Also 6 spindel. [f. the sb. (esp. in sense 9).]
1. intr. Of cereals: To shoot up into the slender stalks on which the ear is formed.
So G. spindeln in dialect use.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., 27. When the Spring draweth on, it [sc. wheat] beginneth to spindle. Ibid., 32. When it beginnes to spindel, it must be well weeded.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, V. vi. 534. I must needs discommend that manner of weeding … which is used after the corn is spindled.
1651. R. Child, in Hartlib, Legacy (1655), 139. Corn sown in July … if it should begin to spindle, (as the Husbandmen call it) it is very easie … to prevent it.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 127. In the hot countries it is a frequent calamity, that the corn will not spindle, that is, will not come out of the hose.
1763. Mills, Pract. Husb., II. 201. The whole had already spindled, which made me sorry I had sowed so early.
1805. R. W. Dickson, Pract. Agric., I. 550. Great care is necessary to see that the whole is completed before the crop begins to spindle.
1846. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., VII. II. 344. The author has never once seen a single plant of the genuine St. John’s rye to spindle before the following spring.
b. Of flowering plants: To form the stalk or stem on which the flowers are produced.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 253. Even so doth the decoction of Lonchitis, if it bee taken before it spindle and run vp to seed.
1665. Rea, Flora, 163. When they begin to rise to spindle, nip of such as are smallest.
1725. Fam. Dict., s.v. Pink, When the Pinks begin to Spindle, they will then require a little more Care.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., II. 173. Feather-headed grasses, spindling rank.
1824. T. Hogg, Carnation, 35. When the plants begin to spindle, or shoot up for bloom, they require to be supported by sticks.
c. With up or upward(s). In later use sometimes implying too slender a growth.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 558. No sooner commeth the spring, but they begin to grow up into straw, and to spindle upward pointwise.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 142. The blade, after it is come up, will die away, and then spindle up again.
1796. Hist. Ned Evans, I. 282. He resembled those exotic plants which spindle up in our hot-houses.
1810. Wordsw., Scenery Lakes (1823), 61. The whole island planted anew with Scotch firs, left to spindle up by each other’s side—a melancholy phalanx.
1841. Florist’s Jrnl. (1846), II. 197. Too much water … makes them spindle up and flower prematurely.
1881. Daily News, 4 June, 5/6. Wheat is very thin…; the plant not stooling satisfactorily, but spindling up.
fig. a. 1864. Hawthorne, Dr. Grimshawe, i. (1891), 3. The cemetery … might probably have nourished … whatever else is of English growth, without that tendency to spindle upwards and lose their sturdy breadth.
2. To shoot out or up, to develop by rapid growth or attenuation, into something thin or unsubstantial.
1784. Cowper, Task, V. 11. From ev’ry herb … Stretches a length of shadow o’er the field. Mine, spindling into longitude immense,…. Provokes me to a smile.
1833. M. Scott, Tom Cringle, xii. Here Sir, squealed Timothy, his usual gruff voice spindling into a small cheep.
1854. Lowell, Jrnl. Italy, Wks. 1890, I. 203. That fairest variety of mortal grass which with us is apt to spindle so soon into a somewhat sapless womanhood.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, ii. (1861), 46. The gardener, by severe pruning, forces the sap of the tree into one or two vigorous limbs, instead of suffering it to spindle into a sheaf of twigs.
b. To become spindly or weak.
1863. Thornbury, True as Steel, I. 210. I will … betake myself to the service of the Elector…, where I can win a place for myself in the van, and not spindle and pine as I do here.
c. To rise in a slender form.
1897. Catholic News, 6 Nov., 5/3. If one or two prayer-towers spindled above Ballydehob it would be a perfect Turkish village.
3. trans. To fit with, fix upon, a spindle or axis.
1833. Loudon, Encycl. Archit., § 1301. An oak curb to be made to go all round the mill and the millwright [to be] assisted in rimming it, and spindling the stone.
4. To spin (a garment). rare–1.
1887. A. Austin, Pr. Lucifer, IV. ii. I will … clip the July fleeces for your hands To spindle me a jacket.
