fettling

Verb

fettle (third-person singular simple present fettles, present participle fettling, simple past and past participle fettled)

1. (Northern England, especially) To sort out, to fix, to mend, to repair.
   • He is getting his saddle altered: fettling about this and that; does not consider what danger he is in.1858, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia
2. (intransitive) To make preparations; to put things in order; to do trifling business.
   • Nor list he now go whistling to the car,
     But sells his team , and fettleth to the war1597, [Joseph Hall], “(please specify the page)”, in Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes. First Three Bookes, of Tooth-lesse Satyrs. […], London: […] Thomas Creede, for Robert Dexter, →OCLC
3. (transitive) To line the hearth of a furnace with sand prior to pouring molten metal.
4. (Geordie, reflexive) To be upset or in a bad mood.
   • Divint fettle yersel ower that!
5. To remove (as by sanding) the seam lines left by the meeting of two molds.
6. (transitive) To machine away seam lines or more generally to make small adjustments to a component or machine to improve its fit or operation.
   • He wants to fettle his gearchange mechanism before the next competition.

See all 13 meanings of fettle