Also 7–8 coile, coyle, quoyl(e, quoile. [Goes with COIL v.3, from which it is prob. directly formed, like a roll, twist, tie, fold.]
1. orig. A length of cable, rope, etc., when ‘coiled’ or gathered up into a number of concentric rings, either fake over fake, or in a flat disk with the fakes within each other, the latter being termed a Flemish coil; hence, the quantity of cable, etc., usually wound up. Orig. a nautical term.
1627. Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., 30. A Bight is to hold by any part of a coile, that is the vpmost fake.
1662. Pepys, Diary, 22 Aug. One from a trap-door above let fall unawares a coyle of cable.
1677. Lond. Gaz., No. 1174/1. Remaining in the Consuls hands 18 Quoyles of Cordage and a Hauser.
1711. Mil. & Sea Dict., A Quoyle is a rope laid up round, one Fake over another. Sometimes it is taken for a whole Rope quoyl’d; so that if half the Rope be cut away, they say, there is but half a Quoyle of that Rope.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Quoil, The middle of such a ring or quoile, is a good place to lay shot in.
1794. Nelson, in Nicolas, Disp. (1845), I. 432. I have to request from the Victory two coils of four-inch or four-and-a-half rope.
1864. Tennyson, Enoch Arden, 17. Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., 589. When laid up in a flat helix, without riders, beginning in the middle, and ‘with the sun’ it is said to be a Flemish coil.
2. A series of concentric circles or rings in which a pliant body has been disposed; hence, such a disposition or form in a body which is rigid.
1661. Boyle, Spring of Air (1682), 92. These small coyled particles of the air … when the pressure is taken away … flie abroad into a Coyle or Zone ten times as big in Diameter as before.
1723. Phil. Trans., XXXII. 294. A Snake … lying round in a Coil.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. xx. 202. Around him, as a focus, was a coil of men, women, and children.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t., 327. There was a marvellous staircase like a coil of lace.
1862. Illust. Lond. News, XL. 136/2. Round which [eggs] the reptile had coiled its length, the head surmounting the coil.
1869. Phillips, Vesuvius, ii. 11. Black coils of barren lava.
b. As a disposition of women’s hair.
1888. Galignani’s Messenger, 5 Feb., 1. To replace the high-looped coils on the top of the head by braids falling on the neck. Ibid., 2. Brushed up locks and twisted coils.
3. A single complete turn or circumvolution of any coiled body; e.g., such as is formed by a serpent or the tendril of a plant.
1805. Southey, Madoc, VII. On came the mighty snake … What then was human strength, if once involved Within those dreadful coils?
1870. Rolleston, Anim. Life, 58. The coils of intestine.
1882. Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 863. The youngest coils of a twining stem are not usually in contact with its support.
4. An arrangement of a wire, piping, sheet metal, etc., in a series of concentric or symmetrical curves or windings.
1826. Henry, Elem. Chem., I. 169. Zinc and copper sheets formed into coils.
1839. G. Bird, Nat. Philos., 222. A copper and zinc plate, each fifty feet long and two wide, rolled into a coil.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 483/1. A compound spring, having a cylinder of vulcanized rubber, with an interior coil to keep it from binding against the spindle, and an exterior spiral coil to keep it from spreading too far.
b. Electr. A wire wound spirally and serving for the passage of a current of electricity in various kinds of electrical apparatus, as in induction coil, resistance coil, etc.
1849. Mrs. Somerville, Connex. Phys. Sci., xxxiv. 375. In obtaining a brilliant spark with the aid of an electro-dynamic coil.
1871. Tyndall, Fragm. Sci. (ed. 6), II. xvi. 435. The strengthened magnet instantly reacts upon the coil which feeds it.
1881. Spottiswoode, in Nature, No. 623. 547. The induction-coil … consists mainly of two parts, viz. a primary coil of thick wire and few convolutions.
c. A spiral arrangement of pipes used in a heating apparatus, condenser, etc., for the sake of increased heating or cooling surface. Also attrib.
1852. Brande, Lect. on Arts, 213. Heating a fluid by means of a steam-warmed jacket or coil.
1869. E. A. Parkes, Pract. Hygiene (ed. 3), 135. Boxes containing coils of hot-water pipes.
1884. Health Exhib. Catal., 70/2. Patent Hydro-Pneumatic Coil for heating and ventilating purposes.
5. In gun-making: A bar of wrought iron coiled and welded into a cylindrical tube, out of a series of which certain kinds of guns are built up.
1859. F. A. Griffiths, Artil. Man. (1862), 190. The Coils … are … shrunk on the barrel.
1862. Illust. Lond. News, XL. 224/1. The length of the bars required for the different coils vary from 12 to 100 ft., and we saw an immense coil for hooping the exterior of a muzzle-loading gun which was made from a bar of the extraordinary length of 120 ft. Ibid., 224/2. The coiling machine can turn out more than twenty coils per day equal to about three to four guns.
6. Comb. Coil-drag (see quot.); coil-end, -plate, a plate for supporting a coil of pipes.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., Coil-drag, a tool to pick up pebbles, bits of iron, etc., from the bottom of a drill-hole.
1882. Worcester Exhib. Catal., III. 5. One Coil end for Stack of 2-in. pipes.
