shirl

See also: Shirl

English

Etymology 1

Noun

shirl (countable and uncountable, plural shirls)

  1. (mineralogy) Archaic form of schorl.

Etymology 2

Apparently related to German dialectal schurren, to slide upon ice.[1]

Verb

shirl (third-person singular simple present shirls, present participle shirling, simple past and past participle shirled)

  1. (archaic, UK, dialect, intransitive) (Can we verify(+) this sense?)To slide.[2]
    Lacking skates, she shirled across the frozen river to the far bank.
    • 1856 [1826], Robert Southey, edited by John Wood Warter, Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, volume III, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, Letter of January 25, 1826, page 525:
      My girls are good shirlers—an exercise you have not heard of in the South. Shirling is neither sliding nor skating, but a sort of intermediate motion, performed in the common clogs of this country, which have irons on them like horse-shoes.
    • 1898 May 17, “Lakeland Words”, in Penrith Observer:
      Ther's a grand shirl on t' pond.
    • 1898, B. Kirkby, “Lakeland Words and Sayings”, in Lakeland Words: A Collection of Dialect Words and Phrases, as used in Cumberland and Westmorland, with Illustrative Sentences in the North Westmorland Dialect, page 112:
      PEAT-MULL—Peats an' turves were formerly used fer elden, an' at boddom o' t' stack wad be a lot o' smo 'at hed shirled doon. This was co'ed peet-mull.

References

  1. ^ Henry Bradley, editor (1914), A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, VIII. S–SH, Oxford University Press, page 713
  2. ^ “shirl”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
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