a. [app. f. the stem of WRITHE v.1 (see -LE 3); but perh. an alteration of RIVELLED a.]

1

  1.  Of persons, the skin, etc.: Wrinkled; shrivelled, withered. Now Obs. exc. arch.

2

1565.  Cooper, Thesaurus, s.v. Vultus, To make the face writheled and wrinkled.

3

1591.  Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., II. iii. 23. This weake and writhled shrimpe.

4

1599.  Marston, Sco. Villanie, I. iii. 187. Cold, writhled Eld.

5

1649.  Lovelace, Poems (1904), 100. Cynthia spotted, she impure; Her body writheld.

6

1693.  J. H., trans. Juv. Sat., x. 11. A writhled and discouler’d skin.

7

1865.  Swinburne, Poems & Ball., St. Dorothy, 445. This makes him sad and writhled in his face.

8

  Comb.  a. 1656.  R. Cox, Actæon & Diana, 4. A writhled fac’d companion.

9

  † 2.  Rough; shaggy. Obs. rare–1.

10

c. 1600.  Timon, V. iv. (1842), 86. An vnshorne heade, a writhled beard, beetle browed.

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