whittle

Meanings

Noun

• A knife; especially, a pocket knife, sheath knife, or clasp knife.
• A coarse greyish double blanket worn by countrywomen, in the west of England, over the shoulders, like a cloak or shawl.
• A whittle shawl; a kind of fine woollen shawl, originally and especially a white one.

Verb

• To cut or shape wood with a knife.
• To reduce or gradually eliminate something (such as a debt).
• To make eager or excited; to excite with liquor; to inebriate.

Origin

• From Middle English whittel ("large knife"), an alteration of thwitel, itself from thwiten, from Old English þwītan ("to strike down, whittle"), from Proto-Germanic *þwītaną, from Proto-Indo-European *tweys- ("to shake, hurl, toss"). Compare Old Norse þveita ("to hurl"), Ancient Greek σείω ("I shake"). Related to thwite and thwaite.
• From Middle English whytel, from Old English hwitel, equivalent to white + -le; akin to an Icelandic word for a white bedcover.