Catgut

Catgut roll

Description

A tough, thin cord made from the dried intestines of herbivore animals, such as sheep. Catgut is made by cleaning and soaking the gut in an alkali solution, then it is spilt, graded and drawn through holes or twisted to form strong, durable cords. They are used in stringing musical instruments, tennis rackets, and surgical sutures.

Synonyms and Related Terms

gut

Sources Checked for Data in Record

• G.S.Brady, Materials Handbook, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1971 Comment: p. 165

• Matt Roberts, Don Etherington, Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books: a Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1982

• Random House, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Grammercy Book, New York, 1997

• The American Heritage Dictionary or Encarta, via Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Microsoft Corp., 1998

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000