whittle

• IPA^(key): /ˈwʰɪtəl/

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• Rhymes: -ɪtəl

From Middle English whittel (“large knife”), an alteration of thwitel, itself from thwiten (“to whittle”), from Old English þwītan. Compare Old Norse þveita (“to hurl”)

whittle (plural whittles)

1. A knife; especially, a pocket knife, sheath knife, or clasp knife.
   • Dryden

     A butcher's whittle.

   • Macaulay

     Rude whittles.

   • Betterton

     He wore a Sheffield whittle in his hose.

whittle (third-person singular simple present whittles, present participle whittling, simple past and past participle whittled)

1. (transitive or intransitive) To cut or shape wood with a knife.
2. (transitive) To reduce or gradually eliminate something (such as a debt).
3. (transitive, figuratively) To make eager or excited; to excite with liquor; to inebriate.
   • Withals

     When men are well whittled, their tongues run at random.

• whittle down
• whittling

From an Old English word for "white"; akin to an Icelandic word for a white bedcover.

whittle (plural whittles)

1. (archaic) A coarse greyish double blanket worn by countrywomen, in the west of England, over the shoulders, like a cloak or shawl.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Charles Kingsley to this entry?)

2. (archaic) A whittle shawl; a kind of fine woollen shawl, originally and especially a white one.

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967