swingle

swingle (third-person singular simple present swingles, present participle swingling, simple past and past participle swingled)

1. (transitive) To beat or flog, especially for extracting the fibres from flax stalks; to scutch.
   • 1858, John Harland (editor), The House and Farm Accounts of the Shuttleworths of Gawthorpe Hall, in the County of Lancaster

     The first operation in dressing flax is to swingle or beat it, in order to detach it from the harle or skimps.

2. (transitive) To beat off the tops of (weeds) without pulling up the roots.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Forby to this entry?)

swingle (plural swingles)

1. An implement used to separate the fibres of flax by beating them; a scutch.

swing +‎ -le

swingle (third-person singular simple present swingles, present participle swingling, simple past and past participle swingled)

1. To dangle; to wave hanging.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)

2. (obsolete, Britain, dialectal) To swing for pleasure.

• slewing, swingel