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  1. swingle love

Definitions

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A wooden instrument used for beating flax and scraping from it the woody parts. Also swing-knife, swingle-staff, swingling-knife or -staff.
  2. n. That part of a flail which falls upon the grain in threshing; a swipple.
  3. n. A kind of spoke or lever, like the hand-spike of a capstan, used in turning the barrel in wire-drawing.
  4. n. One of the radiating arms by which the roller of a plate-press is turned.
  5. To clean, as flax, by beating and scraping with a swingle or swing-knife.
  6. To cut off the tops of without pulling up the roots, as weeds.
  7. To dangle; wave hanging.
  8. To swing for pleasure.

Wiktionary

  1. v. to beat or flog, especially for extracting the fibres from flax stalks; to scutch
  2. n. An implement used to separate the fibres of flax by beating them; a scutch

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. obsolete To dangle; to wave hanging.
  2. v. Obs. or Prov. Eng. To swing for pleasure.
  3. v. To clean, as flax, by beating it with a swingle, so as to separate the coarse parts and the woody substance from it; to scutch.
  4. v. Prov. Eng. To beat off the tops of without pulling up the roots; -- said of weeds.
  5. n. A wooden instrument like a large knife, about two feet long, with one thin edge, used for beating and cleaning flax; a scutcher; -- called also swingling knife, swingling staff, and swingling wand.

Examples

  • “There was a tow which came out when it was swingled, called swingle tow.”

    The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 1, January, 1884

  • “The strikes were swingled again, and from the refuse called swingle-tree hurds, coarse bagging could be spun and woven.”

    Home Life in Colonial Days

  • “Yes, that's the first definition in my trusty Oxford: to scutch, swingle flax, hemp, etc.”

    languagehat.com: SCUTCH.

  • “Let me find my swingle tonight, I'm gonna beat you some more.”

    Mule Get Up in the Alley

  • “The swingle allows the pulling harness to follow the donkey's uneven movements when walking, as it moves one leg after another.”

    3.1 Cattle harness

  • “Both, swingle and evener are made of good, hard wood, which is both light and strong.”

    3.1 Cattle harness

  • “The evener has a similar function like the swingle, only it compensates the uneven movements and pull where more than one donkey is pulling a load.”

    3.1 Cattle harness

  • “There was cruel irony to the idea of a seven-year old imprisoned amidst single-swingle splendor, tucked away in a slum pocket on an aerie high above the high Pacific, and dosed up with Ritalin to appease the combined wishes of the Los Angeles school system, a dimwitted mother and M and M Properties.”

    When The Bough Breaks

  • “When After it has been sufficiently broken, the small shivers must be swingled out, as we swingle Flax.”

    John Adams diary 9, includes notes and draft essay, 1 - 11 February 1763, [June - July 1763]

  • “A swingle-tree hung at the pole's end, and a second pair of reins was fast to the driver's seat, the four cheek-buckles lying crossed over the wheeler's backs.”

    Ambrotox and Limping Dick

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