Obs. or arch. Forms: 5 tryndel-, 6–8 trundle-, 6–9 trindle-, 7 trondle-, trendle-.
1. A dog with a curly tail; a low-bred dog, a cur. Also attrib.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, F iv b. Myddyng dogges. Tryndel-tayles, and Prikherid curris.
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, 29. A trundle-taile tike or shaugh or two.
1602. 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass., II. v. 872. All kinde of dogges … trindle tailes, prick-eard curres, small Ladies puppies.
1605. Shaks., Lear, III. vi. 73. Hound or Spaniell,… Or Bobtaile tight, or Trondle taile.
a. 1639. Webster, Appius & Virg., III. iv. Amongst curs a trendle tale.
1820. Scott, Monast., xxiv. The very brutes are degenerated … our hounds are turnspits and trindle-tails.
b. Applied contemptuously to a person.
1614. B. Jonson, Bart. Fair, II. v. Doe you sneere, you dogs-head, you Trendle tayle!
1632. Rowley, Woman Never Vexed, II. i. 18. How now my fine Trundletayles; My wodden Cosmographers.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Trundle-tail, a Wench that runs fisking up and down with a draggled Tail.
2. (as two words) A curly tail (of a dog).
a. 1625. Fletcher, Love’s Cure, II. iii. Like a poor cur, clapping his trindle tail Betwixt his legs.
1652. Ogilby, Æsop (1665), 205. Rough with a trundle Tail, a Prick-ear’d Cur.
