whittle

name

1. A surname.
2. An unincorporated community in Russell County, Kentucky, United States.

noun

Etymology: 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”).

1. A covering for a bed; sheet.
2. A coarse greyish double blanket worn over the shoulders, like a cloak or shawl.

   “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 kind of fine woollen shawl, originally and especially a white one.
4. A baby's flannel; a baby's woollen napkin; a flannel petticoat.

verb

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.

1. To cut or shape wood with a knife.

   “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. To reduce or gradually eliminate something (such as a debt).
3. To make eager or excited; to excite with liquor; to inebriate.

   “When men are well whitled, their toungs run at randome”