Also 5 ful(le. [ad. OF. fuler (F. fouler): see FOIL v.1]

1

  1.  trans. spec. To tread or beat (cloth) for the purpose of cleansing and thickening it; hence, to cleanse and thicken (cloth, etc.).

2

1377.  Langl., P. Pl., B. XV. 445. Cloth that cometh fro the weuyng is nouȝt comly to were, Tyl it is fulled vnder fote or in fullyng-stokkes.

3

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 182/1. Fulle clothe, fullo.

4

c. 1483.  Caxton, Vocab., 15 b.

        Colard the fuller
Can well fulle cloth.

5

1511–2.  Act 3 Hen. VIII., c. 6 § 1. The Walker and Fuller shall truely walke fulle thikke and werke every webbe of wollen yerne.

6

1598.  Florio, Follare, to full, as clothes in a presse.

7

1643.  Prynne, Open. Gt. Seale, 20. One sufficient man should be assigned by our Soveraigne Lord the King, to seale the Clothes that shall be wrought and fulled in London, and the Suburbs of the same.

8

1695.  Lond. Gaz., No. 3086/4. A new Invented Engine, which Fulls all sorts of Stuffs by Hand or Mans Labour.

9

1812.  Southey, in Quarterly Review, VII. 63. In the Feroe Isles the women perform the work of fulling by treading the cloth in a tub; in this manner a girl can full twenty pair of hose in four or five hours.

10

1872.  Yeats, Techn. Hist. Comm., 147. English cloths, at the outset, were sent to be fulled and dyed in the Netherlands.

11

1884.  J. Payne, Tales fr. Arabic, I. 233. Quoth the singer, ‘I shall return to her and weave for her and full her yarn, and I came but to thank thee for thy dealing with me.’

12

  † 2.  gen. To beat or trample down; also, to destroy. Obs.

13

c. 1400.  Rowland & O., 112. Fulle the under my horse fete.

14

c. 1440.  York Myst., xi. 118. Nowe kyng Pharo fuls thare childir ful faste.

15

1641.  H. Best, Rural Economy in Yorkshire in 1641 (Surtees), 78. Hee threw his hey abroad a nights afore hee lette them in, because then they did not runne over it and full it so much.

16