Reel — Defs

01 n. A lively dance of the Highlanders of Scotland; also, the music to the dance; -- often called Scotch reel.

1.
A lively dance of the Highlanders of Scotland; also, the music to the dance; -- often called Scotch reel. Also: Scotch reel

Phrases & compounds

Virginia reel — the common name throughout the United States for the old English “country dance,” or contradance (contredanse).

02 n. 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, us…

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.
3.
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.(Agric.)

Phrases & compounds

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.

03 v. t. To roll.

imp. & p. p. Reeled; p. pr. & vb. n. Reeling

04 v. i. To incline, in walking, from one side to the other; to stagger.

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.

05 n. The act or motion of reeling or staggering; as, a drunken reel.