fettle
Plural: fettles
Noun
- a state of fitness and good health
- "in fine fettle"
- A state of physical condition; kilter or trim.
- One's mental state; spirits.
- Sand used to line a furnace.
- A seam line left by the meeting of mould pieces.
- The act of fettling.
- A person's mood or state, often assuming the worst.
Verb
Verb Forms: fettled, fettling, fettles
- To restore to good condition; to cover a furnace hearth.
- remove mold marks or sand from (a casting)
- To sort out, to fix, to mend, to repair.
- To make preparations; to put things in order; to do trifling business.
- To line the hearth of a furnace with sand prior to pouring molten metal.
- To be upset or in a bad mood.
- To remove (as by sanding) the seam lines left by the meeting of two molds.
- To machine away seam lines or more generally to make small adjustments to a component or machine to improve its fit or operation.
- To prepare.
Examples
- Divint fettle yersel ower that!
- He tried to FETTLE his strategy, hoping to turn around a losing game of Scrabble.
- He wants to fettle his gearchange mechanism before the next competition.
- What’s yer fettle marra?
Origin / Etymology
From Late Middle English fetlen (“(verb) to bestow; to fix, prepare, put in place; to prepare (oneself) for battle, gird up; to shape; to be about to, or to ready (oneself) to stay; (adjective) shaped (well or poorly)”) [and other forms], which possibly:
* from Old English fetel (“belt, girdle, fettle”), from Proto-Germanic *fatilaz, further etymology unknown; or
* from Old English fetian (“to fetch”), from Proto-Germanic *fatōną, *fatjaną (“to fetch”), from Proto-Indo-European *ped- (“foot”).
Compare Old English ġefetelsod (“provided with a belt; trimmed, polished, ornamented”).
Scrabble Score: 9
fettle: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordfettle: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
fettle: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary