different between whirtle vs whittle

English

Noun

whirtle (plural whirtles)

1. (engineering) A perforated steel die through which wires or tubes are drawn to form them.

Anagrams

• writhle

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???t?l/, /?w?t?l/
• Rhymes: -?t?l

Etymology 1

From Middle English whittel (“large knife”), an alteration of thwitel, itself from thwiten (“to whittle”), from Old English þw?tan (“to strike down, whittle”), from Proto-Germanic *þw?tan?, from Proto-Indo-European *tweys- (“to shake, hurl, toss”). Compare Old Norse þveita (“to hurl”), Ancient Greek ???? (seí?, “I shake”). Related to thwite and thwaite.

Noun

whittle (plural whittles)

1. A knife; especially, a pocket knife, sheath knife, or clasp knife.
   • 1682, John Dryden and Nathaniel Lee, The Duke of Guise

     A butcher's whittle.

   • 1873, Alfred Gatty, Sheffield: past and present

     The Sheffield whittle was the common knife of the country , which every one carried for general purposes , who was not entitled by rank to wear a sword

Translations

Verb

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.
   • 1554, John Withals, A Dictionarie in English and Latine

     When men are well whitled, their toungs run at randome

Derived terms

• whittle down
• whittling

Translations

Etymology 2

From Old English hwitel, equivalent to white +? -le; akin to an Icelandic word for a white bedcover.

Noun

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.
   • 1857, Charles Kingsley, Two Years Ago

     Her figure is tall , graceful , and slight ; the severity of its outlines suiting well with the severity of her dress , with the brown stuff gown , and plain gray whittle

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

References

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “whittle”, in Online Etymology Dictionary
• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.