trundletail
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Noun
[edit]trundletail (plural trundletails)
- (obsolete) A dog with a rounded, curled-up tail.[1]
- 15th century, Juliana Berners, Hawking, Hunting, Fouling and Fishing, London: Adam Islip, 1596, “The names of diuers Hounds,”[2]
- […] Trindle tailes, and pricke eared Curres, and small Ladie Puppies, that beare away the fleas and diuers small faults.
- c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vi]:
- Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,
Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,
Bobtail tyke or trundle-tail—
Tom will make them weep and wail;
For, with throwing thus my head,
Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.
- 1614 November 10 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), Beniamin Iohnson [i.e., Ben Jonson], Bartholmew Fayre: A Comedie, […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Robert Allot, […], published 1631, →OCLC, Act V, scene ii, page 26:
- Doe you sneere, you dogs-head, you Trendle tayle!
- a. 1639, John Webster, Appius and Virginia[3], published 1654, Act III, Scene 1:
- […] what did you take me to be? […] a Woodcock amongst birds, […] amongst Cu[r]s a trindle tale,
- 15th century, Juliana Berners, Hawking, Hunting, Fouling and Fishing, London: Adam Islip, 1596, “The names of diuers Hounds,”[2]
References
[edit]- ^ Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, London: W. Strahan, 1755: “TRUNDLE-TAIL […] Round tail.”[1]