fettle

From Late Middle English fetlen (“(verb) to bestow; to fix, prepare, put in place; to prepare (oneself) for battle, gird up; to shape; to be about to, or to ready (oneself) to stay; (adjective) shaped (well or poorly)”) [and other forms],[1] and then possibly:

• from Old English fetel (“belt, girdle, fettle”),[2] from Proto-Germanic *fatilaz, further etymology unknown; or
• from Old English fetian (“to fetch”), from Proto-Germanic *fatōną, *fatjaną (“to fetch”), from Proto-Indo-European *ped- (“foot”).

Compare Old English ġefetelsod (“provided with a belt; trimmed, polished, ornamented”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɛtl̩/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛtəl
• Hyphenation: fet‧tle

fettle (plural fettles)

1. A state of physical condition; kilter or trim.
   • 1979 August, P. R. G. Kennard, “Polish Steam Panorama”, in Railway World, page 421:

     These strong 2-8-2s […] appeared in good fettle, especially those shedded at Lublin and several arrivals and departures were photographed in the fine evening light.

2. One's mental state; spirits.
3. Sand used to line a furnace.
4. (ceramics) A seam line left by the meeting of mould pieces.
5. (UK, dialectal) The act of fettling.
6. (Cumbria, Geordie) A person's mood or state, often assuming the worst.

   What’s yer fettle marra?

Outside of dialects, this noun is a fossil, found only in the phrase in fine fettle; but the verb and the corresponding gerund remain in common use in British English (for example, "this will need a bit of fettling to get sorted").

• in fine fettle

fettle (third-person singular simple present fettles, present participle fettling, simple past and past participle fettled)

1. (especially Northern England) To sort out, to fix, to mend, to repair.

   Coordinate term: fiddle

   • 1858, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia:

     He is getting his saddle altered: fettling about this and that; does not consider what danger he is in.

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VI, in Capricornia‎, page 83:

     For some time after the train had gone Oscar stood on the track conversing with members of the fettling gang […]

2. (intransitive) To make preparations; to put things in order; to do trifling business.
   • c. 1600, John Ayliffe, Satires:

     Nor list he now go whistling to the car,
     But sells his team , and fettleth to the war

3. (transitive) To line the hearth of a furnace with sand prior to pouring molten metal.
4. (reflexive, Geordie) To be upset or in a bad mood.

   Divint fettle yersel ower that!

5. In ceramics, to remove (as by sanding) the seam lines left by the meeting of two molds.
6. (transitive, archaic) To prepare.
   • 1595, William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet:

     But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next...

• fettler
• fettling
• refettle

• fash

• Northumberland Words, English Dialect Society, R. Oliver Heslop, 1893–4
• “fettle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• Newcastle 1970s, Scott Dobson and Dick Irwin,
• Todd's Geordie Words and Phrases, George Todd, Newcastle, 1977
• Frank Graham (1987) The New Geordie Dictionary, →ISBN
• A List of words and phrases in everyday use by the natives of Hetton-le-Hole in the County of Durham, F.M.T.Palgrave, English Dialect Society vol.74, 1896,