pingle

See also: Pingle

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɪŋɡəl

Etymology 1

Perhaps from pin (“to impound”).

Noun

pingle (plural pingles)

1. (obsolete, UK, dialect) A small piece of enclosed ground.
   • 1833, Stephen Glover, ‎ Thomas Noble, The History, Gazetteer, and Directory of the County of Derby, page 104:

     Matthew Smith, by his will, bearing date 20th February 1713, left two alms-houses which he had built, and four closes of land, part freehold and part copyhold, lying in the Hoppings, near Hopping-hill, in the liberty of Belper, containing, by estimation, 13 acres: and a pingle, containing half an acre, to George Gregory, esq. of Nottingham, and Thomas Goodwin, esq. of Derby, and their heirs, to the intent that the yearly rents and profits thereof should be faithfully employed by them, for and towards the relief of two poor people, to be fifty years of age when placed in the said alms-houses, the same to be paid to them quarterly.

   • 1881, Notes and Queries, page 105:

     In 1619, John Chipsey and his wife Ellen surrendered lands in Scotter at le Clowehole," and "a pingle at the woodside," Manor Records, sub anno.

   • 1914, Sydenham Henry Augustus Hervey, Ladbroke and Its Owners, page 272:

     This was the case with a pingle wall erected on the waste c. 1750 by the then owner of the Throckmorton—Murcott—Wheeler—Smith holding.

   • 2014, Caitlin Green, The Streets of Louth, page 279:

     Martyn Browne, Esq., paid a fat turkey, or two shillings, in rent for a 'pingle'—a small piece of enclosed land—there.

Etymology 2

Verb

pingle (third-person singular simple present pingles, present participle pingling, simple past and past participle pingled)

1. (intransitive, UK, dialect) To eat with a feeble appetite.
   • 1616, Thomas Stoughton, Two Profitable Treatises, page 188:

     all this while when we haue beene at the Lords spirituall feasts, wee haue but pingled, and neuer made a good meale.

   • 1911, Arnold White, The Views of 'Vanoc,': An Englishman's Outlook, page 319:

     The Liberal and Conservative rivals of the Socialist whole hoggers may nibble at Socialism as John Browdie pingled with the crust of the Yorkshire pie, but dry nurse and coddle the electors as they will, neither Free Traders nor Tariff Reformers can approach the large, divine, and comfortable creed of the Socialist whole hogger.

   • 1952, Homoeopathic World - Volume 87, page 121:

     This man complained of burning pains in the stomach, he pingled his food.

2. (intransitive, UK, dialect) To dawdle.
   • 2020, Matthew Fitt, But n Ben A-Go-Go:

     He pingled his wey tae the first o the moontain's three fause peaks an wis hauf-roads tae the second when a voice rang oot across the hills like a thunder plump.

3. (intransitive) To struggle; to work with great effort.
   • 1661, Nathanael Eaton, De Fastis Anglicis, sive Calendarium Sacrum. The Holy Calendar, page 66:

     Those that but now did put their labo'ring hands Unto thy Plough, have rid more work away Then I that here have pingled many a day.

   • 1852, Margaret Oliphant, “Annie Orme”, in Littell's Living Age, volume 35, page 360:

     Both of us have pingled at our seams for forty year good.

   • 1896, P. Anderson Graham, “The Bondager”, in The Living Age, volume 10, page 341:

     "It was for the laddie I pingled and scarted it together," she soliloquized aloud,

4. (transitive) to bother or create work for.
   • 1842, James Melville, ‎ Robert Pitcairn, The Autobiography and Diary of Mr. James Melvill, page 755:

     and howbeit all the Nobillmen and Gentillmen, Bisschoppis, Commissiouneries, and thair adherentis, voitit to the Bisschop Law, yit a number of the best of the Ministerie pingled them; so that , iff they had not bein devydit becaus of Mr Patrick Simpsoune's disseas and waiknes, it wes thought they sould haiff prevaillit.

   • 1883, Walter Scott, Waverly, page 179:

     Ta Tighearnach (i.e., the Chief) did not like ta Sassenach Duinhé-wassel to be pingled wi' mickle speaking, as she was na' tat weel.

5. To struggle or squabble.
   • (intransitive, dialect)
     1976, Thomas Churchyard, A Description of the Warres in Flaunders, page 43:

     pingled and struggled with the Spaniardes for breade and other cates, and often wi mette with them in the Townes, Willages, open fields, and skirmished at ý very skirts of their cape, procuring the to fight.

6. To spoil
   • 1988, Ivy Journal - Volumes 14-18, page 36:

     […] but those on the south side, getting both sun and traffic fumes from Pall Mall, pingled

   • 2020, John Goodridge, Nineteenth-Century English Labouring-Class Poets:

     And, while he handles the plump rattling grain, Declares it pingled, only fit for mice!

Noun

pingle

1. (obsolete) An onerous and difficult task; a hardship.
   • 1612, Robert Persons, A discussion of the Answere of M. William Barlow , D. of Diuinity, to the Booke intituled: The Iudgment of a Catholike Englishman liuing in banishment for his Religion &c.:

     let them garr their wives; more awkward and violent; a pingle of trifles; a counterscarse of examples; an Empericall Quack-saluer;

   • 1725, Edward Taylor, Preparatory Meditations:

     Judgment's a pingle: Blindeman's Buff's plaid there. Sin playes at Coursey-Park within my Minde;

   • 1744, James Carson, Jemmy Carson's Collections, page 92:

     I'm sure some o' them wat the sma End o' their Moggins, syn we laid our Heads together, an at it wi' Vir, at last wi' a Pingle,

   • 1753, Alexander Nicol, The Rural Muse, page 112:

     If ane had tald youn sae when ye was single, Your judgment to believ't wou'd had a pingle.

Etymology 3

Noun

pingle (plural pingles)

1. A small pot with a lid.
   • 1821 January, “The Humours of a Village Fair”, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, volume 8, page 429:

     You want a pingle, lassie, weel and guid—'Tis thretty pennies—pit it whar it stood!

   • 1904, Wallace Irwin, Nautical Lays of a Landsman, page 97:

     When he brained a man with a pingle spike Or plastered a seaman flat, We should 'a' been blowed, but we all of us knowed That he didn't mean nothin' by that.

   • 1913 January, S.R. Crockett, “First and Rest”, in The English Illustrated Magazine, volume 48, page 377:

     Meg the house-lass, Tibbie's younger sister, let fall a "pingle" of sowens in her agitation, but Mrs. Colvend was too angry even to register this for future punishment.

   • 2018, Linda Raedisch, “The Old Ways: A Bard's Halloween”, in Michael Furie, ‎Llewellyn, ‎Peg Aloi, editor, Llewellyn's 2019 Sabbats Almanac:

     We've all heard of "Double, double, toil and trouble," but as "Hallowmass" approached, Shakespeare's contemporaries would hve been just as likely to suffer from the earworm, "Mingle, mingle, in the pingle,/Join the catrip with the jingle." […] The above is a line from the Galloway Song, one of a number of Jacobean greatest hits having to do with witches.

Etymology 4

Onomatopoeic

Verb

pingle (third-person singular simple present pingles, present participle pingling, simple past and past participle pingled)

1. To make a light, ringing, percussive sound.
   • 1930, The Windsor Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly for Men and Women, page 493:

     The milk hissed and pingled - or Phil's tongue hissed and pingled.

   • 1991, Raymond Z. Gallun, ‎Jeffrey M. Elliot, ‎ Paul David Seldis, Starclimber: The Literary Adventures and Autobiography of Raymond Z. Gallun, page 89:

     I recall that right after dinner Sid sat at the battered upright piano there in the dining room and pingled out a few bars of something rather classical, like Schubert's song of love.

   • 2010, James Fleming, ‎Robert Fleming, The Temple of Optimism:

     Even So there was something unsettling, something suggestive to his mind of the arras and dark deeds about the cadaverous echo of hoof on wood as it pingled through the dusk and among the boles of the still trees.

   • 2013, William Tenn, The Square Root of Man:

     All over United Americas, people grabbed at their teledar sets and tried to hold them together as the electronic apparatus klunked, pingled and whirrety-whirred.

Anagrams

• Epling, Pingel

Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈpɪŋɡlɛ]
• Rhymes: -ɡlɛ, -ɪŋɡlɛ
• Hyphenation: pin‧g‧le

Noun

pingle

1. vocative singular of pingl

Polish

Etymology

Plural of pingiel +‎ -e, itself from ping-pong, with a semantic shift of ball->eye->that which one wears on their eyes. For the first semantic shift, compare the shift from Proto-Slavic *glazъ to Russian глаз (glaz).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpiŋ.ɡlɛ/
• Rhymes: -iŋɡlɛ
• Syllabification: pin‧gle

Noun

pingle nvir pl

1. (colloquial, humorous) glasses, specs

   Synonyms: binokle, bryle, cyngle, patrzałki, szkła

Declension

Declension of pingle

	plural
nominative	pingle
genitive	pingli
dative	pinglom
accusative	pingle
instrumental	pinglami
locative	pinglach
vocative	pingle

Derived terms

noun

• pinglarz

 

Further reading

• pingle in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• pingle in Polish dictionaries at PWN