[f. SWINGLE v.1 + -ING1.] The process of dressing flax or hemp with a swingle; scutching.
c. 1462, etc. [see b].
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. iii. 106/2. Swingowing, is the beating off the brused inward Stalk of the Hemp or Flax, from the outward pill.
1765. Museum Rust., IV. cvi. 456. When the flax grows crooked, it is more liable to be hurt in the rippling and swingling.
1847. Nicholls, in Jrnl. Roy. Agric. Soc., VIII. II. 457. Scutching or Swingling … is the act of clearing the fibre [of flax] from the woody part of the stalk after it has been bruised and loosened by the break.
b. attrib., as swingling machine, operation; swingling-bat, -knife, -staff = SWINGLE sb. 1; swingling-board, -post, -stock = swingle-stock, swing-stock (see SWING- 2); swingling-hand SWINGLE-HAND; swingling-tow, the coarse part of flax, separated by swingling.
c. 1462. Wright’s Chaste Wife, 386. The wyfe þrew hym a swyngelyng stocke.
1552. Huloet, Swynglyngbatte, or staffe to beate flaxe, scutula.
1583. Wills & Inv. N. C. (Surtees, 1860), 78. Two swinglinge stockes withe theire swynglinges.
1689. [see SWINGLE-HAND].
1819. Mass. Spy, 3 Nov., 2/2. My wife threw a swingling board at the man who had me by the hand.
1825. Jamieson, Swingling-hand, a wooden lath or sword for dressing flax.
1837. Carlyle, Germ. Rom., I. 39. Spinning-wheel and reel, swingling-stake [sic] and hatchel.
1828–32. Webster, Swingling-tow, the coarse part of flax, separated from the finer by swingling and hatcheling.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 493. The scutching or swingling machine.
1851. A. Marshall, in Schroeder, Ann. Yorks., I. 419. Making less dust in the swingling operation.
1902. A. Thomson, Lauder & Lauderdale, xxii. 259. A swingling post, sloping slightly, was firmly fixed in the floor of the barn.
