Also 7–9 knurle. [app. a derivative (? dim.) of KNUR; but cf. also KNARL, GNARL sb.]
1. A small projection, protuberance or excrescence; a knot, knob, boss, nodule, etc.; a small bead or ridge, esp. one of a series worked upon a metal surface for ornamentation or other purpose.
1608. 2nd Pt. Def. Ministers’ Refus. Subscript., 131. [It] grew up naturally from the roote,… without knot or knurle, right and streight.
1611. Cotgr., Goderonner,… to worke, or set with knurles. Ibid., Neud, a knot … a knurre, or knurle in trees.
1651. J. F[reake], Agrippa’s Occ. Philos., 272. From the crown of the head, to the knurles of the gullet is the thirteenth part of the whole altitude.
1658. R. White, trans. Digby’s Powd. Symp. (1660), 117. A knurle either of waxe, gumme, or glue.
1773. Phil. Trans., LXIII. 374. Those small fine blue knobs, that are to be seen round the rim or upper knurl of the coat [of a sea-anemone].
1806. J. Grahame, Birds of Scot., 48. The nest deep-hollowed, well disguised … As if it were a knurle in the bough.
2. A thick-set, stumpy person; a deformed dwarf. dial.
1674–91. Ray, S. & E. C. Words, Knurl, a little dwarfish person.
1793. Burns, Meg o’ the Mill, ii. The laird was a widdiefu’, bleerit knurl.
1811. Willan, W. Riding Gloss., Knurl, a hunch-backed dwarf.
3. A knurling-tool.
1879. Sci. Amer., XL. 224. Knurls of various patterns … are employed in ‘beading,’ ‘milling,’ or knurling the heads of screws, the handles of small tools, &c. Ibid. Examples of knurling done with the different knurls.
