Now dial. Forms: 5 cholle; 6 iolle, geolle, 7 joule, jowle, 5– joll, 8– jowl, (9 joul, jole). [perh. f. JOWL sb.3, the notion being app. to knock a head or ball; cf. also note to JOLT v. Sense 5 may be of distinct origin.]
1. trans. To strike (a ball) with a stick.
c. 1430. Pilgr. Lyf Manhode, IV. ix. (1869), 181. A crooked staf me lakketh for to cholle with, and a bal to pleye me with.
1855. Robinson, Whitby Gloss., To Jowl, to strike from the ground with a long stick or a boy’s bat, a piece of wood or a ball, to a distance.
2. To bump; to strike, knock or push; esp., to dash (the head, etc.) against something.
c. 1470. Pol. Poems (Rolls), II. 276. There was jollyng, ther was rennyng for the sovereynte.
1519. Horman, Vulg., 138. I geolled my heed ageynst the walle.
1530. Palsgr., 593/1. I iolled hym aboute the eares tyll I made my fyste sore.
1556. J. Heywood, Spider & F., ii. 103. Many a flie the flap hath iobde and iolde.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, I. iii. 59. They may ioule horns together. Ibid. (1602), Ham., V. i. 84. That Scull … how the knaue iowles it to th’ grownd.
1640. Gent, Knave in Gr., II. i. D iv. Yester night a scurvy boy did so joule my head and the wall together.
a. 1811. Cumberland, in T. Mitchell, Aristoph., Clouds, II. 52. Who is he that jowls them [the clouds] thus together But Jove himself?
1863. Mrs. Toogood, Yorksh. Dial., He jouled his head against the wall.
1865. Leeds Mercury, 7 March, 3/3. Mrs. Levers ‘joled’ my head against the bed post.
† 3. intr. To strike or bump against something.
1770. Armstrong, Imitations, 85. Now they mount On the tall billow’s top, and seem to jowl Against the stars.
4. trans. To strike (the wall of a coal-pit) as a signal or to ascertain the thickness of the wall.
1825. Brockett, Jowl, to knock, or rather to give a signal by knocking.
1862. Times, 21 Jan., 10/4. The men [imprisoned in the pit] have not been heard ‘jowling’ since 1 o’clock yesterday afternoon.
5. intr. and trans. To toll, knell or ring slowly, as a bell; = JOW v. 2. Chiefly dial.
1872. E. Peacock, Mabel Heron, II. 120. Candles were lighted and bells were jowled.
1888. Dottie, Rambles, 88 (E. D. D.). It [the bell] kept on jowlin.
