A frame or device used in textile manufacturing to hold cloth taut while it dries, or a worker who operates such equipment.
From 'back' + 'tenter' (from Old English tendan). A tenter is a frame with hooks, and a backtenter was specifically used at the rear of the drying process in mills.
The backtenter is pure industrial vocabulary—it shows how specific jobs in the Industrial Revolution got hyper-specialized names that made sense only to people working in textile mills, and most of these terms have completely vanished.
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