Definition of "swingle"

The pole of the Chinese flail is roughly 90 cm. long, the swingle about 30 cm. in length, joined to the pole by a wooden axle projecting at right-angles from the top of the swingle and passing through a loop at the top of the pole […]

1984 April 19, Joseph Needham, Francesca Bray, Science and Civilisation in China, Part 2, Agriculture, Cambridge University Press, page 357

(A flail swingle was a large wooden handle attached to a freeswinging stick, which was used in threshing grain.)

2004, Elizabeth Hafkin Pleck, Domestic Tyranny: The Making of American Social Policy Against Family Violence from Colonial Times to the Present, University of Illinois Press, page 27

Once cut into the correct size and shape, the handle of the flail, dumb in bendum 'unspeaking in bonds' (6b), is attached to the swingle or swipple, the swinging part of the flail, with a cord, rope, or chain tied through the hole or […]

2013 10, Michael D. J. Bintley, Michael G. Shapland, Trees and Timber in the Anglo-Saxon World, Oxford University Press, page 137

Now after you have swingled your Hempe and Flaxe ouer once, you shall take and shake up the refuse stuffe, which you beate from the same seuerally, and not only it, but the tops and knots, and halfe brak't buns which fall from the brake also, and drying them againe cause them to bee very well thresht with flayles, and then mixing them with th refuse which fell from the swingle tree, dresse them all well with threshing and shaking, till the buns be cleane driuen out of them;

1623, Gervase Markham, Country Contentments, or The approued Booke called the English Hous-wife, page 168

The instruments necessary to swingle flax are, a tressel, and a swingle.

1764, Duhamel du Monceau, The Elements of Agriculture - Volume 2, page 174

The first operation in dressing flax is to swingle or beat it, in order to detach it from the harle or skimps.

1858, John Harland, editor, The House and Farm Accounts of the Shuttleworths of Gawthorpe Hall, in the County of Lancaster

Just what he said, they neither of them knew. For hearing is a sense made blunt by fright; But then their ears were flushed, and burned and tingled, As if they'd been by some sharp weapon swingled.

1867, Horatius Flaccus, The Vision of Judgment: Or The South Church

She returned to her swingling and added reflectively : " That's what made me leave in the first place, to keep out of harm's way. […] ".

1976, Andriĭ Vasylʹovych Holovko, The Weeds: A Novel, page 28

Later she “spread, rotted, broke, swingled, and hacked” the weeds, twisting together several strands of fiber, and she used these strands to weave a frail fabric on a home-built loom.

2021, Helen D. Irvin, Women in Kentucky