Q: Was the term "gig" or "gig mill" in common use ca. 1850? It's a sewing term for a top-like device for raising nap on fabric. I need this info for an Emily Dickinson poem explication.
A: The Oxford English Dictionary lists the term gig-mill as first being used in 1842 but at that time it meant the cylinders used in the making of woolen cloth. The first use of the term as a nap raising device on a sewing machine was in 1886.
The term gig was first used in 1789 to indicate the raising of the nap by hand work not machine. The person doing the work was a gigger.
I would conclude that gig-mill was not in common use in the 1850's but that gig was.
