Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Reel?

\Reel\ (r?l), n. [Gael. righil.] A lively dance of the Highlanders of Scotland; also, the music to the dance; -- often called {Scotch reel}. {Virginia reel}, the common name throughout the United States for the old English ``country dance,'' or contradance (contredanse). --Bartlett.
\Reel\, n. [AS. kre?l: cf. Icel. kr?ll 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. (Agric.) 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. {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\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Reeled} (r?ld); p. pr. & vb. n. {Reeling}. ] 1. To roll. [Obs.] And Sisyphus an huge round stone did reel. --Spenser. 2. To wind upon a reel, as yarn or thread.
\Reel\, v. i. [Cf. Sw. 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. --Ps. cvii. 27. He, with heavy fumes oppressed, Reeled from the palace, and retired to rest. --Pope. The wagons reeling under the yellow sheaves. --Macaulay. 2. To have a whirling sensation; to be giddy. In these lengthened vigils his brain often reeled. --Hawthorne.
\Reel\, n. The act or motion of reeling or staggering; as, a drunken reel. --Shak.