windle

English

Etymology

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Pronunciation

Noun

windle (plural windles)

1. A spindle, a kind of reel for winding yarn. See also windles.
   • 1821, Walter Scott, Kenilworth, page 50:

     God's sake, speak her fair and canny, or we will have a raveled hasp on the yarn-windles!

2. (UK, dialect) The redwing.
   • 1908, W. F. Rose, Notes and queries, page 48: 

     The modus operandi somewhat recalls the stratagem of Gideon, for the birds—chiefly thrushes, blackbirds, fieldfares, redwings (locally "windles"), and starlings (smaller birds being disregarded)—terrified by the noise, and dazed by the lantern glare, suffered themselves to be taken by the hand, or, if roosting aloft, as was the case on still nights, to be knocked down with the poles which the lads carried.

3. An old English measure of corn, half a bushel.
   • 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 4, p. 208.

     In the Derby household book of 1561, wheat, malt, and oats are sold by the quarter and the windle, in which the quarter clearly contained sixteen windles, and must have been a wholly different measure from that which we are familiar.

4. Dog-tail grass, Plantago lanceolata.
5. Bent grass.

Translations

redwing — see redwing