Distaff

I had only ever heard the term "distaff" used to refer to the maternal branch of a family, so when I encountered it in a different context last night in a story in Grimm's fairy tales, I realized I needed to look it up.  Here's the Wikipedia summary:

As a noun, a distaff... is a tool used in spinning. It is designed to hold the unspun fibers, keeping them untangled and thus easing the spinning process. It is most commonly used to hold flax, and sometimes wool, but can be used for any type of fiber. Fiber is wrapped around the distaff, and tied in place with a piece of ribbon or string. The word comes from dis in Low German, meaning a bunch of flax, connected with staff...

The term distaff is also used as an adjective and is used as a descriptor for the female branch of a family (e.g., the "distaff side" of a person's family refer's to the person's mother and her blood relatives). This term developed in the English speaking communities where a distaff spinning tool was used often to symbolize domestic life.

Ironically, we have an antique (distaff-less*) spinning wheel in our living room (from which the Christmas stockings are now hanging), and yet I still didn't know the word.  You learn something every day.

Image: "Queen Berthe instructing girls to spin flax on spindles using distaffs, Albert Anker, 1888"

* "You probably don't have a distaff on your antique spinning wheel because it's a wheel meant for spinning wool." - hat tip to islenskr for this explanation.