throstle

• throstell (obsolete)

From Middle English throstle, throstel, from Old English þrostle, from Proto-Germanic *þrustlō, possibly altered from or a diminutive of *þurstaz, related to *þrastuz, from Proto-Indo-European *trosdos.

Cognate with German Drossel, Old Saxon throsla, Old High German droscala. [1]

The spinning machine is named for the songbird, from the sound made when it is working.

• IPA^(key): /ˈθɹɒsəl/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒsəl

throstle (plural throstles)

1. (dialectal or archaic) A song thrush.
   • 1612, Michael Drayton, “Song 13”, in [John Selden], editor, Poly-Olbion. Or A Chorographicall Description of Tracts, Riuers, Mountaines, Forests, and Other Parts of this Renowned Isle of Great Britaine, […], London: […] H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Mathew Lownes; I. Browne; I. Helme; I. Busbie, published 1613, →OCLC, page 214:

     The Throstell, with shrill Sharps; as purposely he song / T’awake the lustlesse Sunne; or chyding, that so long

   • 1804, Anthony Florian Madinger Willich; James Mease, The Domestic Encyclopaedia: or, A Dictionary of Facts and Useful Knowledge, page 115:

     The throstle is by some believed to be the finest singing bird in Britain, on account of the sweetness, variety, and continuance of its melody.

   • 1802, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dejection: An Ode‎, lines 25-26:

     O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood / To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd

   • 1851 March​, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “To the Queen”, in The Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1884, →OCLC, page 1:

     [T]hro' wild March the throstle calls, […]

2. A machine for spinning wool, cotton, etc., from the rove, consisting of a set of drawing rollers with bobbins and flyers, and differing from the mule in having the twisting apparatus stationary and the processes continuous.
   • 1836, James Montgomery, The Theory and Practice of Cotton Spinning, or, The Carding and Spinning Master’s Assistant, page 223:

     THE RING THROSTLE. / A Throstle under the above title has been recently introduced from America, the principal novel feature of which, is a substitute for the flyer and heavy spindle of the common throstle, and for the cone or cape, and the barrel tube of the Danforth throstle.