heddle

thumb|Undated Ho-Chunk heddle for beadwork bands, [[Wisconsin, USA.]] thumb|220px|Three different types of heddles: a wire, flat steel, and a repair heddle thumb|120px|Inserted eye wire heddles thumb|Patent model of a mechanized loom with string heddles

A heddle or heald is an integral part of a loom. Each thread in the warp passes through a heddle, which is used to separate the warp threads for the passage of the weft. The typical heddle is made of cord or wire and is suspended on a shaft of a loom. Each heddle has an eye in the center where the warp is threaded through. As there is one heddle for each thread of the warp, there can be near a thousand heddles used for fine or wide warps. A handwoven tea-towel will generally have between 300 and 400 warp threads and thus use that many heddles.