tramel

See also: Tramel

English

Alternative forms

• tramell

Etymology

From French tramail (“net for catching fishes”), from Medieval Latin tremaculum.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -æməl

Noun

tramel (plural tramels)

1. A net over a river to catch fish.
2. An instrument or device, sometimes of leather, more usually of rope, fitted to a horse's legs to regulate his motions and force him to amble.
   • 1800, G. G., J. Robinsom, The Sportsman's Dictionary, R. Nobel, published 1800, page TRA:

     The back-band which is fit for no other use but to bear up the side ropes, should, if you tramel all four legs, be made of fine girth-web, and lined with cotton; but if you tramel but one side, then a common tape will serve, taking care that it carries the side ropes in an even line, without either rising or falling: for if it rises it shortens the side-rope, and if it falls there is danger of its entangling.

3. Obsolete spelling of trammel.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Her golden lockes she roundly did uptye
     In breaded tramels, that no looser heares
     Did out of order stray about her daintie eares.

Anagrams

• Martel, armlet, malter, martel

Middle English

Alternative forms

• tramale

Etymology

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman tramel.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /traˈmɛːl/

Noun

tramel (plural tramels)

1. The hopper of a mill.

Descendants

• Yola: trameal

References

• “tramel, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.