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Churl   Listen
noun
Churl  n.  
1.
A rustic; a countryman or laborer. "A peasant or churl." "Your rank is all reversed; let men of cloth Bow to the stalwart churls in overalls."
2.
A rough, surly, ill-bred man; a boor. "A churl's courtesy rarely comes, but either for gain or falsehood."
3.
A selfish miser; an illiberal person; a niggard. "Like to some rich churl hoarding up his pelf."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Churl" Quotes from Famous Books



... a hurry," said his uncle, coolly. "Let me think this over again. After all, we are of the same stock, although your father always flouted me for a mean-spirited churl. Poor Gavan, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... for a churl, I wrote and wished her good luck. The next morning I received a letter from Uncle Bob asking me to go to Wimberley; and early in the following week I travelled up to Cumberland. I received a warm welcome from the old General. As ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various

... that would ricochet From the tufts of grasses before them, yet— Like bold Antaeus—would each time bring New life from the earth, barely touched by his wing; And the swallow and martlet that always knew The straightest way home. Here a Saxon churl drew His breath—tapped his forehead—an ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... sure hour of revenge; the fierce Angevin temper turned in him to restlessness and petulance in the long series of revolts which filled his reign with wearisome monotony from the moment when he first rode out to claim his duchy of Normandy, and along its southern frontier peasant and churl turned out at the sound of the tocsin, and with fork and flail drove the hated "Guirribecs" back over the border. Five years after his marriage, in 1133, his first child was born at Le Mans. Englishmen saw in the grandson of "good Queen ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... of Saint Bede, In evil hour, he crossed the Tweed, To teach Dame Alison her creed. Old Bughtrig found him with his wife; And John, an enemy to strife, Sans frock and hood, fled for his life. The jealous churl hath deeply swore That if again he venture o'er, He shall shrive penitent no more. Little he loves such risks, I know; Yet in your guard, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... speak first of the dedication. I thank you for it from the heart. It is beautifully said, beautifully and kindly felt; and I should be a churl indeed if I were not grateful, and an ass if I were not proud. I remember when Symonds dedicated a book to me; I wrote and told him of "the pang of gratified vanity" with which I had read it. The pang was present again, but how much more sober and autumnal—like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... life, alone with his great ambition, and probably pitied by his acquaintance. "The world," says Emerson to the Poet, "is full of renunciations and apprenticeships, and this is thine; thou must pass for a fool and a churl for a long season. This is the screen and sheath in which Pan has protected his well-beloved flower." The special nature of Milton's studies cannot now be exactly ascertained. Of his manner of studying he informs ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... second, Fill round the cup, while you may; For Time, the churl, hath beckoned, And we must away, away! Grasp the pleasure that's flying, For oh, not Orpheus' strain Could keep sweet hours from dying, Or charm them to life again. Then, quick! we have but a second, Fill round the cup while ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... obviously easier to be dithyrambic than critical in chronicling this event; to which indeed dithyrambs are more appropriate than criticism. For when a man writes Opus vitae meae at the conclusion of such a task as this, and so lays down his pen, he must be a churl (even if he be also a competent critic) who will allow no pause for admiration. And where, churl or no churl, is the competent critic to be found? The Professor has here compiled an entirely new text of Chaucer, founded solely on ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... if you will have it so, be it as you please. I have offended: you have a right to punish me, and play the churl to-night; but ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... brought his theorem to its conclusion,—"unless you particularly aspire to seem—and to be—an absolute barbarian, a bear, a boor, a churl, and a curmudgeon,"—each epithet received an augmented stress,—"you must call at Craford New Manor with the least possible delay. As I find myself in rather good form just now, and feel that I should shine to perhaps exceptional advantage, I suggest that ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... the crafty, "I will not slay thee! For all the king's gold I will never betray thee!" "Then why dost thou turn so pale, O churl, And then again black as the earth?" said the Earl. More pale and more faithful Was Thora, ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... making an experiment, yet he would not have deigned to turn his head. He at last yielded, however, to certain importunities of his mother, who accused him more than ever of living like an unsociable churl. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... branded on the forehead, without hands, without feet, without tongues, lived as an example of the danger which attended the commission of petty crimes, and as a warning to all men who had the misfortune of holding no higher position than that of a churl.[29] Wealthy people might do wrong with impunity. It has been clearly shown that there was one law for the rich, and another for the poor, in England during the four centuries ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... assurance to say that he could not work after the drawings made by my own hand?" asked Kaunitz, with a firey glance of anger in his eyes. "Because he is an ass does the churl dare to criticise my drawings? Let him bring the body of the coach to the palace, and I will show him that he is a bungler and knows ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... churl! It is a pretty thing, a tiger, especially if we could but find somebody for him to eat. We have now a lion and a tiger; only consider that, Medon! and for want of two good criminals perhaps we shall be forced ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. And it came to pass, about ten days after, that the Lord smote Nabal, that he died." One can imagine the picture for oneself. The rich churl sitting there in the midst of all his slaves and his wealth as one thunderstruck, helpless and speechless, till one of those mysterious attacks, which we still rightly call a stroke, and a visitation of God, ends him miserably. And when he is dead, Abigail becomes ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... had stolen out of my hard-earned hoard. I had risked our lives a score of times to win each one of them. And now an ill-natured churl had ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... huge sleeves were Spanish, but the laced stomacher English. Hobby-horse represented the king and all the knightly order; Maid Marian, the queen; the friar, the clergy generally; the fool, the court jester. The other characters represented a franklin or private gentleman, a churl or farmer, and the lower grades were represented by a clown. The Spanish costume is to show the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... text,[1] by a Lady, who will know how, if I attain to her. Thus much would I have manifest to you: if only that my conscience chide me not, for Fortune, as she will, I am ready. Such earnest is not strange unto my ears; therefore let Fortune turn her wheel as pleases her, and the churl his mattock."[2] ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... cause of his death. Some hunter, stalking on the other side, had taken the start, of me! White or red? Which fired the shot? If an Indian, my head would be in as much danger of losing its skin as the sheep. If a white man, I might still hope for a breakfast of broiled mutton. Even a churl might be expected to share with a starving man; but it was not the quarter in which to encounter a Christian of that kidney. It was the crack of a rifle. The red man rarely hunts with the rifle. ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... and utterly dependent on one another for daily intercourse, fall into the places allotted to each by temperament and heredity. Each little community would own a wit and a butt; the sentimentalist and the cynic. The churl by nature would appear through some veneer of manner, if only to bring into relief the finer qualities of his fellows; lastly, and most surely, one other would jingle a merciful cap and bells, and mingle motley ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... had hearkened this a great while, he said to the knight: "Hast thou heard it of yonder churl how he prayeth that his wife may be delivered of her child, and another while prayeth that she may not be delivered? Certes, he is worser than a thief. For every man ought to have pity of women, more especially of them that be sick of childing. And now, so help me Mahoume and ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris

... see not what I see. Damsel and lover? hear not what I hear. My father hath begotten me in his wrath. I suffer from the things before me, know, Learn nothing; am not worthy to be knight; A churl, a clown!' and in him gloom on gloom Deepen'd: he sharply caught his lance and shield, Nor stay'd to crave permission of the King, But, mad for strange ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang

... the exclusive attachment of a strong-minded and noble-hearted woman: and when, in addition to this, her society affords the delight of mental accomplishment and personal beauty, such as Hester's, he must be a churl indeed if he does not greatly enjoy the present, and indulge in sweet anticipations for the future. Hope also brought the whole power of his will to bear upon his circumstances. He dwelt upon all the happiest features of his lot; and, in his admiration ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... of high lineage, And was of a lady born, And ill it beseems thee, a false churl's son, To carry her ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown

... at home and happy with a book, sitting by his fireside, he must be a churl if he does not communicate that happiness. Let him read now and then to his wife and ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others

... manufacturers, being met in conclave at Mr. Blake's office, sent for the young Scotsman and personally thanked him for his good offices in settling the strike. Both sorts were there—the kind and the unkind, the gentleman and the churl—but all alike united in grateful praise for the mediation which Angus had accomplished. Many unctuous things were said, but when one tyrant arose to speak his gratitude, Angus's face bore a look ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... buffoon, jester, merry-andrew, zany, harlequin, droll, punch, mime, farceur, scaramouch, grimacier jackpudding; boor, lout, gawk, gawky, lubber, put, bumpkin, churl, carl, tike; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... survive my well-contented day When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, And shalt by fortune once more re-survey These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, Compare them with the bettering of the time, And though they be outstripped by every pen, Reserve them for my ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... slowly, bit by bit, he set forth the story that he had never expected to unfold to Northern ears. "The Danes set fire to my father's castle, and he was burned with many of my kinsmen. The robbers came in the night, and a Danish churl opened the gates to them,—though he had been my father's man for four seasons. It was from him that I learned to speak the Northern tongue. They took me while I slept, bound me, and carried me out to their boats. They carried out also the young maidens who attended my mother,—Editha among them,—and ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... for one poor spot of earth; And when your children find your judgment such, They'll scorn their sires, and wish themselves born Dutch; Each haughty poet will infer with ease, How much his wit must under-write to please. As some strong churl would, brandishing, advance The monumental sword that conquered France; So you, by judging this, your judgment teach, Thus far you like, that is, thus far you reach. Since then the vote of full two thousand years Has crowned this plot, and all the dead are theirs, Think it a debt you ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... upon dead carcasses, although their bellies are full, and although they are conscious that in the end they will tear one another to pieces over them. Why should you prepare their prey? Were your fire and effulgence given you for this? Why, in short, did you thank this churl? Why did you recommend him to his superiors for preferment on ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... hats, ta'en at the fight Of 'Eighty-eight; while ev'ry burgess foots The mortal pavement in eternal boots. Hadst thou been bach'lor, I had soon divin'd Thy close retirements, and monastic mind; Perhaps some nymph had been to visit, or The beauteous churl was to be waited for, And like the Greek, ere you the sport would miss, You stay'd, and strok'd the distaff for a kiss. But in this age, when thy cool, settled blood Is ti'd t'one flesh, and thou almost grown good, I know not how to reach the ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... pleasures. Many a poor fellow who has become a defaulter has to thank for it the lady who first asked him to take her to Delmonico's to supper. He was ashamed to tell her that he was poor, and he stole that he might not seem a churl. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... and Helenor came alone of all their peers Alive to earth: Helenor, now in spring-tide of his years: Bond-maid Licymnia privily to that Maeonian king Had borne the lad, and sent him forth to Troy's beleaguering With arms forbidden, sheathless sword and churl's unpainted shield. But when he saw himself amidst the thousand-sworded field Of Turnus, Latins on each side, behind, and full in face, E'en as a wild beast hedged about by girdle of the chase 550 Rages against the point and edge, ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... of the good host, he has yet something in common with that third person discernible on the right—that speck yonder, which I believe to be Lucullus. Nothing that we know of Lucullus suggests that he was less inhuman than the churl of Arden. It does not appear that he had a single friend, nor that he wished for one. His lavishness was indiscriminate except in that he entertained only the rich. One would have liked to dine with him, but not even in the act of digestion could ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... land So royally, I understond. Brethren," said Little John, "Here are no more but we three; But we bring them to dinn-er, Our master dare we not see. Bend your bows," said Little John, "Make all yon press to stand! The foremost monk, his life and his death Is clos-ed in my hand! Abide, churl monk," said Little John, "No farther that thou gone; If thou dost, by dere-worthy God, Thy death is in my hond. And evil thrift on thy head," said Little John, "Right under thy hat's bond, For thou hast made our master wroth, He is ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various

... I am Covetousness, begotten of an old churl, in an old leathern bag: and, might I have my wish, I would desire that this house and all the people in it were turned to gold, that I might lock you up in my good chest: ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe

... certainly a film of moisture that might be a tear in another minute. Then Cleggett cursed himself inwardly for a brute—it rushed over him how difficult to Lady Agatha her position on board the Jasper B. must seem. She must regard herself as practically a pensioner on his bounty. And he had been churl enough to show a spark of temper—and that, too, after she had repeatedly ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... rear of the great multitude of geese came a churl, tall and young, and comely enough for all his embrowning in the sun and wind, and his unkempt hair and rude dress. It was he who made the music, playing on pan's-pipes to lighten the way, and quickening with his staff ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... Neighbor Nelly, For the summers quickly flee; And the middle-aged admirer Must, too soon, supplanted be. Yet, as jealous as a mother, A suspicious, cankered churl, I look vainly for the setting, To ...
— Neighbor Nelly Socks - Being the Sixth and Last Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow

... Ferdinand then advanced towards the window, and, throwing it open and listening to the rich notes of a concert of nightingales, forgot the cause of his torments—his situation reminded him of The Churl and the Bird—he rushed with renewed madness into the cupboard, then searched for the bell, but finding none, he made all sorts of strange noises. The landlady rose, and, conceiving robbers to have ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper

... how fair it was in the still night! He was glad and exultant that it was his again. Was he too a curmudgeon then? Harry did not perceive how any reasonable person could say such a thing. A man may value what is his own without being a miser or a churl. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... to look along the high road to see if wayfarers were there to share the meal with him and his family. "There he goes," was the saying about any one who passed the door at any time without coming in to take a spoon—"there he goes; I'll warrant he's a miser at home to be so much of a churl abroad" The very gipsy claimed the cleanest bed in a Glenman's house whenever he came that way, and his gossip paid ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... high position thou hast graced alway; No cloud of discord e'er hath come between Thy nation and thyself; the fierce white ray That beats upon thy throne bids hence depart The faintest slander calumny can dart. Thy fame is dear alike to churl and king, And highest honour lies in honouring The Sovereign to whom we bend the knee; "God save the Queen," one strain unvarying— Victoria's ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow

... thoughts with thy own ears, but start up in thy promised likeness, and shake the pillared rottenness of the world! Leave not thy sounding words in air, write them in marble, and teach the coming age heroic truths! Up, and wake the echoes of Time! Rich in deepest lore, die not the bed-rid churl of knowledge, leaving the survivors unblest! Set, set as thou didst rise in pomp and gladness! Dart like the sunflower one broad, golden flash of light; and ere thou ascendest thy native sky, show us the steps by which thou didst scale the Heaven of philosophy, with ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... happiness, why should I be such a niggard as to omit so good an opportunity of pointing out the way to others. The very basis of true peace of mind is a benevolent wish to see all the world as happy as one's Self; and from my soul do I pity the selfish churl, who, remembering the little bickerings of anger, envy, and fifty other disagreeables to which frail mortality is subject, would wish to revenge the affront which pride whispers him he has received. For my own part, I can safely ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... with many a frisk Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout; Then shakes his powder'd coat, and barks for joy. Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught But now and then with pressure of his thumb To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube, That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud Streams far behind him, scenting ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith

... is of base strain, my girl; O think not my birth was as the birth of a churl; Marry me and prove me, and say soon you will That noble blood is written on my right ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... JOHN, "Here are no more but we three; But we bring them to dinner, Our Master, dare we not see!" "Bend your bows!" said Little JOHN, "Make all yon press to stand! The foremost monk, his life and his death, Are closed in my hand. Abide, churl Monk!" said Little JOHN, "No further that thou go, If thou dost, by dear-worthy God! Thy death is in my hand! And evil thrift on thy head!" said Little JOHN, "Right under thy hat's band: For thou hast made our Master wroth, He is fasting so long!" "Who is your Master?" said the Monk. ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... watereth, shall be watered also himself," Prov. xi. 25. Be not niggards here. Be liberally minded, both in seeking and receiving, so shall ye please him best who counts it his glory to give. "The instruments of the churl are evil, but the liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things he shall stand," Isa. xxxil. 7, 8. Seek answerable to your own necessity, and God's all sufficiency, and know no ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... other, you crooked churl," replied one of the crippled beggars. "The Sheriff is returned from London with his daughter, and the folk are giving him a welcome, such as you will never have from the city! Stand back, for there is no room for you there. Four of us as it is are too many, and ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... were no sooner gone, than a wild-looking, bearded churl made his appearance upon the threshold of the door and greeted the count with ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... Antony into letting thee have a peep at the holy Ladies—thou bold, bad man!—and then carrying off the Reverend Mother, Herself! Ha! Hadst thou but caught away Mother Sub-Prioress, she would have reformed thy home, whipped thy children, and mended thine own vile manners, thou graceless churl! Or hadst thou taken Sister Mary Rebecca, she would have brought the place about thine ears, telling thy wife fine tales of thine unfaithfulness; whispering that Mary Antony is younger and fairer than she. But, nay, ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... thee a keel to carry thee, and the wings have not yet begun to sprout on thy shoulders, raven though thou be. Now I am glad that thou art going thy ways to the Glittering Plain to-morrow; for thou wilt be good company to me on the way: and I deem that thou wilt be no churl ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris

... you'd fulfil it! But land makes not a Land, nor soil a State. Loving your land, how sullenly you hate— The People—who've to till it! Of the earth, earthy is that love of soil Which for wide-acred wealth will sap and spoil The souls and sinews of the thralls of Toil. Churl! Bear a human heart, a liberal hand! Then thou may'st say that thou ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various

... fire, in want of thought profound, There sat a brother-townsman weather-bound: A sturdy churl, crisp-headed, bristly-eared, Red as a pepper; 'twixt coarse brows and beard 510 His eyes lay ambushed, on the watch for fools, Clear, gray, and glittering like two bay-edged pools; A shifty creature, with a turn ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... the honour of her guard. 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, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... to horse presently; that villainous old gouty churl, Sir Arthur Clare, longs till he ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare

... would grind - Their lips would tightly curl - They'd say, "Thy way thyself must find, Thou misdirecting churl!" And, similarly, also, when He tried a foreign friend; Italians answered, "Il balen" - The French, ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert

... relish sweet, Is it on that account less mine? If for six stallions I can pay, Do I not own their strength and speed? A proper man I dash away, As their two dozen legs were mine indeed. Up then, from idle pondering free, And forth into the world with me! I tell you what;—your speculative churl Is like a beast which some ill spirit leads, On barren ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... churl's our oldworld name is, The lands we leave are fair: But fairer far than these are, But wide as all the seas are, But high as heaven the fame is That if we ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... that his intended words of endearment and confessions of love always froze upon his lips before he had half uttered them. He felt that she belonged to a higher breed of women, inaccessible to such a "churl" as he often frankly called himself; but precisely because of his lowly origin he loved her all ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... dawn, whose apparition Thrills with fire from heaven the wheels of hours that whirl, Rose and passed her radiance in serene transition From his eyes who sought a grain and found a pearl. But the food by cunning hope for vain fruition Lightly stolen away from keeping of a churl Left the bitterness of death and hope's perdition On the lip that scorn was wont ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... arts of life, and only the more magnificent castles and abbeys, which the boys had never seen, possessed the amount of comforts to be found in the dwellings of the superior class of Londoners. Stephen was inclined to look with contempt upon the effeminacy of a churl merchant. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... born near Athens, B.C. 420. He declared himself the enemy of the human race, and had a companion named Apeman'tus, who possessed a similar disposition. The latter asking him one day why he paid such respect to Alcibi'ades, "It is," said the churl, "because I foresee he will prove the ruin of the ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... Beauty, 'Tis yours to consecrate The holiest Alliance Our land hath seen of late. Shall he reject its symbol, Or answer "Not for JOE!"? Nay, sweet girl, such a churl Were no "Gentleman" you know; And JOE is "quite the Gentleman," ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various

... name some Ron...Ronte... Or...Oronte...No. Ge...Geronte. Yes, Geronte, that's my miser's name. I have it now; it is the old churl I mean. Well, to come back to our story. Our people wished to leave this town to-day, and my lover would have lost me through his lack of money if, in order to wrench some out of his father, he had not made use of a clever ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere (Poquelin)

... a premeditated insult. The base-hearted churl has failed to understand the meaning of true, ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope

... Bridgenorth, turning from his daughter to her lover,—"you sir, have well repaid the liberal confidence which I placed in you with so little reserve. You I have to thank also for some lessons, which may teach me to rest satisfied with the churl's blood which nature has poured into my veins, and with the rude nurture which my ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... Lajeunesse, the singer of all the world—ah, why did she not say so then!" said the churl. "What would I not do for her! Money—no, it is nothing, but the Lajeunesse, I myself would give my horse to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Viking," and I think that I may be proud of that name; for surely to be trusted by such a king is honour enough for any man, whether freeman or thrall, noble or churl. Maybe I had rather be called by that name than by that which was mine when I came to England, though it was a good title enough that men gave me, if it meant less than it seemed. For being the son of Vemund, ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler

... Odysseus if he had been seen travelling in a cart, like Lancelot; though for Lancelot it was a great misfortune and anxiety. The art and pursuits of a gentleman in the heroic age are different from those of the churl, but not so far different as to keep them in different spheres. There is a community of prosaic interests. The great man is a good judge of cattle; ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... men and I am alone; but belike thou wilt eat with me.' 'Eat by thyself,' replied Ali; 'I am full.' 'O my lord,' rejoined the Christian, 'the wise say, "He who eats not with his guest is a base-born churl."' ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... the boon so sweetly That I had been a churl Had I repulsed the homage Of this gentle, timid girl; With bright illuminations I decked the manuscript, And in my choicest paints and inks My brush and ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... not trust myself to speak of the broad lands and castles which we once possessed. These have long since passed away from us. A Birmingham artisan, whose churl ancestor would have deemed it an honour to run beside the stirrup of my forefathers, now dwells in the hall of the Mandeville. The spear is broken, and the banner mouldered. Nothing remains, save ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... let me rather thus console it; let me snatch from those lips one breath of that fragrance which never should be wasted on the low churl thy husband. ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... please hang about my neck A dozen lais; and give me half a peck Of nice bouquets; then I will hire a band And celebrate my entrance to your land. I'll dance the Hula, up and down the street And cry Aloha, to each girl I meet; And if she frowns, and calls me cad, and churl, I'll shout, Long Live the New Hawaiian Girl - Rah, rah, rah, ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... Menelaus' words were fluent, clear but few; Odysseus when he spoke, fixed his eyes on the ground, turning his sceptre neither backwards nor forward, standing still like a man devoid of wit; one would have deemed him a churl and a very fool; yet when he sent forth his mighty voice from his breast in words as many as the snowflakes, no other man could compare ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... humane?" and trying to rouse the exhausted nags with a switch, he showed him that they did not move. The castellan, after he had watched him for a while with an expression of defiance, broke out, "Look at the ruffian! Ought not the churl to thank God that the jades are still alive?" He asked who would have been expected to take care of them when the groom had run away, and whether it were not just that the horses should have worked in the fields for their feed. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... consequences, it had a very material influence upon the general constitution of the realm. * *The main-spring of the machinery of remedial justice existed in the franchise of the lower and lowest orders of the political hierarchy. Without the suffrage of the yeoman, the burgess, and the churl, the sovereign could not exercise the most important and most essential function of royalty; from them he received the power of life and death; he could not wield the sword of justice until the humblest of his subjects ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... and a great pair of boots, and a bow and arrows, in a russet gown, and brought wild geese in his hand, and it was on the morn after Candlemas day; but King Arthur knew him not. Sir, said Merlin unto the king, will ye give me a gift? Wherefore, said King Arthur, should I give thee a gift, churl? Sir, said Merlin, ye were better to give me a gift that is not in your hand than to lose great riches, for here in the same place where the great battle was, is great treasure hid in the earth. Who told thee so, churl? said Arthur. Merlin told me so, said he. Then Ulfius ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... Christendom Kristanaro. Christian Kristano. Christian-name baptonomo. Christianity Kristanismo. Christmas Kristnasko. Christmas-box Kristnaskdono. Chronicle kroniko. Chronology kronologio. Chrysanthemum krizantemo. Church pregxejo. Church-yard pregxejkorto. Churl malgxentilulo. [Error in book: malgentilulo] Churn buterilo. Churn buterfari. Cider pomvino. Cigar cigaro. Cigar-holder cigaringo. Cigarette cigaredo. Cinder cindro. Cinnabar ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... horizon enlarged. There was more scope for a man of parts. Things moved more rapidly. The world seemed full of philanthropists, anxious to "dress his front" and do him other little kindnesses. Mr. McEachern was no churl. He let them dress his front. He accepted the little kindnesses. Presently, he found that he had fifteen thousand dollars to spare for any small flutter that might take his fancy. Singularly enough, this was the precise sum necessary to make ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... note as at the throat Of the false groom he flies; Back at the sounds Sir Konrad bounds: 'Off hands, base churl,' ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... materials for the true philosophy of history, the archaeologist finds—and is now teaching the public to find—as great an attraction in studying the arts of peace as in studying the arts of war; for in his eyes the life, and thoughts, and faith of the merchant, and craftsman, and churl, are as important as those of the knight, and nobleman, and prince—with him the peasant is as grand and as genuine a piece of antiquity ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... EUAN-SMITHEZ! basely have they borne thee down; Thousands, thirty, would they tip thee as a churl they'd tip a crown? Thou at home hadst shown that Sultan with emphatic toe the door; In Morocco thou didst coolly turn thy ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various

... son of Sualtam and Dectera of Dun Dalgan! and comest hither without chariots and horsemen and a prince's retinue and guard. Nay, thou art a churl and a liar to boot, and hie thee hence now with wings at thy heels or verily with sore blows I shall beat thee ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... Transcendentalist, but is known colloquially as a "crank." The person who does not thank, by word or look, the friend or stranger who has pulled him out of the fire or water, is fortunate if he gets off with no harder name than that of a churl. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... avarice take possession of his soul. He begins to take by stealth the money collected in church, putting bran in his pockets so that the coin shall not jingle. He offends with terror, repeats his offence, grows familiar with crime, and is at last detected by a "stern stout churl, an angry overseer." Disgrace, ruin, death soon follow; shunned and despised by all, he "turns to the wall and silently expired." A woeful story truly, the results of spiritual pride and greed of gain! It is to be hoped that few clerks resembled ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... laugh at winter when we hear The grim old churl about our dwellings rave: Thou, from that "ruler of the inverted year," Shalt pluck the knotty sceptre Cowper gave, And pull him from his sledge, and drag him in, And melt the icicles from off ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... the Saxon churl Our land encumbered hath; Arise my Prince, my Earl, And brush them from thy path: Rise, mighty Smith, and sveep 'em vith The ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... because I prefer your drawings to every thing in the world, that I am such a churl as to refuse Mrs. Bentley's partridges: I shall thank her very much for them. You must excuse me If I am vain enough to be so convinced of my own taste, that all the neglect that has been thrown upon your ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... all too fine and large, Instinct of warmth and colour, with a trick Of blunting 'Mariana's' keener edge To 'Mary Ann'—the same but not the same: Whereat she girded, tore her crisped hair, Called him 'Sir Churl,' and ever calling 'Churl!' Drave him to Science, then to Alcohol, To forge a thousand theories of the rocks, Then somewhat else for thousands dewy cool, Wherewith he sought a more Pacific isle And there found love, ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... English churl, and ask him if he knows who these are," said the Dane. "Then shall we see if this is a question ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler

... strongly impregnated with the pungent aroma of burning peat. Sometimes, encountering a traveller, we shouted a friendly greeting; and he, unmuffling his ears to the bluster and the snow-spray, and listening eagerly, appeared to think our courtesy worth less than the trouble which it cost him. The churl! He understood the shrill whistle of the blast, but had no intelligence for our blithe tones of brotherhood. This lack of faith in our cordial sympathy, on the traveller's part, was one among the innumerable tokens how difficult a task we ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... smile. When well received by hospitable foes, The kindness he returns, is to expose: For courtesies, though undeserved and great, 1170 No gratitude in felon-minds beget; As tribute to his wit, the churl receives the treat. His praise of foes is venomously nice; So touch'd, it turns a virtue to a vice: "A Greek, and bountiful, forewarns us twice." Seven sacraments he wisely does disown, Because he knows Confession stands for one; Where sins to sacred silence are convey'd, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... partly, no doubt, because the place was cool, but also as an act of homage. Here and in the woods adjoining youths and maidens for three hundred years had walked and made love, for, though the existing house was new, it stood on the site of a far older building. Dead men and women, lord and churl, gone to indistinguishable dust, or even beyond that—gone perhaps, into vapour and gas, which had been blown to New Zealand, and become men and women again—had burned with passion here, and vowed a union which was to last ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... Saxon churl, though still surviving in the name of a constellation, befitted only an age little advanced ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... I am Covetousness, begotten of an old churl, in a leather bag: and, might I now obtain my wish, this house, you, and all, should turn to gold, that I might lock you safe into my chest: O my ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe

... the duke's fool had heretofore been filled with bitterness upon witnessing festal honors to a mere presumptuous free baron, what now were his emotions at the reception accorded him? From king to churl was he a gallant noble; he, a swaggerer, ill-born, a terrorist of mountain passes. Even as the irony of the demonstration swept over the jester, from above fell a flower, white as the box from whence it was wafted. ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... Harold dared his daughter's hand to seek! No word the fierce knight spake But ope'd the door, And, scowling, said—"No Saxon churl shall make Rowena wife; and dare he woo her more, Upon him, would Sir Guy a direful ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer

... kingdoms (the Heptarchy), not all of which were at any one time regular communities. They were almost constantly at war with one another and with the natives. They had a king elected from the royal family. Freemen were either Earls or Churls, the "gentle" or the "simple." The churl was attached to some one lord whom he followed in war. The thanes were those who devoted themselves to the service of the king or some other great man. The thanes of the king became gentlemen and nobles. There were thralls, or slaves, either ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... returning consciousness to drive his poor brain, till, reaching a violence his strength cannot support, it plunges him back exhausted into unconsciousness, "What, Kurwenal, you do not see her? Away, to the watch-tower, dull-witted churl, that the sight may not escape you which is so plain to me! Do you not hear me?... To the tower! Quick, to the tower!... Are you there?... The ship! The ship! Isolde's ship! You must—must see it! The ship!... Is it possible," he cries despairingly, "that you do not see it yet?" He has ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall



Words linked to "Churl" :   skinflint, scrooge, disagreeable person, hoarder, boor, hothead, crabby person, crank, fire-eater, grouch, niggard, misanthrope, misanthropist, pinchgut, peasant, barbarian, crab, tyke, crosspatch



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