<dl>
<dt class="highlight">troll (v.)
</dt>
<dd class="highlight">1377, "to go about, stroll," later (c.1425) "roll from side to side, trundle," from O.Fr. troller, a hunting term, "wander, to go in quest of game without purpose," from a Gmc. source (cf. O.H.G. trollen "to walk with short steps"), from P.Gmc. *truzlanan.
Sense of "sing in a full, rolling voice" (first attested 1575) and that
of "fish with a moving line" (1606) are both extended technical
applications of the general sense of "roll, trundle," the latter
perhaps confused with trail or trawl.
Fig. sense of "to draw on as with a moving bait, entice, allure" is
from 1565. Meaning "to cruise in search of sexual encounters" is
recorded from 1967, originally in homosexual slang.</dd>
<dt>troll (n.)
</dt>
<dd>"ugly dwarf or giant," 1616, from O.N. troll "giant, fiend, demon." Some speculate that it originally meant "creature that walks clumsily," and derives from P.Gmc. *truzlan, from *truzlanan (see troll (v.)). But it seems to have been a general supernatural word, cf. Swed. trolla "to charm, bewitch;" O.N. trolldomr "witchcraft." The old sagas tell of the troll-bull, a supernatural being in the form of a bull, as well as boar-trolls. There were troll-maidens, troll-wives, and troll-women; the trollman, a magician or wizard, and the troll-drum,
used in Lappish magic rites. The word was popularized in Eng. by 19c.
antiquarians, but it has been current in the Shetlands and Orkneys
since Viking times. The first record of it is from a court document
from the Shetlands, regarding a certain Catherine, who, among other
things, was accused of "airt and pairt of witchcraft and sorcerie, in
hanting and seeing the Trollis ryse out of the kyrk yeard of
Hildiswick." Originally conceived as a race of giants, they have
suffered the same fate as the Celtic Danann and are now regarded in Denmark and Sweden as dwarfs and imps supposed to live in caves or under the ground.</dd>
</dl>