Wyndles

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Baskets woven from pliant willow or withy twigs, used in older rural speech for carrying or storing goods
2. Wicker containers made from flexible twigs, traditionally used in certain country dialects to hold produce
3. Woven withy baskets of an older dialect usage, used to carry harvested items or other loads

Etymology: Old English "windel" meant a basket woven from pliant twigs, and it grew from the same root as "wind," since the twigs were wound and twisted together. The spelling "wyndles" belongs to the Middle English plural of this family of words, so it is best read as the plural of "windle," the basket. The root idea of twisting survives in the compound "windlestraw," the dried stalk of grass that was wound or twisted, which kept the older sense of a slender, flexible stem. The sense of the basket faded from common use over the centuries, leaving the word to survive mainly in dictionaries and dialect.