Whittle
name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A knife; especially, a clasp-knife, pocket knife, or sheath knife.
"Novv if any man can be ſo unkind to his ovvn Body, for I meddle not vvith your Souls, as to ſtand ſtill like a good Chriſtian, and offer his VVeeſon to a Butcher's VVhittle, I ſay no more but that he may be ſav'd, and that's the beſt can come on him."
- 2 A coarse greyish double blanket worn by countrywomen, in the west of England, over the shoulders, like a cloak or shawl. archaic
"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"
- 3 A whittle shawl; a kind of fine woollen shawl, originally and especially a white one. archaic
- 1 To cut or shape wood with a knife. intransitive, transitive
"He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face that little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and with a jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to himself in his heathenish way."
- 2 cut small bits or pare shavings from wordnet
- 3 To reduce or gradually eliminate something (such as a debt). transitive
- 4 To make eager or excited; to excite with liquor; to inebriate. figuratively, transitive
"When men are well whitled, their toungs run at randome"
- 1 A surname. countable, uncountable
- 2 An unincorporated community in Russell County, Kentucky, United States. countable, uncountable
Example
More examples"The new president wants to whittle down spending on health care to a bare minimum."
Etymology
From Middle English whittel (“large knife”), an alteration of thwitel, itself from thwiten (“to whittle”), from Old English þwītan (“to strike down, whittle”), from Proto-Germanic *þwītaną, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *twey- (“to shake, hurl, toss”). Compare Old Norse þveita (“to hurl”), Ancient Greek σείω (seíō, “I shake”). Related to thwite and thwaite.
From Middle English whytel, from Old English hwītel (“cloak, blanket”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwītil, from Proto-Germanic *hwītilaz, equivalent to white + -le; akin to Icelandic hvítill (“white bedcover, sheet, linen”).
Related phrases
More for "whittle"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.