Windle

The modus operandi somewhat recalls the stratagem of Gideon, for the birds—chiefly thrushes, blackbirds, fieldfares, redwings (locally "windles"), and starlings (smaller birds being disregarded)—terrified by the noise, and dazed by the lantern glare, suffered themselves to be taken by the hand, or, if roosting aloft, as was the case on still nights, to be knocked down with the poles which the lads carried.

In the Derby household book of 1561, wheat, malt, and oats are sold by the quarter and the windle, in which the quarter clearly contained sixteen windles, and must have been a wholly different measure from that which we are familiar.

On 16th September, 1622, he caused his steward and clerk of the market to alter all the measures and weights for corn, &c., from windles, affondolls, &c., and reduce them to the Winchester measure of 2 gallons to the peck and 8 gallons to the bushell, and 4 bushells to the sack, and 2 sacks to the quarter ; whereas before they sold by affondolls, whereof 4 made a windle (whereof 3 quarters make a new or Winchester bushell) and 4 of those windles made but one old bushell.

We rode by the side of a barren mountain, which was covered to an extent of three miles with quartz, and produced little or no herbage, except a species of wiry or windle-grass, which was much parched by the sun.

Some of them saw nothing more but some windle straws (larsar lena) blowing round the floor, but she I spoke to saw distinctly troops of fairies riding round on horses no bigger than small birds.

Windles. Plantago lanceolata, L.—A general name for the dry stalks of many grasses and several other pasture plants.

There are many locally distinctive names for landscape features: 'ball' for a rounded hillside spur such as Wimbleball, which means the ball where windle grass grows […]

A car-brake shalt provided with a tapering windle connected at its largest portion with a brake-chain which is thickest at the end nearest the windle, substantially as and for the purpose set forth.