Forms: 5 tramale, -ell, -elle, (tramaly, 5–6 -ely), 5–6 tramayle, 6 Sc. tramalt), 6–7 tramell, 6–8 -el, 6–9 trammell, 7 tramaile, 6– trammel. [In sense 1, a. OF. tramail (c. 1220 in Godef., Compl.), mod.F. trémail a fishing- or fowling-net, with three layers of meshes, = It. tramaglio, Sp. trasmallo, Pg. trasmalho:—late pop.L. tramaculum for tri-, tremaculum (in Salic Law, Hessels, Cod. 1, xxvii. 20, tremaclem, v. II. tremalem, tremagilo, tramaculam, trimaclem, tremagolum, tremachlum, etc.) a kind of fishing-net, generally explained as f. L. tri- three + macula mesh. In the Romanic langs. the prefix appears to have been taken as = tra-, L. trans. The history of the other senses here included is difficult: see Note below.]
I. 1. A long narrow fishing-net, set vertically with floats and sinkers; consisting of two ‘walls’ of large-meshed netting, between which is a net of fine mesh, loosely hung. More fully TRAMMEL-NET.
The fish enters through the large mesh on one side, drives the fine netting through the large mesh on the other, and is thus trapped in a pocket or bag of the fine netting. Also sometimes applied to other kinds of fishing nets.
1363. [implied in TRAMMELLER 1].
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 499/1. Tramayle, grete nette for fyschynge (K. tramely, H., P. tramaly), tragum.
14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 617/18. Tramellum … quoddam genus retis,… a tramayle.
1467–8. Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees), 92. Pro j rethe voc. Tramale, xxiiijd.
1558. Act 1 Eliz., c. 17 § 3. No persone … shall fishe … with any maner of Nett, Tramell [etc.], but onely with a Nett or Tramell whereof every Meshe … shalbee [etc.].
1633. P. Fletcher, Pisc. Ecl., V. xiv. Are thy lines broke? or are thy trammels tore?
1787. Best, Angling (ed. 2), 5. By fishing with trammels or flews in March or April.
1848. C. A. Johns, Week at Lizard, 242. The trammel is a long net, about five feet deep, with a double mesh, one large enough to allow the fish to pass through, the other much smaller.
1883. E. P. Ramsay, Food Fishes N. S. Wales, 33 (Fish. Exhib. Publ.). They are usually taken for market with a Trammel, or Bag-net, set across the stream, or by hook and line.
b. A fowling-net; = TRAMMEL-NET b.
1530. Palsgr., 282/2. Tramell to catche fysshe or byrdes, trameau.
1581. Act 23 Eliz., c. 10 § 6. To take any Partridges or Feasaunts by night, under any Tramell, Lowbell, Roadenette or other Engine.
1655. Moufet & Bennet, Health’s Impr. (1746), 173. A Partridge taken in Flight, or a Lark dared with a Hawk, is worth ten taken with Nets, Springs and Trammels.
1895. Quiller-Couch, Wand. Heath, 80. He and his mates went out and tilled the trammel.
II. † 2. A hobble to prevent a horse from straying or kicking; also, a contrivance for teaching a horse to amble, consisting of lines and straps connecting the fore and hind feet on each side, with a strap over the back to which both lines were fastened for support. Obs.
c. 1550. W. Keth, Tye the Mare, Tom Boy, 35 (Ritson). Yett wer thou much better In trammells to bynd her; A loock and a fetter Befor and behynd her.
1591. Greene, Art Conny Catch., II. (1592), 4. Whether they haue horse-locks or no,… in the night they take him or them away, and are skilfull in the blacke Art, for picking open the tramels or lockes.
1616. Surflet & Markh., Country Farme, 133. It is called a Tramell when a Horses neere fore-legge and his neere hinder-legge … are so fastened together with leathers and cords, that he cannot put forward his fore-legge, but he must perforce hale his hinder-legge after it.
1675. Lond. Gaz., No. 1043/4. A … Nag … has all his paces, and swellings in his forelegs caused by the tramels.
1766. Compl. Farmer, Tramel,… made sometimes of leather, but more usually of ropes, fitted to a horse’s legs to regulate his motion, and teach him to amble.
3. transf. and fig. Anything that hinders or impedes free action; anything that confines, restrains, fetters, or shackles. Chiefly pl.
c. 1653. G. Daniel, Idyll., iii. 106. ’Tis an easie Chord; ye Flax of Law Makes a soft Trammell.
a. 1680. Butler, Rem. (1759), I. 266. To put his Wits into a kind of Tramels.
1709. Steele & Swift, Tatler, No. 74, ¶ 4. The Gentleman is in the true Trammels of Love.
1787. Mme. D’Arblay, Diary, 5 Jan. There seemed to be no opportunity … of liberating my evenings from official trammels.
1841. D’Israeli, Amen. Lit. (1867), 462. The destiny of Spenser was … to wear the silken trammels of noble patrons.
1889. John Bull, 2 March, 148/3. Throughout her career she [Geo. Eliot], for the most part, refused to bind herself by conventional trammels.
4. Mech. An instrument for describing ellipses (F. compas à ellipse), consisting of a cross with two grooves at right angles, in which slide pins carrying a beam or ruler with a pencil; also applied to the beam-compass (BEAM sb.1 IV). Also pl.
So called because the motion of the beam carrying the pencil is trammelled or confined by the restriction of the pins to the grooves.
1725. W. Halfpenny, Sound Building, 7. Make the Tramel … in the same Form as … in the Figure.
1780. Ludlam, in Phil. Trans., LXX. 378. The instrument for drawing ovals upon paper or board … is much in use among the joiners, and called by them the trammels.
1795. Hutton, Math. Dict., s.v., All the engines for turning ovals are constructed on the same principles with the Trammels: the only difference is, that in the Trammels the board is at rest, and the pencil moves upon it.
1875. Carpentry & Join., 118. We will now add one other method of striking elliptic curves, and describe … the instrument by which it is done. This is called a trammel.
1884. Cheshire Gloss., s.v., In working circular work, a staff of the radius of the circle is a trammel.
III. 5. A series of rings or links, or other device, to bear a crook at different heights over the fire; the whole being suspended from a transverse bar (the crook-tree), built in the chimney, or from a small crane or gallows, the vertical member of which turns in sockets in the jamb and lintel. Now local Eng. and U.S.
1537. Bury Wills (Camden), 130. The tramely yn the chemney, and the racke on the soler.
1630. Maldon, Essex, Documents, Bundle 217. No. 22. In the little butterye, i iron hooke to hange at the eand of a tramell, 2d.
1674. Ray, S. & E. C. Words, 77. A Trammel, an iron instrument hanging in the chimney, whereon to hang pots or kettles over the fire.
1866. Whittier, Snowbound, 136. The crane and pendent trammels showed.
1883. Hampshire Gloss., Trammel, a hook to hang a boiler on. [An error.]
1889. Lucy Larcom, New Eng. Girlhood, i. 22. We … sometimes smirched our clean aprons … against the swinging crane with its sooty pot-hooks and trammels.
IV. † 6. pl. The plaits, braids, or tresses of a woman’s hair; in quot. 1594 with play on sense 1.
(Sometimes erroneously explained as a net to confine the hair.)
1589. Greene, Menaphon (Arb.), 25. She … wraps affection in the tramels of her haire.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. ii. 15. Her golden lockes she roundly did uptye In breaded tramels. Ibid., III. ix. 20. Her golden locks, that were in trammells gay Upbounden, did them selves adowne display And raught unto her heeles.
1594. Greene & Lodge, Looking Glasse, G.’s Wks. (Rtldg.), 122/2. For women’s locks are trammels of conceit, Which do entangle Love for all his wiles.
1669. A. Browne, Ars Pict., 86. You may go over the hair, disposing into such forms, folds or tramels, as may become your Picture best.
1673. Jordan, Lond. in Splend., 12. A long fair Hair, the trainels tyed with small Ribon of all the light Colours.
V. 7. attrib. and Comb., as † trammel-boat (? used in fishing with the trammel-net); trammel-trick (f. TRAMMEL v.); trammel-wheel, a mechanical device for converting rotary into reciprocal motion, consisting of a wheel with grooves crossing each other, in which slide projections attached to a connecting-rod, so that the rod makes two up-and-down motions for each revolution of the wheel; also a modification of this.
1614. T. Gentleman, Way to Wealth (1660), 9. The Pinks for barreld Fish, and Trammel boats.
1873. Browning, Red Cott. Nt.-cap, 176. Be theirs to drowse Trammeled, and ours to watch the trammel-trick!
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., Trammel-wheel.
[Note. French dictionaries have trémail, tramail, only in senses 1, 1 b. And indeed the sense-connection of branches II, III, IV with I, and with each other, is obscure; some of them may perhaps be different words. But the identification of I and II is not confined to English. Du Cange quotes a med.L. statute of Piacenza, in which tramaiolum (? read tramacolum) is applied to a stick a cubit and a half long, ordered to be fixed to the necks of dogs to prevent them from running into vineyards or other places where they might do mischief; and he identifies this word with It. tramaglio and F. tramáil, and refers to this word as known to be applied not only to a net, but to any kind of shackle or snare (pedica). Baretti’s Ital. dictionary has tramaglio only as ‘a trammel or drag-net,’ but Florio 1611 has it ‘a tramell or ensnaring.’]
