Dictionary

crottle en · NOUN

Etymology

From Scots crottle, from Scottish Gaelic crotal.

Meanings

1. (qualifier:orignally Scotland) Any of various lichens gathered for dyeing, especially those of the genus Parmelia.
   • The older people, they knew all about the dyes, and we’d go and gather the crottles [a kind of moss used for dyeing woolens]. I don’t know what you call them here. They were round and you’d scrape them off a rock or stone. 1993, Joan Morrison, Charlotte Fox Zabusky, American Mosaic: The Immigrant Experience in the Words of Those Who Lived It, University of Pittsburgh Press, page 41:
   • Not that crotal and white was as humdrum as a simple definition of it as ‘brown and white’ implies. Crotal was the grey lichen which, over hundreds of years, had grown over the moorland rocks particularly 1982, Finlay MacDonald, Crotal & White, page 128:
   • The Land Conservancy's lichen is a member of the genus Parmelia or "crottle lichen", and has strap-like lobes pale grayish above and black below. […] Some crottle lichens have been used in Scotland in the dyeing of wool for socks and Harris tweed since the 16th century. They yield a reddish brown color. 2011 August 8, Keith McNeill, “North Thompson Valley naturalist auctions naming right to new species”, in North Thompson Journal, Barriere, British Columbia, page 1:
   • Parmelia omphalodes and P. saxitilis, the “crottles” used traditionally in Britain and Ireland, are sub-alpine lichens in North America. 1993, Karen Leigh Casselman, Craft of the Dyer: Colour from Plants and Lichens, Dover Publications, page 270:
   • It was known and uſed as a dye-ſtuff in the Highlands of Scotland by the name of corkes or crottel, ſome hundred years ago. 1791, John Sinclair, The Statistical Account of Scotland, volume 12, page 113:

Forms

Synonyms

stone-rag