Chiefly Sc. Also 5–8 tirle, 6 tirrill, 7 tirrle, turle. [app. related to TIRL v.3]
1. A round or turn at doing anything; a slight experience or trial of something; a touch, taste.
c. 1660. J. Guthrie, in Union Mag., Oct. (1902), 463. Many a man has touched the cross, and it has scalded him; and he has given it a tirl and letten it lie.
1697. Cleland, Poems, 32. She was tyred with his speeches; She would far rather had a tirrle or an Aquavitae barrel.
1715. Ramsay, Christ’s Kirk Gr., II. vii. The young swankies on the green Took round a merry tirle. Ibid. (1721), Horace to Virg., 5. King Æol, grant a tydie tirl.
1742. Forbes, Shop Bill, x., in Ajax, etc. (1755), 40. I hae … some for those that tak a tirle amo’ the sheets.
2. A revolving piece of mechanism like a turnstile; a wheel of some kind. dial.
1691. W. B., Hist. Roman Conclave, ii. 7. In several parts of the Wall of the Conclave, there are seven Rote, or Holes with Turles in them, just as there are in Nunneries, wherein the Victuals are put in from without, and turned round to be Received within.
1793. Statist. Acc. Scot., V. 193–4. The tirl occupies the same situation under this mill, as the trundles in the inner part of an ordinary mill; and it performs the same office. The diameter of the tirl is always equal to that of the millstones.
1883. W. Yorks. Gloss., Tirl, the wheel of a [wheel] barrow.
3. An act of twirling; a twirl, whirl. dial.
1790. D. Morison, Poems, 6 (E.D.D.). The temper pin she gi’es a tirl, An’ spins but slow.
† 4. ? A whirled or circular pattern. rare–1.
a. 1584. Montgomerie, Cherrie & Slae, 334. With dansing, and glansing, In tirlis [v.r. tirle] lik dornik champ.
† 5. A name of some disease: editors suggest St. Vitus’s dance. Obs. rare.
a. 1585. Montgomerie, Flyting, 321. The phtiseik, þe twithȝaik, þe tittis, and þe tirrillis [v.r. The tisicke, the toothaike, the tites and tirles].
6. Comb. † Tirl-bed, a trundle- or truckle-bed on low wheels or castors.
1488. Coventry MSS., in 1st Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., 101/2. iii. staynding beddes iii. tirle beddes well bothomed.
