trundletail

plural trundletails · alternative trendle-tail · alternative trindle-tail

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

   3 more examples

   [A]uant you curs, / Be thy mouth, or blacke, or vvhite, tooth that poyſons if it bite, / Maſtife, grayhoũd [grayhound], mungril, grim-hoũd or ſpaniel, brach or him, / Bobtaile tike, or trũdletaile [trundletail], Tom vvill make them vveep & vvaile, […]

   c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vi], signature [G4], recto

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

   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

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

   a. 1639, John Webster, Appius and Virginia, published 1654, Act III, Scene 1