Also 6 woller, 8 wooler, 9 wolder, woulder. [f. WOOLD v. + -ER1.] † a. Naut. A woold rope. Obs. b. Rope-making. A stick used as a lever in woolding; also, a workman operating this. By extension applied also to other similar levers (see quots. 1863, 1875). c. dial. A rolled bandage.
1548. Acts Privy Council (1890), II. 177. Six coyle of rope for wollers.
1750. Blanckley, Nav. Expositor, 190. Woolers, Double, Single, Hand—used at the Rope Yard, and the Men that work with them, are a great Help to those that heave at the Hooks in laying or closing Cables.
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, I. 59. Woolders, single and double handed, are sticks about three feet long and four inches in circumference, with strops of rope yarn made fast, to fix on the rope and assist the men at the hooks in closing the rope.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), XVI. 487/1. (Rope-making), The woolders should keep their eye on the men at the crank, and make their motion correspond with his.
1823. E. Moor, Suffolk Words, 497. Woulders, bandages. ‘Teent quite well, I’m forced to keep the woulders on.’ Wowld is also used as a verb.
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Wolder, a rolled bandage.
1863. A. Young, Naut. Dict. (ed. 2), 360. Spanish Windlass, a wooden roller having a rope wound round it, through the bight of which rope an iron bolt called a woolder is inserted as a lever for heaving it round.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 1981/1. The three [strands] are placed in the three grooves of a conical wooden block termed a top, through which is passed a transverse stick forming the handles or woolders.
