Reel
Reel (rēl) , noun
[Gael. righil.]
A lively dance of the Highlanders of Scotland; also, the music to the dance; -- often called Scotch reel.
Collocations (1)
Virginia reel , the common name throughout the United States for the old English “country dance,” or contradance (contredanse). — Bartlett
Reel (rēl) , noun
[Anglo-Saxon hreól: compare Icelandic hrall a weaver's reed or sley.]
1.
A frame with radial arms, or a kind of spool, turning on an axis, on which yarn, threads, lines, or the like, are wound; as, a log reel, used by seamen; an angler's reel; a garden reel.
2.
A machine on which yarn is wound and measured into lays and hanks, -- for cotton or linen it is fifty-four inches in circuit; for worsted, thirty inches. — McElrath
3.
(Agriculture) A device consisting of radial arms with horizontal stats, connected with a harvesting machine, for holding the stalks of grain in position to be cut by the knives.
Collocations (1)
Reel oven , a baker's oven in which bread pans hang suspended from the arms of a kind of reel revolving on a horizontal axis. — Knight
Reel (rēl) , transitive verb
1.
To roll. [Obsolete]
And Sisyphus an huge round stone did reel.
2.
To wind upon a reel, as yarn or thread.
Reel (rēl) , intransitive verb
[Compare Swedish ragla. See 2d Reel.]
1.
To incline, in walking, from one side to the other; to stagger.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man.
He, with heavy fumes oppressed,
Reeled from the palace, and retired to rest.
The wagons reeling under the yellow sheaves.
2.
To have a whirling sensation; to be giddy.
In these lengthened vigils his brain often reeled.
Reel (rēl) , noun
The act or motion of reeling or staggering; as, a drunken reel. — Shakespeare