Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A substitute for a trundle-wheel or lantern-wheel in a mill.
  • To quiver; vibrate; thrill; hence, to change or veer about, as the wind.
  • To produce a rattling or whirring; make a clatter, as by shaking or twirling something.
  • To twirl; whirl or twist.
  • To strip or pluck off quickly.
  • To strip of something; uncover; unroof; divest, as of covering or raiment.
  • noun A twirl or whirl; a vibration, or something vibrating or whirling.
  • noun A turn; a try.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To quiver; to vibrate; to veer about.
  • intransitive verb To make a ratting or clattering sound by twirling or shaking.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Comrades, we can defeat the war criminals and take back your country without destroying a young tirl who didn't get to choosewho would be hermother.

    Printing: What Does a Tough Progressive Media Site Look Like? 2008

  • Comrades, we can defeat the war criminals and take back your country without destroying a young tirl who didn't get to choosewho would be hermother.

    My Take on Covering Potentially Taboo Topics Like Bristol Palin's Baby on OEN 2008

  • Comrades, we can defeat the war criminals and take back your country without destroying a young tirl who didn't get to choosewho would be hermother.

    What Does a Tough Progressive Media Site Look Like? 2008

  • "Ah, Gwendolyn, while it may be true that -everyday existence" is the tirl of dull, repetitive activities that you infer, it's just one layer of a many-layered cake; and if it seems an exercise in pointless mediocrity, maybe that's only because most who live it are too narrowly focused to perceive its underlying kaleidoscopic density.

    Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas Robbins, Tom 1994

  • It was not, as on the former occasions, what is called a tirl.

    Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIII Alexander Leighton 1837

  • So perhaps thought our couple; but their thoughts belied them, for just again, as the dawn broke over the tops of the high houses, the well-known tirl was heard at the door.

    Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIII Alexander Leighton 1837

  • One morning when they were in bed -- for even yet, while they concealed their thoughts from each other, and the name of Jenny Dodds was a condemned word in their vocabulary, even as the sacred name among the Romans, they had evinced no spoken enmity to each other -- they heard a tirl at the door.

    Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIII Alexander Leighton 1837

  • All was quiet as pussie, -- so I shot them through the hole at the corner made for letting the gaislings in by; and giving a tirl, cried softly through, "Halloa, Mounseer, there's your suppera fora youa; for I dara saya you are yauppa."

    The Life of Mansie Wauch Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself David Macbeth Moir 1824

  • All was quiet as pussie, -- so I shot them through the hole at the corner made for letting the gaislings in by; and giving a tirl, cried softly through, "Halloa, Mounseer, there's your suppera fora youa; for I dara saya you are yauppa."

    The Life of Mansie Wauch tailor in Dalkeith David Macbeth Moir 1824

  • Were we to go near these lads of the laird's belt, your letter would do you little good, and my pack would do me muckle black ill; they would tirl every steek of claithes from our back, fling us into a moss-hag with a stone at our heels, naked as the hour that brought us into this cumbered and sinful world, and neither Murray nor any other man ever the wiser.

    The Monastery Walter Scott 1801

Comments

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  • It can mean to whine or to twirl,

    To quiver or else to unfurl,

    A wheel or a sample

    Or thrill, for example.

    My head's in a whirl over tirl.

    November 11, 2016