Now Sc. and north. dial. Forms: 3–4, 9 kevel, (3 -il, 5 -yl), 5 -le, 6 kewle, 9 keevel, Sc. kewl. [a. ON. kefli a round stick, small roller, gag (Norw. and Da. kjevle; cf. Sw. käfling), related to kafli a piece, bit of anything.]
1. † a. A gag. Obs. b. A bit or twitch for a horse’s mouth.
a. 1300. E. E. Psalter xxxi[i]. 9. In keuil and bridel þair chekes straite.
c. 1300. Havelok, 547. A keuel of clutes … Þat he [ne] mouhte [MS. -the] speke, ne fnaste.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 274/1. Kevle, or kevyl, for hors, mordale, camus.
1570. Levins, Manip., 95/39. Kewle, postonis [read postomis].
1825–80. Jamieson, s.v., One who rides a horse,… when he brings the halter under the horse’s jaws and makes it pass through his mouth, is said to put a kewl on.
2. A rounded piece of wood; a staff, cudgel.
1807. C. Waugh, Fisherman’s Defence, 41. The pocknet is knit upon a keevel from six to seven inches in circumference.
1836. J. M. Wilson, Tales Borders, III. 304. Brandishing of flails and kevels showed they were determined to act.
