Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Trama

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

TRA'MA. Originally and accurately, this word seems to have indicated the threads of a warp when opened into a shed, or decussated by the leashes (licia), as seen in the centre of the annexed illustration (Trama/1.1), and thus opposed to stamen, which signifies the warp before the leashes are put on, and while all its yarns hang straight and close upon the loom, as represented by the wood-cut under that word (Sen. Ep. 90. Schneider. Index. R. R. Script. s. TELA.) Hence it is applied to the open work of a spider's web (Plin. H. N. xi. 28.), and to a very lean person (Pers. vi. 73.), as if to imply that one might see through his skin and bones, as through the shed of a warp. But latterly, or at least in the language of the common people, the term trama was confounded with subtemen (Serv. ad Virg. Aen. iii. 43. Isidor. Orig. xix. 29. 7.), in which sense it is retained to this day by the weavers of Italy, who call the woof "la trama."

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  Trama/1.1