Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Whittle   Listen
verb
Whittle  v. t.  (past & past part. whittled; pres. part. whittling)  
1.
To pare or cut off the surface of with a small knife; to cut or shape, as a piece of wood held in the hand, with a clasp knife or pocketknife.
2.
To edge; to sharpen; to render eager or excited; esp., to excite with liquor; to inebriate. (Obs.) ""In vino veritas." When men are well whittled, their tongues run at random."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Whittle" Quotes from Famous Books



... wood and wet wood won't do, but yonder is some birch bark and there's a pine root." He took his axe and cut a few sticks from the root, then used his knife to make a sliver-fuzz of each; one piece, so resinous that it would not whittle, he smashed with the back of the axe into a lot of matchwood. With a handful of finely shredded birch bark he was now quite ready. A crack of the flint a blowing of the spark caught on the tinder from the box, a little flame that at once was magnified by the birch bark, and in a minute ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... whaling mysel',' said he; 'and I've heerd tell as whalers wear knives, and I'd ha' gi'en t' gang a taste o' my whittle, if I'd been cotched up just as ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... with emotion, had thrown himself into an arm- chair, and took, as was his custom in moments of the greatest excitement, his penknife from the writing-desk, and began to whittle on the back ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... inches of the elderberry wood and have it clear of knots; cut a flat ended ramrod so as just to fit the bore, and force out the pith with one clean sharp push: or else whittle away the surrounding wood. The latter way gives a better ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... the door of my prison was made of wood, and fire would consume and destroy it. There were several shelves across the end of my dungeon, one of which I pulled down, and with my knife proceeded to whittle off the shavings for a fire. While I was thus engaged, I heard a vehicle drive up to the door. It was immediately followed by another, and I concluded that my uncle had returned. I had made a large pile of shavings. I then went to work on the lower part of the ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... spring they fished the free water of the Whittle, the little trout-stream that runs through the estate of the Morgans of Muttle Deeping Grange. The free water runs for rather more than half a mile on the Little Deeping side of Muttle Deeping; and the Twins fished it with an assiduity and a skill which set the villagers grumbling ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... Ozma's council. His name was Cap'n Bill and he had come to the Land of Oz with Trot, and had been made welcome on account of his cleverness, honesty and good nature. He wore a wooden leg to replace the one he had lost and was a great friend of all the children in Oz because he could whittle all sorts of toys out of wood with ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... man, the patriot of foresight, observes, therefore, with a feeling of disappointment this prostitution of an important department of the Federal Government to the use of the reactionary forces in the United States endeavoring to whittle away the essentials of the Constitution which guarantees to all persons in this country all the rights enjoyed under the most progressive democracy on earth. Since the Civil War the United States Supreme Court instead of performing the intended function of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... waited helplessly around at the end of the meeting until he saw Martha and Jake go down the road together, Martha shy and conscious and Jake the conquering daredevil that he was known to be among women. Lum went back to his cabin, cooked his dinner, and sat down in his doorway to whittle and dream. ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... said that Nova Scotians are not Yankees in the truest sense of the word. On both sides my family were sailors; and if any Slocum should be found not seafaring, he will show at least an inclination to whittle models of boats and contemplate voyages. My father was the sort of man who, if wrecked on a desolate island, would find his way home, if he had a jack-knife and could find a tree. He was a good judge of a boat, but the old clay farm which some calamity made his was an anchor to him. ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... the man with the straw in his mouth is the one anxious to have the trade go through. See how nervous Matthew is, and Captain Joe, sitting on the log whittling, looks just as calm and contented as a frog in a puddle. When you trade, Ben, don't chew a straw, but sit down and whittle. Captain Joe probably wants the trade to go through as much as Matthew does. But the whittling keeps his hands and eyes busy, and steadies his nerves. It gives him a chance to look as if he didn't care a snap ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan

... Trina could not whittle them fast enough and cheap enough to compete with the turning lathe, that could throw off whole tribes and peoples of manikins while she was fashioning one family. Everything else, however, she made—the ark itself, all windows ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... present. He had done his day's stint in the cutlery works very early, and with five hours of sunlight yet before him had no use to make of them but to sit on a bowlder on the crest of the pleasant hill and smoke and whittle. Had he been mentally trained he might, without leaving that stone, have turned those hours into real living, communing with nature and his own mind; but he had, as half an eye could see, no developed ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable

... over this rather unsatisfactory line of reasoning for some minutes. His companion fitted a wooden chimney on the doll house, found it a trifle out of plumb, and proceeded to whittle a shaving off the lower edge. Then Asaph sighed, as one who gives up a perplexing riddle, put his hand in his pocket, and produced a bundle ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... friends Mrs. McLaren and Mrs. Lucas had determined to see us safely on board the Servia, they escorted us to Liverpool, where we met Mrs. Margaret Parker and Mrs. Scatcherd. Another reception was given us at the residence of Dr. Ewing Whittle. Several short speeches were made, and all present cheered the parting guests with words of hope and encouragement for the good cause. Here the wisdom of forming an international association was first considered. ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... broken; it is reduced to powder, but what will you? reason, joined to authority,—I am but a simple man, and I obey. Since then, I sit and whittle splints for my admirable wife. A woman, senorita, to rule a nation! The Gringos pass by, and see me working at my trade. I greet them civilly, I supply requisitions when backed by authority; again, what will ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards

... and spell, till one was "turned down;" then another took his place, and so on until all on one side were down. I began at this school in the alphabet, and the second winter I could spell almost every word in Webster's old Elementary Speller. If provided with a sharp knife, and a stick on which to whittle, which the kind old man would allow, I could generally stand most of an afternoon without missing. Strange to say, after a few years, when I had given myself to the study of other things, it all went from me, and I have been a poor ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... tossing pebbles, Uncle Sebastian chose to pick up a redwood splinter on which to whittle. He took out a slick-handled jackknife, blew a clot of pocket lint from the springs, opened a whetted pruning blade, and began shaving the brittle wood. His watery blue eyes ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins

... leads to a coral reef in the wash of a weedy sea, And you sit and stare at the empty glare where the gulls wait greedily. And sometimes it leads to an Arctic trail, and the snows where your torn feet freeze, And you whittle away the useless clay, and crawl on your hands and knees. Often it leads to the dead-pit; always it leads to pain; By the bones of your brothers ye know it, but oh, to follow you're fain. By your bones they will follow behind you, till the ways of ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service



Words linked to "Whittle" :   cut, whittle away, aeronautical engineer, whittle down, Frank Whittle, whittler, pare, Sir Frank Whittle



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com