Meaning

noun English aeronautical engineer who invented the jet aircraft engine (1907-1996)

verb cut small bits or pare shavings from

originFrom Middle English whittel (“large knife”), an alteration of thwitel, itself from thwiten (“to whittle”), from Old English þwītan (“to strike down, whittle”), from Proto-Germanic *þwītaną, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *twey- (“to shake, hurl, toss”). Compare Old Norse þveita (“to hurl”), Ancient Greek σείω (seíō, “I shake”). Related to thwite and thwaite.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0