throstle

throstle

English

Alternative forms

• throstell (obsolete)

Etymology

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

Cognate with German Drossel, Old Saxon throsla, Old High German droscala. [1]

The spinning machine is named for the songbird, from the sound made when it is working.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈθɹɒsəl/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒsəl

Noun

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: […] H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Mathew Lownes; I. Browne; I. Helme; I. Busbie, published 1613, OCLC 1049089293, 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, 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 977424177, 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.

Translations

song thrush

Georgian: მგალობელი შაშვი (mgalobeli šašvi) German: Drossel (de) f Russian: пе́вчий дрозд m (pévčij drozd)

machine

References

1. Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “throstle”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for throstle in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)