fistle

English

Alternative forms

• fissle

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɪsəl/

Verb

fistle (third-person singular simple present fistles, present participle fistling, simple past and past participle fistled)

1. To rustle; to make a slight rustling (or whistling sound).
   • 1828, Mansie Wauch, The Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith, page 200:

     […] they both plainly heard a fistling within.

   • 1855, William S. Wickenden, Adventures of Frank Ogilby, page 55:

     It might be about midnight, when I was awoke by a sort of fistling noise at the head of my couch. It seemed as though something was scratching and stirring about the fern which formed my pillow.

   • 1860, Charles Dickens, All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal, page 179:

     ... untroubled in the meadows, the rooks were tossing about over the heath, the sparrows were visiting from tree to tree, and the dead leaves were fistling in troops down the lanes as if returning gay, in companies, from the funeral of Summer.

   • 1859-1863, Uls. Jrn. Arch., VII. 141:

     The thing began to fistle among the straw in the cradle.

References

• Joseph Wright, editor (1900), “FISTLE”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume II (D–G), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• flites, elfist, filets, stifle, itself, fliest, it self