Definition of "lin"

Halfe furious vnto his foe he came, / Resolv'd in minde all suddenly to win, / Or soone to lose, before he once would lin [...].

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

Till all war deaun I knaw thou wad not lin.

1684, Meriton, Praise Ale, 1.46 (quoted in the EDD)

He never linned till he had taen away every chicken that the wife had.

1822, The Three Perils of Man, James Hogg, I. 238

And therefore, to recount her Rivers, from their Lins (marginal gloss) Meeres or Pooles, from whence Rivers spring

1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 9 p. 134

Here the hammer's active din / Blends with sound of roaring lin.

c. 1735-1801, John Millar, poem, published in 1979, William Christian Lehmann, John Millar of Glasgow, 1735-1801, page 414

Whan they came to the roaring lin, She drave unwitting Isabel in.

1776, David Herd, George Paton, Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, Etc, page 20, "Binnorie"

What seek we here / Amid this waste where desolation scowls, / And the red torrent, brawling down the linn, / Sings everlasting discord?

1814, J. H. Craig [pseudonym; James Hogg], The Hunting of Badlewe: A Dramatic Tale, London: H[enry] Colburn; Edinburgh: G. Goldie, page 1; quoted in “The Hunting of Badlewe, a Dramatic Tale. 8vo. Edin. 1814. [From the Scottish Review.]”, in The Analectic Magazine, Containing Selections from Foreign Reviews and Magazines, together with Original Miscellaneous Compositions, volume V (New Series), Philadelphia, Pa.: Published and sold by Moses Thomas, […], May 1815, pages 353–354

A step farther might be on the firm earth; but more probably it would be illusive, and dash him into the roaring Lin, where he would be ingulfed at once in its furious whirlpool.

1827, Jane Porter, The Scottish Chiefs, page 51

O ye were ne ' er the ane to fret, / But kept my heart aboon, / Wi ' smiles sweet as when first we met, / By Locher ' s roaring lin.

1861, Alexander McLachlan, The Emigrant: And Other Poems, page 201

[…] to Sowerby-bridge, about twenty-four measured miles, wheel carriages would go in one day; and on that account they concluded that the manufacture of that place, Warrington, &c. would be much readier and cheaper supplied with lin-yarn, flax, &c. from the east, […] 1641.—14 yards of femble cloth, 12s. ; 8 yards of linen, 6s. 8d. ; 20 yards of harden, 10s. ; 5 linen sheets, 1l. ; 7 linen pillow bears, 8s. ; 2 femble sheets and a line hard sheet, 10s. ; 3 linen towels, 4s. ; 6 lin curtains and a vallance, 12s. ; […]

1775, John Watson, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Halifax, page 16

A yerd a gooid lin check.

1864, Poems, Preston, section 8

Paddeys wi' their feyne lin' ware.

1866, Gilpin, Songs, 233

Hoo wur stonnin' i' th' front of a weshin'-mug, wi' a lin brat afore her.

1874 (ed. of 1879), Waugh, Chim. Corner, 27