trowl

Verb

troll (third-person singular simple present trolls, present participle trolling, simple past and past participle trolled)

1. (transitive) To move (something, especially a round object) by, or as if by, rolling; to bowl, to roll, to trundle.
   • Take trustie (to trust to) that thinkest to thee, / That trustily thriftines trowleth to thee.1878, Thomas Tusser, “A Briefe Conclusion, where You may See, ech Word in the Verse, to Begin with a T”, in Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. […], London: Published for the English Dialect...
2. (obsolete, transitive) Often followed by in: to cause (something) to flow or roll in like a stream.
3. (intransitive) To roll; also, to turn round and round; to rotate, to spin, to whirl.
   • Mrs Putler, this is Lady—Lady—these tamn'd Southern names rin out o' my head like a stane trowling down hill— […]1818 July 25, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter XIII, in Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume IV, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and...
4. (intransitive) To move or walk at a leisurely pace; to ramble, to saunter, to stroll.
   • Prepoſt'rous foole, thou troul'ſt amiſſe: / Thou err'ſt; That's not the vvay, 'Tis this: / Thy hopes, inſtructed by thine Eye, / Make thee appeare more neare than I; […]1635, Fra[ncis] Quarles, “Canto XI. Mat[thew] VII. XIV.”, in Emblemes, London: […] G[eorge] M[iller] and sold at at Iohn Marriots shope […], →OCLC, book II, stanza 1, page 105
5. (intransitive, slang, specifically) Chiefly of a man: synonym of cruise (“to stroll about to find a (male) sexual partner”).
6. (intransitive, obsolete) Followed by in: to flow or roll in like a stream.
   • This little ape gets money by the sack-full, / It trolls upon her.c. 1623 (date written; published 1653), Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, John Ford, “The Spanish Gipsy”, in A[rthur] H[enry] Bullen, editor, The Works of Thomas Middleton […] (The...

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