trundletail

English

Alternative forms

• trendle-tail
• trindle-tail

Etymology

From trundle +‎ tail.

Noun

trundletail (plural trundletails)

1. (obsolete) A dog with a rounded, curled-up tail.
   • 15th century, Juliana Berners, Hawking, Hunting, Fouling and Fishing, London: Adam Islip, 1596, “The names of diuers Hounds,”^[2]

     […] Trindle tailes, and pricke eared Curres, and small Ladie Puppies, that beare away the fleas and diuers small faults.

   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vi]:

     Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,
     Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,
     Bobtail tyke or trundle-tail—
     Tom will make them weep and wail;
     For, with throwing thus my head,
     Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.

   • 1614 November 10 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), Beniamin Iohnson [i.e., Ben Jonson], Bartholmew Fayre: A Comedie, […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Robert Allot, […], published 1631, →OCLC, Act V, scene ii, page 26:

     Doe you sneere, you dogs-head, you Trendle tayle!

   • a. 1639, John Webster, Appius and Virginia‎^[3], published 1654, Act III, Scene 1:

     […] what did you take me to be? […] a Woodcock amongst birds, […] amongst Cu[r]s a trindle tale,