Crossword clues for churl
churl
- Boorish sort
- Rude person
- One without manners
- Rude sort
- A bad-tempered person
- A crude uncouth ill-bred person lacking culture or refinement
- A selfish person who is unwilling to give or spend
- Peasant
- Rustic
- Surly sort
- Countryman having quantity of milk, say, not quite litre
- Rude and mean-spirited fellow
- Rude dude
- Rude one
- Boorish one
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Churl \Churl\, a.
Churlish; rough; selfish. [Obs.]
--Ford.
Churl \Churl\, n. [AS. ceorl a freeman of the lowest rank, man, husband; akin to D. karel, kerel, G. kerl, Dan. & Sw. karl, Icel. karl, and to the E. proper name Charles (orig., man, male), and perh. to Skr. j[=a]ra lover. Cf. Carl, Charles's Wain.]
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A rustic; a countryman or laborer. ``A peasant or churl.''
--Spenser.Your rank is all reversed; let men of cloth Bow to the stalwart churls in overalls.
--Emerson. -
A rough, surly, ill-bred man; a boor.
A churl's courtesy rarely comes, but either for gain or falsehood.
--Sir P. Sidney. -
A selfish miser; an illiberal person; a niggard.
Like to some rich churl hoarding up his pelf.
--Drayton.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Old English ceorl "peasant, freeman, man without rank," from Proto-Germanic *kerlaz, *karlaz (cognates: Old Frisian zerl "man, fellow," Middle Low German kerle, Dutch kerel "freeman of low degree," German Kerl "man, husband," Old Norse karl "old man, man").\n
\nIt had various meaning in early Middle English, including "man of the common people," "a country man," "husbandman," "free peasant;" by 1300, it meant "bondman, villain," also "fellow of low birth or rude manners." For words for "common man" that acquire an insulting flavor over time, compare boor, villain. In this case, however, the same word also has come to mean "king" in many languages (such as Lithuanian karalius, Czech kral, Polish król) via Charlemagne.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A rustic; a countryman or labourer; a peasant. 2 A rough, surly, ill-bred person; a boor. 3 A selfish miser; an illiberal person; a niggard. 4 (context Theodism English) a freedman, ranked below a thane but above a thrall
WordNet
Wikipedia
A churl (etymologically the same name as Charles / Carl and Old High German karal), in its earliest Old English (Anglo-Saxon) meaning, was simply "a man", but the word soon came to mean "a non-servile peasant", still spelled ċeorl(e), and denoting the lowest rank of freemen. According to the Oxford English Dictionary it later came to mean the opposite of the nobility and royalty, "a common person". Says Chadwick: This meaning held through the 15th century, but by then the word had taken on negative overtone, meaning "a country person" and then "a low fellow". By the 19th century, a new and pejorative meaning arose, "one inclined to uncivil or loutish behaviour" (cf. the pejorative sense of the term boor, whose original meaning of "country person" or "farmer" is preserved in Dutch and Afrikaans boer and German Bauer, although the latter has its own pejorative connotations such as those prompting its use as the name for the chess piece known in English as a pawn. Also the word villain - derived from Anglo-French and Old French and originally meaning "farmhand" - had gone through a similar process to reach at its present meaning).
The ċeorles of Anglo-Saxon times lived in a largely free society, and one in which their fealty was principally to their king. Their low status is shown by their werġild ("man-price"), which over a large part of England was fixed at 200 shillings (one-sixth that of a theġn). Agriculture was largely community-based and communal in open-field systems. This freedom was eventually eroded by the increase in power of feudal lords and the manorial system. Some scholars argue however that anterior to the encroachment of the manorial system the ċeorles owed various services and rents to local lords and powers.
In the North Germanic (Scandinavian) languages, the word Karl has the same root as churl and meant originally a "free man". As " housecarl", it came back to England. In German, Kerl is used to describe a somewhat rough and common man and is no longer in use as a synonym for a common soldier ( die langen Kerls of Frederick the Great of Prussia). Rígsþula, a poem in the Poetic Edda, explains the social classes as originating from the three sons of Ríg: Thrall, Karl and Earl (Þræl, Karl and Jarl). This story has been interpreted in the context of the proposed trifunctional hypothesis of Proto-Indo-European society.
Cognates to the word ceorle are frequently found in place names, throughout the Anglophone world, in towns such as Carlton and Charlton, meaning "the farm of the churls". Names such as Carl and Charles are derived from cognates of churl or ċeorle.
While the word churl went down in the social scale, the first name derived from the same etymological source (" Karl" in German, " Charles" in French and English, " Carlos" in Spanish etc.) remained prestigious enough to be used frequently by many European royal families - owing originally to the fame of Charlemagne, to which was added that of later illustrious kings and emperors of the same name. Król, the Polish word for "king", is also derived from the same origin.
Usage examples of "churl".
The honest old churl clasped me into his hairy bosom three times, stuffed my wallet with dry fruit and bread, and once more repeating his directions, sent me on my lonely way.
Cersei had written in the names herself: Ser Tallad the Tall, Jalabhar Xho, Hamish the Harper, Hugh Clifton, Mark Mullendore, Bayard Norcross, Lambert Turnberry, Horas Redwyne, Hobber Redwyne, and a certain churl named Wat, who called himself the Blue Bard.
Songs the churls could understand: Thrumming on their Saxon sconces Straight, the invariable blow, Till they snorted true responses.
That in this world is none so poor a page, That would not have abominatioun Of that I have received in your town: And yet ne grieveth me nothing so sore, As that the olde churl, with lockes hoar, Blasphemed hath our holy convent eke.
Metellius, the foule churl, the swine, That with a staff bereft his wife of life For she drank wine, though I had been his wife, Never should he have daunted me from drink: And, after wine, of Venus most I think.
Here may ye see, mine owen deare brother, The churl spake one thing, but he thought another.
God me speed, I say, a churl hath done a churlish deed, What should I say?
Now eat your meat, and let the churl go play, Let him go hang himself a devil way!
He is a drunken, brawling, perilous churl, as you may find to your cost.
Soul of Subtlety in these parts, yet am I now the Bumpkin, well, even a Churl may be taught, Sir.
A man is a churl who enforces laws, when he himself has not the strength to observe them.
These churls are wiser than their king, for it is not wisdom that a man should seek his own death.
It was an ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, in habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did her hortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of them all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness some and shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles they all chode with him, a murrain seize the dolt, what a devil he would be at, thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou, to shut up his drunken drool out of that like a curse of God ape, the good sir Leopold that had for his cognisance the flower of quiet, margerain gentle, advising also the time's occasion as most sacred and most worthy to be most sacred.
He sprinted through meadow grass, feeling as though a hundred snipers had their sights locked on him every foot of the way, and were just waiting for him to slow down a little so they could see if there was a brandmark on his back, to make sure he was a churl before they shot him down.
It was no worse than what he had worn most of his boyhood in the Norfolk marsh, but Vikings, he had noticed, were cleanlier than Englishmen, or at least than English churls.