Now dial. Forms: 4 qwetyll, 5 whyttel, 6 whittell, Sc. quhittil, 7 whitle, 6– whittle. [Variant of THWITTLE; cf. whack, whang.] A knife, esp. one of a large size, as a carving-knife, a butcher’s knife, or one carried as a weapon; also, a clasp-knife.
1404. Nottingham Rec., II. 22. j. whyttel, j d.
14[?]. Stockholm Med. MS., I. 446, in Anglia, XVIII. 306. Schrape of þe ouerest bark with a qwetyll.
1515. Barclay, Egloges, III. (1570), B vj/1. The scullians … Came some with whittels, some other with fleshhokes.
1570. [see quot. 1470 s.v. THWITTLE sb.].
a. 1585. Sidney, Arcadia, III. (1912), 434. He thought best … with a great whittle he had … to cut his throate, which he had used so with Calves, as he had no small dexteritie in it.
1592. Greene, Greene’s Vis., Wks. (Grosart), XII. 209. A whittell by his belt he beare.
1608. Wingfield, Disc. Virg., in Archæol. Amer., IV. 99. No penny whitle was asked of me, but a kniffe, whereof I had none to spare.
1653. Gataker, Vind. Annot. Jer., 136. We shall not need to borrow great Alexanders whiniard to cut this Gordian knot asunder, any sory whittle will serve the turn.
1668. Dryden, Even. Love, IV. (1671), 70. Here’s the sixpenny whittle you gave me, with the Mutton haft: I can spare it, for knives are of little use in Spain.
1724. Ramsay, Tea-t. Misc. (1733), II. 181. A rousty whittle to sheer the kail.
1806. Gazetteer Scot. (ed. 2), 294. The knives [of Kilmaurs] were so much famed, that a Kilmaur’s [sic] whittle became proverbial.
1821. Scott, Kenilw., xxvii. Beshrew me,… but thou art sharper than a Sheffield whittle! [Cf. quot. c. 1386 s.v. THWITTLE sb.
1841. T. Parker, Crit. & Misc. Writ., v. (1848), 117. He wears a beaver hat, and a coat of English cloth, and has a Birmingham whittle, and a watch in his pocket.
1853. G. J. Cayley, Las Alforjas, I. 61. In the fingers of his right [hand] was a crooked whittle, with which … as the basketfuls arrived, he would nick the score upon notch-sticks.
b. Comb.: whittle-gait (-gate), see quot. 1804; whittle-knife, a whittle.
1804. R. Anderson, Cumbld. Ball. (1805), 144. In some parts of Cumberland … he not only receives quarter-pence, but is provided with victuals at the homes of his scholars, which he visits in succession. This *whittle-gait (as it is called) subjects him however to the toil of travelling.
1825. Brockett, N. C. Gloss., s.v., ‘An harden sark, a guse grassing, and a whittle gait,’ were all the salary of a clergyman, not many years ago, in Cumberland.
1735. Phil. Trans., XXXIX. 76. The *Whittle-Knife, with the Box-Handle.
a. 1811. Leyden, Malay Annals (1821), 54. In his land was a whittle knife without the haft.
