fistle

present singular third person fistles · participle present fistling · participle past fistled · past fistled · alternative fissle

1. To rustle; to make a slight rustling (or whistling sound).

   […] they both plainly heard a fistling within.

   1828, Mansie Wauch, The Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith, page 200

   3 more examples

   It might be about midnight, when I was awoke by a sort of fistling noise at the head of my couch. It seemed as though something was scratching and stirring about the fern which formed my pillow.

   1855, William S. Wickenden, Adventures of Frank Ogilby, page 55

   ... untroubled in the meadows, the rooks were tossing about over the heath, the sparrows were visiting from tree to tree, and the dead leaves were fistling in troops down the lanes as if returning gay, in companies, from the funeral of Summer.

   1860, Charles Dickens, All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal, page 179

   The thing began to fistle among the straw in the cradle.

   1859-1863, Uls. Jrn. Arch., VII. 141