I came across the word wintle [‘winəl / ‘wintəl] in Louis de Bernières’ novel Notwithstanding, which I just finished reading. From the context – she walks carefully so as not to wintle on the rimy Bargate stones of the path – I guessed that it meant to slip or something similar.
According the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary it’s Scottish and means to stagger, reel or wriggle. It’s possibly comes from the Dutch word windtelen (to reel).
Dictionary.com defines it as 1. (noun) a rolling or staggering motion. 2. (verb) to roll or swing back and forth. 3. (verb) to tumble over; capsize.
Have you heard this word before?
Robert Burns uses the word often in his poems.
Earliest OED citations are indeed from Burns. Sense 1 is “to roll or swing from side to side”; sense 2 is “to tumble, capsize, be upset.” Burns used both. Most other citations are also Scottish or in Scottish dialect.
I don’t recall ever reading/hearing this word in context, but I intuitively “knew” what it meant. Strange…
Simon, the Dutch word you mentioned: “windtelen” is an old form and now written as “wentelen” in modern standard Dutch. It means: to roll (over);to turn about (round); to revolve (around the sun or on its axes); to rotate (on its axes); to welter, wallow, roll about (in the mud, etc.); he turned and tossed around on his bed. “Wenteling” means revolution (omwenteling) and rotation. “Wentelteefje(s)”: sop in the pan or a stewardess in a chopper (teefje is a female dog)…(used as a joke); een wenteltrap is a winding (spiral, cockscrew), stairs (staircase)…
small correction: wenteltrap: winding stairs.
“Wentletrap” is also the name of a marine mollusc with a spiral shell.
Hmmm..any similarity to “winkle”, like “Wee, Willy Winkle”? 🙂
Isn’t it “Wee Willy Winkie“?
Winkle is an abbreviation of periwinkle, an edible mollosk or an evergreen plant.
Actually, I know it as:
Wee Willie Winkle
Runs through the town
Upstairs, downstairs, in his nightgown
Tapping at the window, crying through the lock
Are the children in their beds? It’s now eight o’clock!
I sing it to my daughter.