fettle
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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fettles,
present (3rd person singular)
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fettled,
past participle, past
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fettling
present participle
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Ceramics. to remove mold marks from (a cast piece).
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Metallurgy.
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to remove sand from (a casting).
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to repair the hearth of (an open-hearth furnace).
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verb
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to remove (excess moulding material and casting irregularities) from a cast component
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to line or repair (the walls of a furnace)
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dialect
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to prepare or arrange (a thing, oneself, etc), esp to put a finishing touch to
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to repair or mend (something)
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noun
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state of health, spirits, etc (esp in the phrase in fine fettle )
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another name for fettling
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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fettlesimple
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fettlessimple
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have fettledperfect
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has fettledperfect
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am fettlingprogressive
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are fettlingprogressive
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is fettlingprogressive
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have been fettlingperfect progressive
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has been fettlingperfect progressive
Past
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fettledsimple
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had fettledperfect
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was fettlingprogressive
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were fettlingprogressive
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had been fettlingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of fettle
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English verb fetlen, fetelen, fatelen “to shape, prepare,” perhaps from Old English noun fetel “belt, girdle”
Explanation
Fettle is the state or condition you're in, especially if it's positive. You might describe your bouncy, healthy puppy as being in fine fettle. You'll almost always see the adjective "fine" describing the noun fettle. Being in fine fettle means feeling good, being healthy, or having an energetic approach to something. A powerful speaker who gives a particularly rousing speech is in fine fettle, and an eighty-year-old marathon runner is also in fine fettle. In 1700s Lancashire dialect, fettle meant "to make ready," or "to prepare for battle," from the Old English word fetel, "belt or girdle."
Vocabulary lists containing fettle
"The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet," Vocabulary from Act 3
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Novel Study: Beowulf (trans. Seamus Heaney), Lines 1251–1904
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Dodger
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"Right now Ginger is in a fine fettle, continuing to write songs that will be released under the guise of The Wildhearts and as solo projects in the future."
From BBC ● Mar. 18, 2026
At the moment, you’re in fine fettle with a total of $2 million coverage.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 15, 2025
Steely Dan opened the concert with a sprightly set of jazz-wise pop that Donald Fagen, in seemingly fine fettle after a recent hospital stay, capped with a shout-out to his late creative partner, Walter Becker.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 6, 2024
Overall, markets go into Wednesday in pretty fine fettle.
From Reuters ● Jun. 6, 2023
The Abel who was leaving was in better fettle, in all ways, than the Abel who had arrived in a hurricane, desperately clinging to a nail.
From "Abel's Island" by William Steig
A tackler is one who fettles looms when they get out of order.
From Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine by Edwin Waugh
Rosey! sweet little posy Come to our garden fête; Our naughty young nettles shall be on their fettles, All stinging things to bate.
From The Zankiwank and The Bletherwitch An Original Fantastic Fairy Extravaganza by S. J. Adair Fitzgerald
To revert to my former example of its use—An injured cart is fettled by the wheel-wright; the wheelwright fettles the injured cart.
From Notes and Queries, Number 09, December 29, 1849 by Various
Jaguar took me to a hangar in Monterey to meet the E-Type Zero, painted a swimming metallic bronze and fettled to a straightness that is itself wildly anachronistic.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2018
Much modified and fettled by the Chinese, the ship is based on the Soviet Kuznetsov-class design.
From Economist ● Jan. 19, 2017
To revert to my former example of its use—An injured cart is fettled by the wheel-wright; the wheelwright fettles the injured cart.
From Notes and Queries, Number 09, December 29, 1849 by Various
Theer niver was sich a dog as thot for bad temper, an' it did nut get no better when his tail hed to be fettled an inch an' a half shorter.
From Indian Tales by Rudyard Kipling
Their leave then have they taken and fettled them to ride, And with them went the herald on their need that was to wait.
From The Lay of the Cid by Leonard Bacon
Keep in mind: this was a result achieved without any fettling from the Cup series’ myriad new rules for the upcoming season, making it something for the sport’s many hardline fans to truly savor.
From Time ● Feb. 22, 2016
He is getting his saddle altered: fettling about this and that; does not consider what danger he is in.
From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 07 by Thomas Carlyle
What did the unrevealed God matter, when a man had a young family that needed fettling for?
From The Rainbow by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
“Eh, Tim Binder! there’ll be a rare job for thee feyther next spring, fettling up this wall, by t’ time we’ve done wi’ it.”
From We and the World, Part I A Book for Boys by Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
I have heard the people here talk of "fettling" the hearth when they mean "clean up."
From Sarah's School Friend by May Baldwin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
