crottle

• crotal, crottel

From Scottish Gaelic crotal.^[1][2]

crottle (plural crottles)

1. (orignally Scotland) Any of various lichens gathered for dyeing, especially those of the genus Parmelia.
   • 1791, John Sinclair, The Statistical Account of Scotland, volume 12, page 113:

     It was known and uſed as a dye-ſtuff in the Highlands of Scotland by the name of corkes or crottel, ſome hundred years ago.

   • 1982, Finlay MacDonald, Crotal & White, page 128:

     Not that crotal and white was as humdrum as a simple definition of it as ‘brown and white’ implies. Crotal was the grey lichen which, over hundreds of years, had grown over the moorland rocks particularly

   • 1993, Karen Leigh Casselman, Craft of the Dyer: Colour from Plants and Lichens, Dover Publications, page 270:

     Parmelia omphalodes and P. saxitilis, the “crottles” used traditionally in Britain and Ireland, are sub-alpine lichens in North America.

   • 1993, Joan Morrison, Charlotte Fox Zabusky, American Mosaic: The Immigrant Experience in the Words of Those Who Lived It, University of Pittsburgh Press, page 41:

     The older people, they knew all about the dyes, and we’d go and gather the crottles [a kind of moss used for dyeing woolens]. I don’t know what you call them here. They were round and you’d scrape them off a rock or stone.

   • 2011 August 8, Keith McNeill, “North Thompson Valley naturalist auctions naming right to new species”, in North Thompson Journal, Barriere, British Columbia, page 1:

     The Land Conservancy's lichen is a member of the genus Parmelia or "crottle lichen", and has strap-like lobes pale grayish above and black below. […] Some crottle lichens have been used in Scotland in the dyeing of wool for socks and Harris tweed since the 16th century. They yield a reddish brown color.

• Corlett, clotter, cottrel

From Scottish Gaelic crotal (“lichen”).^[1]

• crottal, crotal, crotul

crottle (plural crottles)

1. crottle, lichens used for dyeing
   • 2017, Grigor McWatt, “Calasay”, in Analena McAfee, editor, Hame: The Fascaray Archives, page 473:

     Ane efter th’ither
     Hooses heeze an faw, crottle are eiked,
     Cleared, malafoustert, sturkened, or in the steid,
     Is bog, midden, bungalow or gowf links.

     One after the other, / Houses rise and fall, crottle are grown, / Cleared, harmed, nurtured, or in their place, / Are bogs, dung heaps, cottages, or golf links.

2. dye produced from lichen

   crottal coatie

   a short brown coat

• Scots: black crottles (“Parmelia saxatilis”), light crottles (“Ochrolechia parella”)

Diminutive of older crote (“small piece; crumb”),^[2] from Middle English crote (“a piece”).^[3] Origin of the Middle English form is unknown, but compare French crotte (“excrement”), Dutch krot (“mud”).^[4]

• crotle, crottil, crittle

crottle (plural crottles)

1. a small piece (of something)
   • 1887, John Service, The Life and Recollections of Doctor Duguid of Kilwinning, page 257:

     “Fine, man, Robin!” quo my grandfaither, as he flung a bakiefu’ o’ crittles on the fire, “Fine, man !”

     “Fine, Robin!” said my grandfather as he threw a bucket of chunks on the fire, “Fine, man!”

crottle (third-person singular simple present crottles, present participle crottlein, simple past crottlet, past participle crottlet)

1. to crumble
   • 1962, Hugh MacDiarmid, “Letter to Dostoevski”, in Collected Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid, page 126:

     Daith rises frae’s when oor lives crottle.

     Death comes upon us when our lives crumble.