Word.ws English Dictionary

ettle

/ˈɛtl/

ettle verb: to propose, intend.

Verb (1)

ettle (third-person singular simple present ettles, present participle ettling, simple past and past participle ettled)

  1. (Ireland, Northern England, Scotland, transitive) To propose, intend.
  2. (Ireland, Northern England, Scotland, archaic, intransitive) To direct one's course, to head.
    • The Siloam nosed and ettled into the grey sprawl of waves and sent up arcs of swift stinging spray.1972, George Mackay Brown, Greenvoe, Polygon, published 2019, page 39
  3. (Ireland, Northern England, Scotland, intransitive) To direct (something) to or at someone or something; to aim at.
  4. (Ireland, Northern England, Scotland, intransitive) To strive, to try.

Noun

ettle (plural ettles)

  1. (Scotland, dialectal) Intention; intent; aim.
    Synonyms:
    mint

Verb (2)

ettle (third-person singular simple present ettles, present participle ettling, simple past and past participle ettled)

  1. (obsolete) To earn.

Synonyms of ettle

Forms of ettle

Verb
third-person singular presentettles
present participleettling
past participleettled
pastettled
Noun
pluralettles

Origin of ettle

From Middle English etlien, atlien, from Old Norse ætla (“to think, mean, suppose, intend, purpose”), from Proto-Germanic *ahtalōną (“to strive, think”), from Proto-Indo-European *ok- (“to think, intend, purpose”). Cognate with regional Swedish ättla (“to count, reckon”). Some Middle English forms perhaps remodelled after Old English eaht.

A variation of addle (“to earn”).

Words formed from ettle

Questions about ettle

What does ettle mean?
Ettle means to propose, intend.
What part of speech is ettle?
Ettle can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce ettle?
Ettle is pronounced /ˈɛtl/.
What is the past tense of ettle?
The past tense of ettle is ettled.

Words near ettle in the dictionary

  1. Ettingshausen effect
  2. Ettingshausen effects
  3. Ettington
  4. ettins
  5. ETTL
  6. ettle
  7. ettled
  8. ettles
  9. ettling
  10. ettlings
  11. Etton

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ettle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “ettle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ettle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.