Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1974 (SND Vol. IX).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
THORL, n. Also thorle. Sc. forms and usages of Eng. whorl: 1. As in Eng.; a small fly-wheel on the spindle of a spinning wheel to maintain or regulate the speed (Rxb. 1825 Jam.); a small wheel used in various mechanisms.Slg. 1804 G. Galloway Poems 15:
The lass is frugal, eident turns the thorle.Fif. 1835 R. Gilfillan Songs 216:
Our auld timer clock, wi' thorl an' string.
Hence combs.: thorle-pear, a variety of pear; thorle-pippin, a variety of apple (Rxb. 1825 Jam., ‡1923 Watson W.-B.), so called from their shapes.Rxb. 1798 R. Douglas Agric. Rxb. 117 note:
A single tree of the thorle pear at Melrose, has for these 50 years past yielded the interest of the money paid for the garden where it stands, and for a house let at 7 L. Sterling yearly.
¶2. A part of the mechanism of a patent sward-cutter set on a kind of harrow frame (see quot.).Sc. 1788 Abridgement of Specifications, Agric. Div. i. (1876) 20:
The “bulls” are kept at their proper distance apart by means of “hollow pieces of wood, called thorles, three and one half inches long, which inclose the bolt.”
