Also 7 treand, trent, 8–9 dial. trind. Pa. t. and pple. trended; also 4 pa. t. trent, trend(e, pa. pple. trent, i-, y-trent, 6 pa. pple. trend. [ME. trenden, OE. trendan (rare):—OTeut. *trand-jan, f. ablaut series *trend: *trand: *trund, which appears also in OE. trinde round lump, ball, OFris. trind, trund, NFris. trind, MLG. trint, trent, trunt adjs. round, MLG. trent ring, circumference, boundary, Du. trent circumference, omtrent around, about; also Da., Sw. trind round. Ulterior relations obscure: cf. Falk and Torp. See also TRENDLE, TRINDLE, TRUNDLE.)
† 1. intr. To turn round, revolve, rotate, roll; to turn or roll oneself about; also fig. Obs.
a. 1000. MS. Cott. Faust. A. x., in Anglia, I. 285. Se æppel næfre þæs feorr ne trenddeð, he cyð, hwanon he com.
[c. 1000. in Napier, O. E. Glosses, 5. Teretes, i. rotundos, sintrendende [v.r. sintredende], sinhwyrfende]
13[?]. Guy Warw. (A.), 314. He went and trent [Caius MS. He wende, he trende] his bed opon, So man þat is wo bigon.
1398. [see TRENDING vbl. sb. 1].
14[?]. Beryn, 2038. The trowth woll be previd, how so men evir trend.
1654. Vilvaine, Epit. Ess., I. 32. The whol frame doth round in her orb trend.
† 2. trans. To cause (a thing) to turn round; to turn or roll (anything); to twist, plait, curl; fig. to revolve in one’s mind. Obs. (exc. as in b).
c. 1315. Shoreham, vii. 78. A myȝt … Þat halt vp þerþe and sterren bryȝte Aboute itrent.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., III. met. xi. 79 (Camb. MS.). Lat hym rollen and trenden with-Inne hym self the Lyht of his inward syhte.
c. 1380. Sir Ferumb., 5881. Wyþ eȝene graye, and browes bent, And ȝealwe traces, & fayre y-trent.
1594. Willobie, Avisa (1880), 87. The Spindle that you see me driue, Hath fyld the spill so often trend.
1613–6. W. Browne, Brit. Past., II. iii. Not farre beneath i’th valley as she trends Her siluer streame.
b. To wind (wool, partly cleaned) into tops for spinning. dial. (Cf. TRENDLE sb. 5.)
1777. [see trended].
1794. Young’s Ann. Agric., XXVI. 454. Herefordshire is the only county that I know which continues the practice of trinding (or winding the wool in tops, ready sorted in some degree for fine drapers).
1828. Webster, Trend, v. t., in rural economy, to free wool from its filth. (Local.)
† 3. intr. To make a circuit, travel around or about the edge of a region or piece of land; to skirt, coast (about, along). Obs.
1580. in Hakluyt, Voy. (1599), I. 437. You shall trend about the very Northerne and most Easterly point of all Asia.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 137. The maine Desarts: which all this while we had trented along, and now were to passe through.
1622. R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 179. Trending about the cape, wee haled in east north-east, to fetch the bay of Atacames.
† b. More vaguely: To turn or direct one’s course. Obs.
1618. in Foster, Eng. Factories India (1906), 11. Their provisions trend from Mosambique to the Mulluccas.
1647. [see TRENDING vbl. sb. 2 b].
1846. Landor, Imag. Conv., Wks. I. 87/1. The religion of blood, like the beasts of prey, will continue to trend northward.
† c. trans. To coast along, skirt; to make the circuit of, to round (a point of land). Obs.
1600. Hakluyt, Voy., III. 206. We trended the said land about 9. or 10. leagues, hoping to finde some good harborough.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, II. 98 b. From thence trending Penlee poynt, you discouer Kings Sand and Causam Bay.
4. intr. To turn off in a specified direction; to tend to take a direction or course expressed by the context; to run, stretch, incline, bend (in some direction), as a river, current, coast-line, mountain-range, territory, stratum, etc.
1598. Hakluyt, Voy., I. 104. The riuer of … Volga … issueth from the North part of Bulgaria … and so trending along Southward disimboqueth into a certain lake.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 766. The shore treandeth out more and more.
1635. Voy. Foxe & James to N. W. (Hakl. Soc.), II. 354. I see the land trent to the Southward.
1779. Forrest, Voy. N. Guinea, 194. From the island of Ebus, the coast trends to the northward.
1860. Maury, Phys. Geog. Sea, ii. § 116. In its course to the north, the Gulf Stream gradually trends more and more to the eastward.
1876. Green, Stray Stud., 290. Their path lay along the coast trending round to the west.
1892. Stevenson, Across the Plains, 232. The railroad trended to the right.
b. fig. To turn in some direction, to have a general tendency (as a discussion, events, etc.).
1863. G. A. Lawrence, Border & Bast., xiii. 243. In which direction do the sympathies and interests of the Border States actually trend?
1886. Dowden, Shelley, I. iv. 164. The discussion … trended away from theology in the direction of politics.
1901. B. Meakin, Land of Moors, xx. 407. France alone is to be feared in the Land of the Moors, which, as things trend to-day, must in time form part of her colony.
c. trans. in causal sense: To turn or bend the course of in a particular direction. rare.
1840. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., III. 109/1. Laying the several courses perpendicular to the face of the arch … and trending them to the abutments in an angle dependent on the given obliquity.
Hence Trended (dial. trinded) ppl. a. (spec. of wool: see 2 b), Trending ppl. a.; also Trender (dial.), one employed in winding (cleaned) wool.
1777. Horæ Subsecivæ, 438 (E.D.D.). Trinded wool, wool winded and fastned together with the ‘rind of a tree.’
1794. [see TRENDING vbl. sb. 1 b].
1805. Luccock, Nat. Wool, 300. From the trended fleece or Herefordshire about one tenth of its weight is taken of coarse and inferior locks.
1818. Webster, Trender, one whose business is to free wool from its filth. (Local.)
1856. J. Martineau, Ess., etc. (1891), IV. 44. No treaty … can trace a boundary-line any more than a mountain-chain or trending coast can keep out the Almighty Maker of them both.
