet suggests some kind of mutant jazz unfolding nearby, while unpredictable pitch changes conjure visions of a tape slipping off a spool.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 18, 2025
A spool of tens of kilometres of cable is fitted to the bottom of a drone and the physical fibre optic cord is attached to the controller held by the pilot.
From BBC ● May 28, 2025
“Happily ever after,” he said again as the spool of thread came to a stop beside him.
From "The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread" by Kate DiCamillo
In late April, the Kushner-backed group put construction fencing at the environmentally protected peninsula’s edges, lining it with spools of razor wire.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026
By that point, stock traders had moved away from using old-fashioned stock tickers and their endless spools of paper tape.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 17, 2026
The spools of thread Carrie unravels eventually end.
From Salon ● Jun. 7, 2025
Gone are the endless spools of film that collected in university commencement offices.
From Slate ● May 27, 2025
Atticus drew the line at having someone feed him, and Dr. Finch solved the problem by jamming the handles of a fork, knife, and spoon into the ends of big wooden spools.
From "Go Set a Watchman: A Novel" by Harper Lee
The concern over the start process is centred on the increased amount of time it takes to get the turbos in the engines spooled up to the right speed for the optimum launch.
From BBC ● Feb. 18, 2026
As the decades spooled past, British society would become less deferential and British media more intrusive.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026
Nile, though, is unencumbered by empathy, guilt, or the urge for compromise, a mile-long bunting of red flags spooled into one cashmere-clad creep.
From Salon ● Nov. 19, 2025
Those DNA strands get packaged into chromatin fibers, which are spooled around histone proteins and then repeatedly looped to form highly compact structures that fit into the cell nucleus.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 13, 2023
I spooled the strands on my fork and rolled my two meatballs around until I got tired of that, and ate them both.
From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez
Jersey City firefighters literally reached the end of their rope, spooling out 200 feet of rescue line before turning back, not wanting to get themselves lost in the smoke.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 12, 2024
This ionized gas flows outward along magnetic field lines emerging from our star, spooling out in radial spirals tied to the sun’s rotation.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 8, 2023
Fishing fleets spooling out longlines—kilometers-long floating lines festooned with hooks—zero in on these same spots in pursuit of blue sharks.
From Science Magazine ● Feb. 1, 2023
The idea, she said, would be to create the inside of a church, with a montage of Waters films spooling near the altar.
From New York Times ● Jun. 10, 2022
And then it turns over, thinks a bit, and begins spooling backwards, slow at first. . . speeds up.
From "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" by J.K. Rowling
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
