felt

Formsfelts, felting, felted

Pluralfelts (some meanings)

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of feel.

   He felt a sharp pain in his side halfway through the race.

   We had felt uneasy about the deal from the very start.

   Note

   There is no feeled. The Old English form fēled was already feel plus the past ending, and the two fused into one irregular word that serves as both past tense and participle (I felt, I have felt). Because feel can be a linking verb, felt takes an adjective rather than an adverb. You write that you felt uneasy, not that you felt uneasily.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   A dense fabric made from wool or fur fibers matted and compressed together rather than spun or woven.

   Craftsmen pressed the wet wool into felt using heat and steady pressure.

   The piano's hammers are tipped with dense felt to soften each note.

   Note

   An old word for an old fabric: Old English felt, with cousins in Dutch vilt, German Filz and French feutre, and a deeper root shared with Latin pilleus and Greek pîlos. It is unrelated to the past tense of feel, which goes back to Old English fēled. Shakespeare's King Lear imagines shoeing a troop of horse with felt, a stratagem that works only because the cloth muffles hoofbeats.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A pen with a soft, porous tip of pressed fibers that releases ink for writing or coloring; a felt-tip pen.

   She grabbed a red felt and underlined the key dates on the calendar.

   The kids left their felts uncapped, so half of them dried out.

   Similarmarker

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A hat shaped from felt, the matted wool fabric, typically with a brim and a creased crown.

   The detective pulled his felt low over his eyes.

   A row of felts hung on hooks beside the door.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To work wool or fur fibers into felt by matting and pressing them together so they cling and lock.

   Crafters felt the wool by agitating it in warm water until the fibers lock together.

   The mill felts scraps of leftover fleece into sturdy mats.

   Similarmat

   Note

   Making cloth without spinning or weaving: Matthew Hale, writing before 1677, sets it beside its rivals: one man felts wool into a hat, another weaves it into cloth. The verb is regular, so yesterday's work was felted, never felt. That keeps it apart from the past tense of feel, which shares the bare spelling but grew from a different Old English word, fēled.

6. 6
   adjective

   Experienced or perceived directly, especially as an inner sensation rather than an abstract idea.

   The therapist asked her to describe the felt quality of the emotion.

   There was a strongly felt need for reform across the department.

   Similarexperienced, perceived

   Note

   A participle turned adjective that rarely stands alone. It usually leans on an intensifying adverb, as in deeply felt, strongly felt or keenly felt. Diarmaid MacCulloch's A History of Christianity speaks of conversion as a deeply felt aesthetic experience. It compares with more and most (a more deeply felt loss), and philosophers use the bare form for the felt quality of an experience.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To line or cover a surface with felt, or with a material resembling felt.

   Crews felt the flat roof, then sealed every seam with bitumen.

   The upholsterer felted the chair frame before stretching the fabric over it.

   Similarline, pad

8. 8
   verbtransitive

   To strip another player of every chip, knocking them out of the game.

   A single all-in hand can felt even the most careful player.

   He felted the chip leader with a runner-runner flush.

   Similarbust

   Note

   Poker slang takes its name from the green cloth of the table. A player who is felted has nothing left between their hands and the bare felt. The object of the verb is always the beaten player, never the chips: you felt an opponent, and an opponent gets felted.

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