throwster, a twister of silk thread for a weaver. Middleton, World Tost at Tennis (Scholar). In the north country ‘to throw’ is in common use in the sense of to twist, see EDD. (s.v. Throw, 16). OE. þrāwan, to twist.
thrull, to pierce. Morte Arthur, leaf 172. 28; bk. ix, c. 4. See [thrill].
thrum, a weaving term: the waste end of a warp; thrumm’d, furnished with tufts, Drayton, Pol. xxiii. 319; untidily thatched, Middleton, Mich. Term, i. 2. 6; thrum-chinned, with rough untidy chin, id., A Trick to Catch, iv. 3. 7; ‘(A) plaine livery-three-pound-thrum’, B. Jonson, Alchem. i. 1. 16 (applied jocularly to a person). ME. thrumm of a clothe, ‘filamen’ (Prompt.). Cp. Norw. dial. trumm, edge, brim (Aasen); Du. ‘drom, a thrum’ (Sewel); G. trumm.
thrum, to beat, Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. I, iii. 1 (George). An old Suffolk word (EDD.).
thrust, thirst; to thirst. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 2. 29; iii. 7. 50. OE. þurst, thirst. See [thrist].
tial, a bond, tie, obligation; ‘Nor to contract with such (a woman) can be a Tial’, Fletcher, Wildgoose Chase, ii. 1 (Mirabel). A Scotch word (EDD.). See [tyall].
Tib-of-the-buttery, a goose (Cant). Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, v. 1 (Higgen). ‘Tib’ is a pet form of the Christian name Isabel; Tibbie was once a favourite name with the peasants of the Lowlands. See NED.
ticket, on the, on tick, like one who incurs an acknowledged debt. Shirley, Bird in a Cage, ii. 1. 17.
tickle, not to be depended upon; uncertain, unreliable, changeable. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 3. 5; vii. 8. 1; in unstable equilibrium, easily upset, easily set in motion; in phr. tickle of the sear (sere), easily made to go off (the ‘sear’ being a portion of a gun-lock), used fig. in Hamlet for yielding easily to any impulse (ii. 2. 327). ME. tikel, unstable, uncertain (Chaucer, C. T. A. 3428).
tickle-footed, uncertain, inconstant, Beaumont and Fl., Scornful Lady, v. 4 (Elder Loveless).