CARD, among artificers, an instrument for combing and disentangling the fibres of wool or flax, freeing them from the coarser parts and from extraneous matter, so as to render them fine and soft for spinning. A card consists of bent wire-teeth inserted in a thick piece of leather, which is
nailed by the edges to a piece of board about a foot in length, and half a foot in breadth; and in the middle of one of the longer sides a handle is fixed. They are of various kinds, as hand-cards, stock-cards, &c. These are now in a measure superseded; wool, cotton, &c., being generally carded in mills by teeth fixed on wheels moved by water or steam-power. See WOOL AND ITS MANUFACTURES.