Wordsmith Talk |
About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us | |||
Register Log In Wordsmith.org Forums (Old) Weekly themes. (have been consolidated into a single forum above) Meta-words birl
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Looking at the etymology in Faldage's link for burl, I guess you're both right. I thought perhaps 'birl' had come from 'burl' in some way perhaps to do with gripping the knots in the log with your feet in order to spin it, but pure imagination I'm afraid! The best I could get for 'birl' was in MW, suggesting it might be imitative, not sure of what. But it has a longish pedigree. If I remember, I'll look in the OED tonight.
Main Entry: 2birl
Function: verb
Etymology: perhaps imitative
Date: 1790
transitive senses
1 : SPIN
2 : to cause (a floating log) to rotate by treading
intransitive senses : to progress by whirling
Entire Thread Subject Posted By Posted birl wwh 01/09/04 01:30 PM Re: birl dxb 01/09/04 03:21 PM Re: birl Faldage 01/09/04 03:31 PM Re: birl dxb 01/09/04 05:33 PM Re: birl wwh 01/09/04 03:39 PM
Moderated by Jackie
Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Statistics Forums16Topics13,913Posts229,396Members9,182 Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
Newest Members Ineffable, ddrinnan, TRIALNERRA, befuddledmind, KILL_YOUR_SUV
9,182 Registered Users
Who's Online Now 1 members (1 invisible), 743 guests, and 1 robot. Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Top Posters(30 Days) A C Bowden 28
Top Posters wwh 13,858Faldage 13,803Jackie 11,613wofahulicodoc 10,576tsuwm 10,542LukeJavan8 9,921Buffalo Shrdlu 7,210AnnaStrophic 6,511Wordwind 6,296of troy 5,400
Forum Rules · Mark All Read Contact Us · Forum Help · Wordsmith.org