[a. F. filature (as if ad. L. *fīlātūra; cf. It. filatura), f. late L. fīlāre to spin, f. fīlum thread.]
1. The action of forming or spinning into threads; the reeling of silk from cocoons.
1783. Burke, Rep. Affairs India, Wks. 1842, II. 27. Could procure a reasonable livelihood by buying up the cocoons for the Italian filature.
1860. Ure, Dict. Arts, II. 277. Floss-silk is the name given to the portions of ravelled silk broken off in the filature of the cocoons.
b. attrib. in filature-silk = floss-silk.
1804. Colebrooke, Husb. Bengal (1806), 153. The prime-cost of fileture-silk [sic].
2. An establishment for reeling silk.
1759. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 165/1. The public filature at Savannah.
1772. Franklin, Letter to Cadwallader Evans, 5 May, Wks. 1887, IV. 477 note. Fifty-four pounds [of silk] had been reeled at the filature of private persons, who are getting it manufactured into mitts, stockings, and stuffs.
1851. L. D. B. Gordon, in Art Jrnl. Illust. Catal., 11**/1. The process of Reeling the Silk from the Cocoons is carried on in Europe in the months of July, August, and September, in establishments called filatures, and in the cottages of this peasantry of the countries where the silk is produced.
1880. Miss Bird, Japan, I. 270. In the rear of the filature is a large fireproof building, with racks up to the roof, in which the cocoons are stored after they have been exposed to a high temperature in a stove-heated chamber.
