ROLL, in manufactories, something wound and folded up in a cylindrical form.
Few stuffs are made up in rolls, except satins, gauzes, and crapes; which are apt to break, and take plaits not easy to be got out, if folded otherwise. Ribbons, laces, gallons, and paduas of all kinds, are also thus rolled.
A roll of tobacco, is tobacco in the leaf, twisted on the mill, and wound twist over twist about a stick or roller. A great deal of tobacco is sold in America in rolls of various weights; and it is not till its arrival in England, Spain, France, and Holland, that it is cut.
A roll of parchment, properly denotes the quantity of 60 skins.
The ancients made all their books up in the form of rolls; and in Cicero's time the libraries consisted wholly of such rolls.