▪ I. dottle, n.1 and a. Now Sc.
(ˈdɒt(ə)l)
In 4–6 dotel.
[f. dote v.1 or n.1: see -le.]
A. n. A fool or dotard; a silly person.
| 13.. E.E. Allit. P. B. 1517 Þenne þe dotel on dece drank. 1562 Burn. Paules Ch. in Pilkington's Wks. (Parker Soc.) 586 A drunken dotel. 1894 J. Menzies Our Town viii. 85 ‘Your veesits to the auld dottle.’ |
B. adj. In a state of dotage; silly, crazy. Sc.
| 1808–18 in Jamieson. 1820 St. Kathleen III. 162 (Jam.) Ye dottle man. 1895 Ian Maclaren Auld Lang Syne iv. i. 147 Till he be cripple an' dottle (crazy). |
Hence dottled ppl. a., (Sc.) in the state of dotage.
| 1825 in Jamieson. |
▪ II. dottle, dottel, n.2
(ˈdɒt(ə)l)
[app. dim. of dot n.1: cf. dit v.]
† 1. A plug; = dossil 1. Obs.
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 127/2 Dotelle, stoppynge of a vesselle (dottel, H. dossell, P.), ducillus, ductildus. 1743 Maxwell Sel. Trans. Soc. Impr. Knowl. Agric. Scot. 284 (Jam.) Have a tub, with a small hole in the bottom of it, wherein put a cork or dottle in the under end. |
2. The plug of tobacco ash remaining in the bottom of a pipe after smoking. (orig. Sc.)
| 1825 in Jamieson. 1850 Kingsley Alt. Locke vi. (D.), A snuffer-tray containing scraps of half-smoked tobacco, ‘pipe dottles’, as he called them. 1890 R. Kipling Soldiers Three, Black Jack (ed. 6) 84 Ortheris shot out the red-hot dottel of his pipe on the back of his hairy fist. 1894 Doyle S. Holmes 214 His before-breakfast pipe, which was composed of all the plugs and dottels left from his smokes of the day before. |