Thimble

A small pitted cap worn over a fingertip to protect it from being pricked by the blunt end of a needle while pushing it through cloth, its name descending from the Old English word for thumb. Thimbles found in England date to the tenth century, and by the fourteenth century they were in widespread use there; early metal thimbles were cast or hammered from sheet brass. In 1693 the Dutch-born manufacturer John Lofting opened a thimble factory in London and later moved production to Buckinghamshire to use water power, reaching an output of more than two million thimbles a year. Beyond brass and other metals, thimbles have been made of leather, rubber, wood, glass and porcelain, and, historically, of whalebone, horn, ivory, Connemara marble, bog oak and mother of pearl, with fine examples set in semi-precious and precious stones; alongside their working use, thimbles have long been collected and given as gifts.