rundle

From round. Compare rondle, roundel.

rundle (plural rundles)

1. (obsolete) A round; a step of a ladder; a rung.
   • 1683, Brian Duppa, Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion:

     […] that mysterious ladder, whose foot being upon the earth, the top of it reached unto heaven, seen by Jacob in a vision, with angels ascending and descending on the rundles of it […]

   • 1693, William De Britaine, Humane Prudence: Or, The Art by which a Man May Raise Himself and Fortune to Grandeur, page 224:

     for I have observed that Wisdom many times gives a check to Confidence , which is the Scale and Rundle by which many climb up to the Pinacle;

2. (obsolete) A circle.
   • 1625, Samuel Purchas, Purchas His Pilgrimes - Volume 3, page 1067:

     And although that in the partitions or spaces seuerally there be diuers seuerall figures, yet the principall accompt of numbering is that accompt of the pictures or rundles therein contained.

   • 1633, John Speed, The Genealogies recorded in the Sacred Scriptures, page 40:

     The names of Nations and People, ( as likewise sometimes of cities and other places of note) we haue not incompassed in rundles as the rest, but in Compartiments, & different letters bectweene direct lines, that so they might be knowne from particular persons, & the Names next vnder them, are not inserted as certainely thence descended, but as eminent persons among them.

   • 1769, John Thorpe, Registrum Roffense, page 780:

     On a grave stone are the following arms, viz. A fesse wavy between three stone fountains, impaling three rundles, each charged with a fret; the crest, a stone fountain, and this inscription.

3. (obsolete) A round object, a disk or ball.
   • 1603, Philemon Holland, The Philosophie, Commonly Called, the Morals, Written by the Learned Philosopher Plutarch of Chæronea, page 824:

     Others ascribe the cause thereof, to the thickenesse of clouds, which suddenly and after an hidden maner, overcast the rundle and plate of the Sunne.

   • 1661, Johann Jacob Wecker, Eighteen Books of the Secrets of Art & Nature:

     These I have described in the third Figure, adding the small Tooth, as in the fourth the hinder part of the Rundles of the second Figure, with the space in the middle Rundle, into which the small Tooth of the small Rundle is fastned.

   • 1797, Colin Macfarquhar, George Gleig, Encyclopædia Britannica, page 78:

     This core is passed through two copper rundles, one at each end of the mould, which they serve to close; and to these is joined a little copper tube about two inches long, and of the thckness the leaden pipe is intended to be of.

   • 1801, Bryan Higgins, Observations and Advices for the Improvement of the Manufacture of Muscovado Sugar and Rum, page 287:

     The parts of the stage are the following: In Plate III. figure 2, the stripe ab shews one side of a trestle-frame; cd another side; ef a rundle fastened into these by tenon and mortice; gh another fastened rundle; and ik the third and lowest rundle.

4. (obsolete) Something that rotates about an axis, such as a wheel or the drum of a capstan.
   • 1664, John Guillim, A Display of Heraldrie, page 187:

     This is the Coat-armour of the worthy Gentleman Thomas Covell, one of the Captains of the City of London; here I tell not the colour of the Bezants, because every Rundle in Armory (of which sort these Bezants are) hat his proper colour and name in Blazon, as shall hereafter be more particularly declared when I come to speak of Rundles in generall.

   • 1680, John Wilkins, Mathematical Magick, page 43:

     That which is reckon'd for the fourth Faculty, is the Pulley: which is of such ordinary use, that it needs not any particular description. The chief parts of it are divers little rundles, that are movable about their proper axes.

   • 1731, The Use of the Mathematical Instrument Called the Quadrant:

     The Second Part of it is a moveable Rundle, the Circle whereeof is fixed to the Center of the Circle of Hours, that so you may turn it round, as occasion requires. The utmost Circle of this Rundle is divided into 12 parts, for the 12 Months, each Month having its Name prefix'd to it in Roman Capital Letters, and each Day in the Month distinguish'd with a small Stroke, and every Tenth Stroke, for the readier counting the Days, drawn longer, and marked with Figures, 10, 20, &c. according to the Number of Strokes from the beginning of the Month.

   • 1788, Thomas Skaife, A key to civil architecture, page 16:

     The chief are divers little rundles, which are moveable about their proper axes: these are usually divided according to their several situations, into the upper and lower.

5. (obsolete) Synonym of umbel
   • 1710, William Salmon, Botanologia: The English Herbal, page 845:

     The Flowers hereof are purple, and grow in rundles about the Stalks, as the others do.

   • 1776, William Withering, A Botanical Arrangement Of All The Vegetables Naturally Growing in Great Britain, page XIII:

     The Swallow-tail Butterfly feeds upon several of the Rundle-bearing plants of the fifth Class, which we know are endowed with similar qualities.

   • 1794, Evenings at Home; or, the juvenile budget opened, page 73:

     If you pursue one of these rundles or umbels, you will find that each stick or spoke terminates in another set of smaller stalks, each of which bears a single small flower.

6. (obsolete) A cluster of leaves that radiate out from a central point, like the spokes of a wheel.
   • 1656, John Parkinson, Paradisi In Sole, page 31:

     The stalk is brownish and round at the bottom, and sometimes that from the middle upwards, three foot high or more, beset at certain distances with rundles or circles of many broad leaves, larger and broader for the most part than any other of this kinde, and of a dark green colour; It hath two or three, and sometimes four of these rundles or circles of leaves, and bare without any leaf between;

   • 1676, John Rea, Flora: Seu, De Florum Cultura, page 40:

     The Martagon Imperial hath, as all the Martagons have, a scaly pale yellow root; the stalk riseth a yard high, of a brownish colour, beset at certain distances with rundles of broad green leaves, and naked betwixt;

   • 1775, The Complete Florist, page 95:

     The virginian martagon, pale yellow scaly root, the stalk rises yard-high, beset with sharp-pointed whitish green leaves, in rundles, the head bearing three or four, or more, somewhat large flowers turning back, of a gold yellow colour, with many brown spots about the bottom of the flowers, the points or ends of the leaves that turn up, of a red or scarlet colour without spots: a very tender plant and must be defended from winter's frosts.

7. (engineering, obsolete) One of the pins or trundles of a lantern wheel.
   • 1781, William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry, page 213:

     He invented a pneumatic engine, and a peculiar instrument of use in gnomonics to solve this problem: known plane, in a known elevation, to describe such lines with the expedite turning of rundles to certain divisions, as by the shadow of the stile may shew the equal hours of the day.'

8. (obsolete) A runnel.
   • 1648, G. M., Cheape and Good Husbandry, page 136:

     There be other Husbandmen in Champain Conntries, of feeding as in Leicestershiere, and such like that put their swine to pease reekes, or stackes set in the fields neer unto water furrows or rundles, so that they may let the water into the stack yard, and then morning and evening cut a cutting of the stack or reek, and spread the reaps amonst the swine;

   • 1683, Gervase Markham, A Way to get Wealth:

     There be some which take a great deal of delight and pleasure to Snickle or halter the Pike, which is good when Pikes are broke out of Ponds or Rivers, and come into small Ditches or Rundles, as is oft to be seen in low-Countries.

   • 1757, Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society of London:

     Children's kidneys are like those of veal, full of little rundles, and they grow into a compact intire substance afterwards.

   • 1890, Yorkshire Notes and Queries, page 21:

     ITEM whether doth all the grounds called the Westwood of Ilkeley als. the new close lye ouer the one side of the said becke or rundle and on the west side of the said brooke or no And which be all the grounds called the Westwood .

• lurden, nurdle, nurled, rundel