▪ I. creel, n.1
(kriːl)
Forms: 5–6 crele, creill(e, 5 crelle, 6 creil, krele, kreil, 7 creele, (8 crail), 8– creel.
[Originally northern, and chiefly Scotch; etymology uncertain.
The OIr. criol chest, coffer, has been compared: but the vowel of creel appears to be not ī, but ē or ei, ai. OF. greille:—L. crāticula fine hurdle-work, may have had a variant *creille.]
1. A large wicker basket; formerly applied to the large deep baskets, coupled in pairs across the backs of horses, for the transport of goods; now applied to a basket used for the transport of fish and borne upon the back, to a potato-basket, and the like.
| c 1425 Wyntoun Cron. viii. xxxviii. 51 A payr of Coil Crelis. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 101 Crelle, baskett or lepe, cartallus, sporta. c 1475 Rauf Coilȝear 367 He kest twa Creillis on ane Capill, with Coillis anew. 1508 Dunbar Flyting w. Kennedie 229 Cager aviris castis bayth coillis and creilis. 1560 Rolland Crt. Venus iii. 595 Ȝe him hang ouir ȝour wallis in a creill. 1564 Wills & Inv. N.C. (Surtees) 224 A basket and iij kreles. 1610 Healey St. Aug. Citie of God 251 There was also the Vanne which is otherwise called the Creele. c 1730 Burt Lett. N. Scotl. (1818) I. 330 The horse laden with creels, or small panniers. 1806 Gazetteer Scot. (ed. 2) 194 Fishermen, whose wives carry the fish in wicker-baskets, or creels to Edinburgh. 1811 Willan W. Riding Gloss. (E.D.S.), Creel, two semi-circular wicker baskets joined by cords which admit of their closing to hold hay. A man having the creel strapped over his shoulders, conveys provender to sheep. 1860 G. H. K. Vac. Tour 121 When the father of the last Lord Reay..changed his residence..his son was put into a creel on one side of a pony, and counterbalanced by his younger brother, the admiral, in another. 1869–78 in Dial. Glossaries of Cumberland, Lonsdale, Swaledale, Whitby, Holderness, N.W. Linc. 1884 Queen Victoria More Leaves 206 An old fishwife, with her creel on her back. |
b. A modern term for an angler's fishing-basket.
| 1842 Proc. Berw. Nat. Club II. 4 Ere the Creel was half stocked. 1874 C. S. Keene Let. in Life (1892) 159, I hope you had a good time with rod and creel. 1884 W. C. Smith Kildrostan i. i. 227 It is not every fish you hook that comes to the creel. |
2. A contrivance made of wickerwork used as a trap for catching fish, lobsters, etc.
| 1457 Sc. Acts Jas. II (1597) §87 That na man in smolt time set veschelles, creilles, weires, or ony vther ingine to let the smoltes to goe to the Sea. 1533–4 Act 25 Hen. VIII, c. 7 No person shal take in any lepe, hiue, crele..fier, or any other engine..the yonge frie..of any kinde of salmon. 1536 Bellenden Cron. Scot. (1821) I. p. xxxiv, The peple makis ane lang mand, narrow halsit, and wyid mouthit..als sone as the see ebbis, the fische ar tane dry in the crelis. 1596 Dalrymple tr. Leslie's Hist. Scot. 42 Nocht sa mekle fishe thay with nettis, as with skepis, or long kreilis win with wickeris in the form of a hose. 1758 Binnell Descr. Thames 111 With any Nets, Trammel, Keep, Wore, Creel, or other Device. 1775 Adair Amer. Ind. 403 Catching fish in long crails, made with canes and hiccory splinters, tapering to a point. |
3. to coup the creels: in various fig. uses; to fall or tumble over; ‘to tumble heels over head, to die’ (Jamieson); to meet with a mishap. in a creel: in a state of temporary mental aberration.
| 1715 Ramsay Christ's Kirk Gr. ii. xvii, Whan he was strute twa sturdy chiels..Held up frae cowping o' the creels The liquid logic scholer. 1785 Burns To William Simpson iii, My senses wad be in a creel, Should I but dare a hope to speel, Wi' Allan, or wi' Gilbertfield. 1816 Scott Old Mort. vi, ‘The laddie 's in a creel!’ exclaimed his uncle. 1818 ― Rob Roy xx, If folk..wad needs be couping the creels ower through-stanes. a 1835 Hogg Tales & Sk. III. 206 If you should..coup the creels just now..it would be out of the power of man to get you to a Christian burial. 1871 C. Gibbon Lack of Gold xvii, ‘The lassie's head's in a creel’, cried Susan. |
4. attrib. and Comb., as creel-hawking, creel-pig; creel-like adv.; creel-house, a house or hut with the walls made of wickerwork covered with clay; creel-man, a man who transports goods in creels.
| 1865 J. G. Bertram Harvest of Sea (1873) 310 The system..followed by the fishwives in the old days of *creel-hawking. |
| 1876 Robinson Whitby Gloss., *Creel-house, a wicker hut with a sodded roof. 1878 Mackintosh Hist. Civiliz. Scot. I. Introd. 134 Till recently crell houses were used in some parts of the Highlands. |
| 1638–9 in Maidment Sc. Pasquils (1868) 66 He..*creel lyke lives in the fyre of contentione. |
| 1883 J. Beath Bishopshire Lilts 14 Stridelegs on the *creelman's ass. |
| 1880 Antrim & Down Gloss., *Creel-pig, a young pig, such as is taken to market in a creel or basket. |
▪ II. creel, n.2
(kriːl)
[Perh. the same word as preceding; but evidence is wanting.]
1. A framework, varying in form according to its purpose (see quots.). (Cf. cratch, 4.)
| 1788 W. Marshall Yorksh. (1796) II. 222 The feet of the sheep being bound, it is laid upon a bier—provincially, a ‘creel’. Ibid. Gloss., Creel, a kind of bier, used for slaughtering and salving sheep upon. 1821 J. Hunter MS. Gloss. in Addy Sheffield Gloss., Creel, a light frame-work placed overhead in the kitchen or other room of an ordinary farmhouse, on which oatcakes are placed. [So 1883 in Huddersf. Gloss.] 1869 Lonsdale Gloss., Creel..a barred stool on which sheep are salved and clipped, pigs are killed, etc. 1877 Holderness Gloss., Creel., a plate-rack..a food-rack for sheep; a butcher's hand-barrow. 1877 N.W. Linc. Gloss., Creel, a wooden rack in which plates are put to dry. A frame in which glaziers carry glass. |
2. Spinning. A frame for holding the paying-off bobbins in the process of converting the ‘sliver’ into ‘roving’, or the latter into yarn. Hence also creel-frame.
| 1835 Ure Philos. Manuf. 225 The roller-pair..receives the fine rovings from bobbins placed on skewers or upright pins in the creel behind. 1851 Art Jrnl. Catal. Gt. Exhib. p. vii**/1 The bobbins..are placed in a wooden frame called a ‘creel’, so that they will revolve. 1879 Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 209/1 The rove creels..stand about six or seven feet high. |
b. (See quot.) north. dial.
| 1869 Lonsdale Gloss., Creel, a frame to wind yarn upon. |
▪ III. creel, v.
(kriːl)
[f. creel n.1]
1. Sc. To put into a creel; also fig.
| 1513 Douglas æneis iv. Prol. 32 Men sayis thow bridillit Aristotle as ane hors, And crelit wp the flour of poetry. 1808–79 Jamieson, Creil, to put into a basket..‘He's no gude to creel eggs wi',’ i.e. not easy, or safe, to deal with. |
2. Angling. To get (a fish) into the basket; to succeed in catching. Cf. ‘to bag game’.
| 1844 J. T. J. Hewlett Parsons & W. v, I creeled him, and tried again. 1892 Field 18 June 922/3 My friend..creeled nearly twice as many trout. |
3. Sc. In certain marriage customs: To make (a newly married man) go through some ceremony with a creel; esp. to make him carry a creel filled with stones, till his wife releases him. Cf. Brand Pop. Antiq. (1870) II. 55.
| 1792 Statist. Acc. Scot. II. 80 The second day after the Marriage a Creeling, as it is called, takes place. 1845 New Statist. Acc. Scot., Berwicksh. 59 All the men who have been married within the last 12 months are creeled. Ibid. 263 An ancient..local usage called creeling is still kept up here. 1890 Glasgow Times 3 Nov. 3/4 A miner..having got married..his fellow-colliers..went through the process of creeling him. |