Wintle
name, verb ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To wind, to reel. Scotland
"c. 1688-1746, Author not recorded, Cumberland and Murray's Descent into Hell, 1861, Charles Mackay (editor), The Jacobite Songs and Ballads of Scotland from 1688 to 1746, page 266, The worm of hell, which never dies, / In wintled coil writhes up and fries."
- 2 To stagger, to sway or rock. Scotland
- 3 To tumble, to capsize. Scotland
"At a quick turn o' the road they wintled owre, and there they were, sitting on their doups in the atoms o' the gig, and glowering frae them!"
- 4 To wriggle. Scotland
"Miss Radford wintled across the floor on her bottom until she slumped beside Eloise, who rolled her eyes and bared her lower teeth."
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"c. 1688-1746, Author not recorded, Cumberland and Murray's Descent into Hell, 1861, Charles Mackay (editor), The Jacobite Songs and Ballads of Scotland from 1688 to 1746, page 266, The worm of hell, which never dies, / In wintled coil writhes up and fries."
Etymology
Perhaps from a Flemish dialect of Dutch windtelen (“to reel”); compare wentelen.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.