Two Hundred Sixty-Five

“Spinning a yarn” is an idiomatic expression meaning “to make up a story” or “to tell a lie.” I gather the genesis of the expression was from a time when groups of women gathered to craft yarn on spinning wheels. While they were working, they told stories to one another. Over time, the telling of stories came to be called “spinning a yarn,” though I can’t seem to find the root of the stories’ validity being questioned, nor why over time “spinning a yarn” came to be assumed to be fabrications or lies.