treadle

[tred-l]

Origin

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noun

a lever or the like worked by continual action of the foot to impart motion to a machine.

a platform, as on a bus or trolleycar, for opening an exit door.

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verb (used without object)

to work a treadle.

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to run away hurriedly; flee.

to swindle, cheat, hoodwink, or hoax.

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Origin:
before 1000; Middle English tredel stairstep, Old English. See tread, -le

Related forms

tread·ler

[tred-ler] , noun

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Collins

World English Dictionary

treadle (ˈtrɛd^əl)

—n
1.	a. a rocking lever operated by the foot to drive a machine
	b. (as modifier): a treadle sewing machine

—vb
2.	to work (a machine) with a treadle

[Old English tredel, from trǣde something firm, from tredan to tread]

'treadler

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

treadle

"lever worked by foot," c.1400, from O.E. tredel "step, stair," from tredan "to tread" (see tread) + instrum. suffix -el (cf. handle).

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Related Words

floor loom footboard

footboard

Matching Quote

"The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it."

-Herman Melville

treadle

trea·dle