hantle Sc. and north. dial.
(ˈhɑːnt(ə)l, -æ-)
[Not known before c 1700; origin obscure.
It has been conjectured to be identical with Da. and Sw. antal, ‘number, quantity, multitude’, which suits the sense, but presents historical and phonetic difficulties, esp. as to the initial h in Sc.; it has also been viewed as composed of hand + tale number, which suits the form, and as a corruption of hankle, or of handful: the last is unlikely, seeing that handful, handfu' itself exists in all the dialects.]
A (considerable) number or quantity; a good many, a good deal.
| 1692 Sc. Presbyt. Eloq. (1738) 149 Here's a great Hantle of Bonny-braw well-fac'd young Lasses. 1814 Scott Wav. xxix, He has a hantle siller. 1816 ― Antiq. xvi, A hantle letters he has written. 1823 J. Wilson Marg. Lyndesay xxxiii, They make the avenue look a hantle tosher. 1896 Masson in Edinb. Even. News 14 Nov. 4/2 Scotland had been a hantle the better for having had him. [In Glossaries of Cumberland, Mid Yorkshire, Whitby, etc.; in Lancashire and Cheshire Gl. Hantle, hontle ‘a handful’.] |