Why is the word “bolt” used in regard to fabric measurement or manufacture?
“Bolt” comes from an Old English word related to the Old High German bolz, meaning a crossbow. One of the first English meanings was the shaft that one shot from the crossbow (we’d usually call it an “arrow” today), suggesting that the word developed as it moved (since it went from a reference to the weapon itself to a reference to the thing that weapon shot off). When we refer to a “bolt of lightning,” we are literally referring to the cartoony kind of lightning that a god holds in his hand and uses to smite people: a weapon that you shoot off, much like the bolt on the crossbow. In terms of fabric, the word “bolt” comes from the same origins. When we talk about a bolt of fabric, we are referring to a roll of specified length; when you unroll new bolts of fabric they’re all the same length. I suspect that that length was once measured in “bolts,” by which we meant literally measuring it by how many longbow arrows long it was.
