coil

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /kɔɪl/

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• Rhymes: -ɔɪl

From Middle French coillir (“to gather, pluck, pick, cull”) (French: cueillir), from Latin colligo (“to gather together”), past participle collectus, from com- (“together”) + lego (“to gather”); compare legend. Doublet of cull.

Helical or coil springs

coil (plural coils)

1. Something wound in the form of a helix or spiral.

   the sinuous coils of a snake

   • Washington Irving

     The wild grapevines that twisted their coils from tree to tree.

2. Any intrauterine device (Abbreviation: IUD)—the first IUDs were coil-shaped.
3. (electrical) A coil of electrically conductive wire through which electricity can flow.
4. (figuratively) Entanglement; perplexity.
   • a. 1722, Matthew Prior, “Human Life”, in H. Bunker Wright, Monroe K. Spears, editors, The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, volume I, Second edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1971, page 687:

     What trifling coil do we mortals keep;
     Wake, eat, and drink, evacuate, and sleep.

• (coil of conductive wire): inductor

coil (third-person singular simple present coils, present participle coiling, simple past and past participle coiled)

1. To wind or reel e.g. a wire or rope into regular rings, often around a centerpiece.

   A simple transformer can be made by coiling two pieces of insulated copper wire around an iron heart.

2. To wind into loops (roughly) around a common center.

   The sailor coiled the free end of the hawser on the pier.

3. To wind cylindrically or spirally.

   to coil a rope when not in use

   The snake coiled itself before springing.

4. (obsolete, rare) To encircle and hold with, or as if with, coils.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of T. Edwards to this entry?)

Origin unknown.

coil (plural coils)

1. (now obsolete except in phrases) A noise, tumult, bustle, or turmoil.
   • François Rabelais (in translation), Gargantua and Pantagruel

     And when he saw that all the dogs were flocking about her, yarring at the retardment of their access to her, and every way keeping such a coil with her as they are wont to do about a proud or salt bitch, he forthwith departed […]

   • 1594, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, Act III:

     If the windes rage, doth not the Sea wax mad, / Threatning the welkin with his big-swolne face? / And wilt thou haue a reason for this coile?

   • 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, in Kupperman 1988, p. 162:

     this great Savage desired also to see him. A great coyle there was to set him forward.

   • 1704, Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub:

     they continued so extremely fond of gold, that if Peter sent them abroad, though it were only upon a compliment, they would roar, and spit, and belch, and piss, and f—t, and snivel out fire, and keep a perpetual coil, till you flung them a bit of gold […]

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:coil.

• mortal coil

• coil in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• coil in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• Clio, loci

• IPA^(key): [kɛlʲ]

coil m

1. vocative singular of col (“prohibition; sin, lust; violation; dislike; incest; relation, relationship”)
2. genitive singular of col (“prohibition; sin, lust; violation; dislike; incest; relation, relationship”)