carded

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of card.

   Security carded every guest at the entrance.

   The mill carded the raw wool into soft, even strands.

   Note

   One spelling serves several unrelated verbs. In US usage you have been carded when someone checks your ID against an age limit, usually in the passive (we got carded at the door). A player carded a stated score, and a mill carded wool before spinning. Only the wool verb is shared with the textile adjective.

2. 2
   adjective

   Holding formal membership in an organization, confirmed by possession of an official membership card; card-carrying.

   Every carded delegate received a ballot at the convention.

   He's been a carded member of the party for two decades.

   Similarregistered, card-carrying

   Note

   Trades and professional circuits use it for admission. The Railroad Telegrapher of 1913 tells of an operator nicknamed "The man who wasn't carded": a good railroad man who simply did not hold a card. A carded construction laborer or carded pro rodeo photographer has that card. The word attaches easily to the job title itself, and it works after a verb as well as before a noun.

3. 3
   adjective

   Mounted on a chipboard or cardboard backing and sealed within a molded plastic bubble.

   A carded prototype from the original line sold at auction for thousands.

   The store displayed dozens of carded figures along the back wall.

   Oppositeloose

   Note

   Collectors' shorthand for an unopened toy: a figure still on its backing and still under its bubble. Aaron LaPedis's The Garage Sale Millionaire takes a carded action figure to be in mint condition. Steve Kelley's Star Trek The Collectibles adds that the package is graded too, so a cracked bubble or a damaged card lowers the value. It usually stands before figure or package.

4. 4
   adjective

   Combed, with the fibers separated and straightened ready for spinning.

   The carded wool produced a smoother, stronger yarn.

   She preferred carded fleece for hand-spinning her own thread.

   Note

   Livestock could be carded too. The 1867 Report of the Board of Trustees of the New Hampshire College of Agriculture compares the weight gain of uncarded steers with that of carded ones, so here the card works as a comb on a living coat. In this broader use carded simply means combed, and its natural opposite is uncarded.

5. 5
   adjective

   Produced by separating and aligning fibers using a carding device fitted with wire teeth.

   Carded wool yields a lofty, airy yarn ideal for warm sweaters.

   Mills sold carded cotton in bulk for inexpensive textiles.

   Note

   A mill word that separates one branch of the wool trade from another. Edward Moir's "A Battle Royal in Wool: The Side of Carded Wool" (1910) speaks for the carded woolen manufacturers. For worsted, carded wool must then go through combing machines until every fiber lies parallel, so carded marks the stage that stops short of combing. It pairs readily with wool, woolens, cotton and even twills.

6. 6
   adjective

   Officially recorded by being listed on a designated information card.

   Only carded competitors were eligible for the final round.

   The judge checked that each carded entry had been properly registered.

   Similarregistered, listed

   Oppositeunregistered

   Note

   Railways and record offices kept their facts on cards, and the adjective followed them. A train could be carded to make a run in a set time, a construction that takes an infinitive. A railcar might carry a carded defect, one formally noted. Archives speak of carded records for the Civil War. In each case the word means put on the official card, not merely written down.

7. 7
   adjective

   Registered as an athlete on a current-season players card, marking official recognition for the competitive year.

   Carded athletes receive monthly funding to support their training.

   He lost his status as a carded player after the injury sidelined him.

   Similarregistered

   Note

   Sport uses the word in two ways. In minor hockey, a carded player is registered to one team and cannot drop down to another unless released, as John Shorey's Hockey Made Easy explains. In high-performance sport, carded athletes are chosen by their national sport organization, and carding money names the support that comes with the status. That money is rarely enough to live on alone.

8. 8
   adjective

   Straightly aligned, as though combed into neat, parallel lines.

   The carded furrows ran arrow-straight from one fence to the other.

   Thatchers left the reeds in carded ranks along the roof.

   Similarstraight, aligned, parallel

   Note

   Figurative carding belongs to description. William Douglas O'Connor's Harrington writes of "a carded drift of fierce white fire" in the resplendent blue, with light drawn out into streaks the way a card draws out wool. The image suits anything that streams in parallel lines, such as cloud, light, grass or hair, and the word usually sits directly before the noun it paints.

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