Also 6–7 whitle. [f. WHITLE sb.2]
1. trans. To cut thin slices or shavings from the surface of (a stick, etc.); to dress or pare with a knife; to reduce or sharpen by doing this.
1552. Huloet, Whitle a thinge small, or sharpe like a shafte, inspico.
1590. Fenne, Frutes, Ded. The Persians … use commonly to whittle small twigs of birch, to keepe themselves from … idle cogitations.
1614. Purchas, Pilgrimage, IV. iv. (ed. 2), 353. Cambyses … whitling a sticke to passe away the time.
1639. J. Clarke, Parœm., 262. He will whittle an oke to a butcher[s] pricke.
1658. Osborn, Mem. King James, To Rdr. A huge blame is due to such as mannage their pens no lesse impertinently then clowns do their knives and hatchets, with which they deface and whittle the sacred graves and unquestioned fame of great persons.
1662. G. Atwell, Faithfull Serveyour, 13. You must have ten sticks about a foot long apiece, whitled and sharpned at the great end.
1724. E. Ward, Dancing Devils, 32.
| As Lawyers Clerks, who hate much pains, | |
| Neglected of their Masters Gains, | |
| Instead of minding Bonds or Leases, | |
| Sit whitt’ling useful Pens to pieces. |
1842. Dickens, Amer. Notes, xiv. The captain … seated himself astride of one of these barrels,… and pulling a great clasp-knife out of his pocket, began to ‘whittle’ it … by paring thin slices of the edges.
1913. Jane E. Harrison, Anc. Art & Ritual, iv. 94. These wands are about two feet high and are whittled at the top into spiral shavings.
b. transf. To wear away or reduce by a process analogous to paring: see quots.
1736. Gentl. Mag., Aug., 457/1. I am told they’ll … whittle You down twenty or thirty Legs of Mutton into one sorry Dish.
1837. Emerson, Addr., Amer. Schol., Wks. (Bohn), II. 181. Like those Savoyards who getting their livelihood by carving shepherds [etc.]… went out one day to the mountain to find stock, and discovered that they had whittled up the last of their pine-trees.
1854. Miss Baker, Northampt. Gloss., s.v., A saddle which pinches a horse’s shoulder whittles the skin.
1860. H. Gouger, 2 Yrs. Impris. in Burmah, xix. 213. The operator succeeded in whittling out [of a wen] a something which very much resembled in appearance two or three inches of a large dew-worm.
1860. Sala, Baddington Peerage, I. xviii. 312. An American gentleman … who, having tried to dissipate the ennui of the evening by a succession of juleps, had resorted to whittling the ‘Liverpool Albion’ up into fine shreds.
c. absol. or intr.
1614. [see whittling vbl. sb., below].
1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, I. 144. A strapping fellow … who was whittling in the corner.
1839. Marryat, Diary Amer., Ser. I. II. 175. She was the first and only lady in America that I observed to whittle.
1880. Mary Fitzgibbon, Trip to Manitoba, xi. 148. ‘If I am to go to jail, all right—take me; but whoever heard of a man walking there of his own accord?’ and he whittled away at the stick in his hand, feeling that he was master of the situation.
2. fig. To reduce or make smaller by successive abstractions; to diminish the amount, force or importance of; to ‘cut down’; to take away by degrees, so as to reduce to nothing.
1746. Walpole, Lett. to Mann (1834), II. 169. We have whittled down our loss extremely.
1780. M. Madan, trans. Thelyphthora, I. 126. Not … whittling away the strong, noble, manly sense of scripture, into the ridiculous whims and fancies of visionaries.
1862. Major Jack Downing (1867), 74. You estemated the receipts from land sales, in July, at $3,000,000. You cut it down in December to $2,300,000; and now Congress, by passing the Homestead bill, will whittle it all off.
1884. Times (weekly ed.), 17 Oct., 4/1. If Parliament is whittled down so that nothing remains of it but the House of Commons.
1888. M. Burrows, Cinque Ports, vii. 171. The Ports were annually reminded of the extent to which their ancient supremacy had been whittled away.
3. To make or shape by whittling; to carve. Also fig.
1848. Lowell, Lett. to S. H. Gay, 5 May. I have contrived to whittle out something … for you in time for the mail.
1865. Lond. Rev., 30 Dec., 686/1. Robinson Crusoe whittled a diary upon a stick.
1895. Eliz. S. Phelps, Chapters from Life, i. 14. She is whittling little wooden feet to stretch the children’s stockings on.
Hence Whittled ppl. a.; Whittling vbl. sb., (a) the action of the verb (also attrib.); (b) concr. (in pl.) fragments cut off in whittling, shavings; also fig.; Whittling ppl. a., that whittles, addicted to whittling. Also Whittler, one who whittles, or is addicted to whittling as an idle trick.
1792. C. Cartwright, Jrnl. Labrador, III. p. x. *Whittled-sticks, sticks from which beavers have eaten the bark.
1884. Gilmour, Mongols, 244. The bow … was a bent and whittled branch of some shrub.
1839. Marryat, Diary Amer., Ser. I. I. 236. In some courts they put sticks before noted *whittlers to save the furniture.
1907. Elem. School Teacher, March, 393. No one thinks of denying him the pocket-knife because of the fear that its use will result in his becoming a mere whittler.
1614. Purchas, Pilgrimage, IV. v. (ed. 2), 364. He spent the time in *whitling with a knife.
1839. Marryat, Diary Amer., Ser. I. II. 4. Each knile having two pen-blades, one whittling blade.
1854. [C. B. Greatrex] (title), Whittlings from the West.
1875. Howells, Foregone Conclus., iii. 61. Litter of shavings and whittlings strewed the floor.
1885. Proctor, Whist, Pref. 10. The Whist Whittlings include Whist stories, maxims, notes.
1849. Lever, Con Cregan, xx. I am no lazy,… *whittling, tobacco-chewing Texan!
