throstle

• throstell (obsolete)

From Middle English throstle, throstel, from Old English þrostle, from Proto-West Germanic *þrostlā, possibly altered from or a diminutive of *þurstaz, related to *þrastuz, from Proto-Indo-European *trosdos.

• IPA^(key): /ˈθɹɒsəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Rhymes: -ɒsəl

throstle (plural throstles)

1. (dialectal or archaic) A song thrush.
   • 1612, Michael Drayton, “Song 13”, in [John Selden], editor, Poly-Olbion. Or A Chorographicall Description of Tracts, Riuers, Mountaines, Forests, and Other Parts of this Renowned Isle of Great Britaine, […], London: […] [Humphrey Lownes] for M[athew] Lownes; I[ohn] Browne; I[ohn] Helme; I[ohn] Busbie, →OCLC, page 214:

     The Throstell, with shrill Sharps; as purposely he song / T’awake the lustlesse Sunne; or chyding, that so long

   • 1804, Anthony Florian Madinger Willich, James Mease, The Domestic Encyclopaedia: or, A Dictionary of Facts and Useful Knowledge, page 115:

     The throstle is by some believed to be the finest singing bird in Britain, on account of the sweetness, variety, and continuance of its melody.

   • 1802, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dejection: An Ode‎^[1], lines 25-26:

     O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood / To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd

   • 1851 March, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “To the Queen”, in The Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1884, →OCLC, page 1:

     [T]hro' wild March the throstle calls, […]

2. A machine for spinning wool, cotton, etc., from the rove, consisting of a set of drawing rollers with bobbins and flyers, and differing from the mule in having the twisting apparatus stationary and the processes continuous.
   • 1836, James Montgomery, The Theory and Practice of Cotton Spinning, or, The Carding and Spinning Master’s Assistant, page 223:

     THE RING THROSTLE. / A Throstle under the above title has been recently introduced from America, the principal novel feature of which, is a substitute for the flyer and heavy spindle of the common throstle, and for the cone or cape, and the barrel tube of the Danforth throstle.

“throstle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.