▪ I. † drail, v.1 Obs.
Also drayl(e.
[app. an altered form of trail, influenced by draw, drag, draggle.]
1. trans. To drag or trail along.
| 1598 T. Bastard Chrestoleros (1880) 21 First would I sterue myselfe..Or these rude chufs should drayle me through their tayles. c 1642 Twyne in Wood Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.) I. 82 The pike men drayled their pikes on the ground. 1664 H. More Antid. Idolatry To Rdr., He returned..drailing his sheephook behinde him. |
2. intr. To trail, draggle, move laggingly.
| 1598 R. Grenewey Tacitus' Ann., Germanie i. 259 Neither going too hastily before the horsemen, nor drailing after. a 1716 South Serm. (1737) VI. xii. (R.), Unless we have also a continual care to keep it from drailing in the dirt. |
▪ II. drail, v.2 U.S.
(dreɪl)
[f. drail n.]
intr. To fish with a drail.
| 1636 A. Shurt Let. 28 June in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. (1863) 4th Ser. VI. 570 Richard Foxwill..spake with a boate of ours (draylinge for mackrell). 1873 Rep. U.S. Bureau Fisheries i. xiv. 248 The usual method of taking them [sc. bluefish] with the line is by drailing or trolling. 1888 Goode Amer. Fishes 180 It is not known when the custom of drailing for mackerel was first introduced. |
▪ III. drail, n.
(dreɪl)
[f. drail v.1]
1. A fish-hook and line weighted with lead to enable it to be dragged at a depth in the water; also, the weighted hook, and the weight, which is a conical piece of lead placed round the shank of the hook. (U.S.)
| 1634 W. Wood New Eng. Prosp. (1865) 38 These Macrills are taken with drails, which is a long small line, with a lead and hooke at the end of it. 1883 Fisheries Exhib. Catal. 195 Jigs and drails for the capture of cod, weakfish, Spanish mackerel, bass, bluefish, and dolphin. 1894 Youth's Companion (U.S.) 22 Nov. 562/4 To whirl the lines..armed with weighted hooks called ‘drails’. |
† 2. A long, trailing head-dress. Obs. rare.
| 1647 Ward Simp. Cobler 26 It is no marvell they weare drailes on the hinder part of their heads. |
3. Part of a plough: see quot. local.
| 1794 T. Davis Agric. Wilts in Archæol. Rev. Mar. (1888), Drail, the iron bow of a plough from which the traces draw, and which has teeth to set the furrow wider or narrower. 1834 Brit. Husb. I. 161 The drail, by which they are now commonly attached, being at a. |