A thick, continuous web or strip of raw cotton fibers that have been cleaned, untangled, and aligned by the wire teeth of a carding machine. This loosely bound rope, often called a sliver, is the intermediate stage between raw cotton bales and the spinning frame where it will be drawn and twisted into yarn.
Heard on the job
Check the tension on the delivery rollers, the cotton card is coming out too thin and breaking.
Also heard as
- carded sliver
Do not mix it up with
- Card: A card is the machine or the wire-toothed tool; a cotton card in this context is the resulting strip of fiber.