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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



... "subjects"? That word irritates a German, because he is conscious that he is not a subject, but a citizen of the empire. Yet he will not infer from the English King's use of the term in formal utterances that an Englishman is a churl, a "servant of his King." That would ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... 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 which ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... 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. ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... thee no harm," he said. "My father's son did thee but too much honour to spill such churl's blood. I will pay you for it by the drop, that it may be dried up, and no ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... of our Prince of Wales, after 800 years, the blood of William of Normandy is mingled with the blood of the very Harold who fell at Hastings. And so, by the bitter woes which followed the Norman conquest was the whole population, Dane, Angle, and Saxon, earl and churl, freeman and slave, crushed and welded together into one homogeneous mass, made just and merciful towards each other by the most wholesome of all teachings, a community of suffering; and if they had been, as I fear they were, a lazy and a sensual people, ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... the drunken churl, Jeered at him the serving-girl, Prompt to please her master; And the begging carlin, late Fed and clothed at Ury's gate, Cursed him as he ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... as you know, a knightly custom. They consider the one who has no lady, a churl. He also made a vow to capture some peacocks' tufts, and those be must get because he swore by his knightly honor; he must also challenge Lichtenstein; but from the other vows, the abbot can ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... orator, and another with Captain Anything, and another with Lord Willbewill, and another with that notorious villain Clip-promise, by whose doings so much of the king's coin had been abused, and another with that so angry and so ill-conditioned churl old Mr. Prejudice, with his sixty deaf men under him. Dear Mr. Wet-eyes, with his rope upon his head, will have a fit congregation one winter night, and Captain Self-denial another. We shall have another painful but profitable evening before a communion season with Mr. Prywell, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... 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 ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... 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

... of this state of society, which is peculiar to Britain, must be sought far back in the ages. It would seem that the distinction between "earl and churl" (the noble and the non-noble freeman) was crushed out in this island by the two Norman conquests—that of the Anglo- Saxon nobility by Sweyn and Canute; and that of the Anglo-Danish nobility by William and his Frenchmen. Those two terrible calamities, following each other in the short ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley

... Let churl or shepherd change his sky, And labour in the city dark, Where there is neither air nor room— How often will the exile sigh To hear again the unwearied lark, And see the ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... in 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, we ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... "Churl!" said an officer of dragoons, "how know you that our payments are light? The emperor takes nothing without payment; surely not from such as you. But propos of ransoms, what now might be Holkerstein's ransom for a farmer's barns stuffed with a ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... a man is 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 ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others

... churl has a somewhat similar history. We say now that a sulky, ungracious person is a "mere churl," or behaves in a "churlish" manner, never thinking of the original meaning of the word. Here, again, is a little story of injustice. The present use of the word comes from the supposition that only the mere labourer could behave in a ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill

... The Rommany churl And the Rommany girl, To-morrow shall hie To poison the sty, And bewitch on the mead ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... "let them bring Cedric of Rotherwood before me, and the other churl, his companion—him I mean of Coningsburgh—Athelstane there, or what call they him? Their very names are an encumbrance to a Norman knight's mouth, and have, as it were, a flavor of bacon. Give me ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... I am shamed to think my sovereign's son should wait, Through a churl's ignorance, without ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... do otherwise, that lie all night with such a raw-boned skeleton as Memory, and run all day on his errands? The churl's grown so old and forgetful, that every hour he's calling, Anamnestes, Remembrance; where art, Anamnestes? Then presently something's lost. Poor I must run for it, and these words, Run, boy; come, sirrah, quick, quick, quick! are as familiar with him as the cough, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... representative of the good cause of absolutism. He was received by Metternich with great interest, and his fortunes were taken under the protection of the Austrian Court. In due time, it was hoped this savage and ignorant churl would do yeoman's service to Austrian principles in the Peninsula. But the Regency and the new Constitution of Portugal had not to wait for the tardy operation of Metternich's covert hostility. The ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... restless Guadalquivir To my sire's estates he came, Woo'd and won me, how I shiver! Though my temples burn with shame. I, a proud and high-born lady, Daughter of an ancient race, 'Neath the vine and olive shade I Yielded to a churl's embrace. To a churl my vows were plighted, Well my madness he requited, Since, by priestly ties, united To the muleteer's child; And my prayers are wafted o'er him, That the bull may crush and gore him, Since the love that once ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... 13th and 14th centuries "child" was used, in a sense almost amounting to a title of dignity, of a young man of noble birth, probably preparing for knighthood. In the York Mysteries of about 1440 (quoted in the New English Dictionary) occurs "be he churl or child," obviously referring to gentle birth, cf. William Bellenden's translation (1553) of Livy (ii. 124) "than was in Rome ane nobill childe ... namit Caius Mucius." The spelling "childe" is frequent in modern usage to indicate its archaic meaning. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... have smiled upon this birth, You can but damn 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 ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... 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 designs ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... arch-churl Diabelli when the French copy of the Sonata in C minor [Op. 111] is to be published. I stipulated to have five copies for myself, one of which is to be on fine paper, for the Cardinal [the Archduke Rudolph]. If he attempts any of his usual impertinence ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... 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 ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... me five minutes to help her," I said. "I must be careful, but I need not be a churl." And I rode ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton

... 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 ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer

... her no longer keep that which was not her own; yet she refused, and whereas Herdegen seized her hand to wrench away the paper she shrieked out to the Bohemian: "Give him his due, for a knave who offends maidens; that outcast for whom I scorned and misprized you! Help, help, if you are no churl!" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... 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 in ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... my 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 be worthy ...
— Neighbor Nelly Socks - Being the Sixth and Last Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow

... destination. But he did not upbraid the ungracious driver; he only swung his two canes a little more briskly, and kept breast of the horses all the way, entering the town side by side with the inhospitable vehicles—a running reproach to the churl ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... was up again soon, shook her dry, withered fist at the porter, and cried, "Ha! thou insolent churl, I will pray thee to death ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... salt stream that rings us, ness and bay, The nation's old sea-soul beats blithe and strong; The black foam-breasters taste Biscayan spray, And where 'neath Polar dawns the narwhals throng:— Free hands, free hearts, for labour and for glee, Or village-moot, when thane with churl unites Beneath the sacred tree; While wisdom tempers force, and bravery leads, Till spears beat Aye! on shields, and words ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... drink with the name," said Haward coolly. "I drink with the man. The churl or coward may pass me by, but the gentleman, though his hands be ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... would be no more called bountiful, or the churl called liberal: flattery and cringing to the evil great would be at an end. The people would have sense to see the truth about right and wrong, and courage to speak it. Men would then be held for what they really were, and honoured and despised according ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... 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

... the fight Of Eighty-eight; while every burgess foots The mortal pavement in eternal boots. Hadst thou been bachelor, I had soon divined 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 stayed and stroked ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... head, and beat in his helmet, though without doing much injury. He was very near falling, however, but bearing on his stirrups he recovered himself immediately; and when he thought to have revenged himself upon the churl by killing him, he had escaped, dreading the Duke's blow. He ran back in among the English, but he was not safe even there; for the Normans seeing him, pursued and caught him; and having pierced him through and through with their lances, left him ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... of the churl, which can never be made bountiful," said the indignant young priest. It was not a fit sentiment, perhaps, for a preacher who had just written that text about the wicked man turning from the evil of his ways. Mr Wentworth went away ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... wrote some foolish verses once On love. Unhappy churl! The metre makes me shudder still, I ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... 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

... savage joy, flourished his sword aloft, and then passed it through his adversary's body. Bothwell received the thrust without falling—it had only grazed on his ribs. He attempted no farther defence, but, looking at Burley with a grin of deadly hatred, exclaimed—"Base peasant churl, thou hast spilt the blood of a ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... parcity|; parsimoniousness[obs3], stinginess &c. adj.; stint; illiberality, tenacity. avarice, greed &c. 817a. miser, niggard, churl, screw, skinflint, crib, codger, muckworm[obs3], scrimp, lickpenny[obs3], hunks, curmudgeon, Harpagon, harpy, extortioner, Jew, usurer; Hessian [U.S.]; pinch fist, pinch penny. V. be parsimonious &c. adj.; grudge, begrudge, stint, pinch, gripe, screw, dole out, hold back, withhold, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... nights to crave: Ill-gotten goods good end will never have. The Sabine gauntlets were too dearly won, That unto death did press the holy nun. 50 The son slew her, that forth to meet him went, And a rich necklace caused that punishment. Yet think no scorn to ask a wealthy churl; He wants no gifts into thy lap to hurl. Take clustered grapes from an o'er-laden vine, May[195] bounteous love[196] Alcinous' fruit resign. Let poor men show their service, faith and care; All for their mistress, what they have, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... Major 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 ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... all the 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

... churl! give me but the vantage of a weapon like thine own, and I will fight thee honestly ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... so fell it that his doom, For all his bright life's kindling bloom And light that took no thought for gloom, Fell as a breath from the opening tomb Full on him ere he wist or thought. For once a churl of royal seed, King Arthur's kinsman, faint in deed And loud in word that knew not heed, Spake shame where ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... of water, saying that if any one would go before and show him the way he would be the first to follow. The soldiers and courtiers hesitated at this suggestion, and looked at one another with doubt and dread. But standing among the crowd was one Brithmar, a churl or serf, who was nicknamed Budde, or Pudding, from his stoutness. He was a native of the island of Ely and doubtless familiar with its waters, and when the courtiers held back he stepped forward and said he would go before and show ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... you tell them the truth about their manuscript, or say you have not time to read it, adding that you have no influence with editors or publishers beyond securing a careful examination of what is written, you feel that you are often set down as a churl, and your inability to comply with their wishes is regarded as the selfishness and arrogance of success. The worried author has also his own compunctions, for while he has tried so often and vainly ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... hospitality and invitation. The expression mai, or komo mai, this way, or come in, was the most common of salutations. The Hawaiian sat down to meat before an open door; he ate his food in the sight of all men, and it was only one who dared being denounced as a churl who would fail to invite with word and gesture the passer-by to come in and share with him. This gesture might be a sweeping, downward, or sidewise motion of the hand in which the palm faced and drew toward the ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... prince may sit with clown or churl Nor feel himself disgraced thereby; But he who has but small esteem Husbands that ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... the Norman, but to the Saxon we owe far dearer names, the 'house,' the 'roof,' the 'home,' the 'hearth.' His 'board' too, and often probably it was no more, has a more hospitable sound than the 'table' of his lord. His sturdy arms turn the soil; he is the 'boor,' the 'hind,' the 'churl'; or if his Norman master has a name for him, it is one which on his lips becomes more and more a title of opprobrium and contempt, the 'villain.' The instruments used in cultivating the earth, the 'plough,' the 'share,' the 'rake,' the 'scythe,' the 'harrow,' the 'wain,' the 'sickle,' the 'spade,' ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... Soon her father, an old knight, who had no name for gentleness in the countryside, but was said to be a great lover of gold, had come up and swept her away, asking her what she did, talking with a common fishing churl. This had ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... flushed faces and uneven steps, the former laden with bottles, the latter with two tin mugs. Herrick silently passed them by. They hailed him in thick voices, he made no answer; they cursed him for a churl, he paid no heed although his belly quivered with disgust and rage. He closed-to the door of the house behind him, and cast himself on a locker in the cabin—not to sleep, he thought—rather to think ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... English literature of the century; his letters to Mr. Carlyle carried into all our homes the charm of a most delightful personality; the quaint melody of his poems abides in many ears. He would, indeed, be a churl who ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... very kind, but most of them, without being malicious, appeared irritable, capricious, jealous; and if they were offended even unintentionally, they cast evil spells. Sometimes they betrayed their feminine nature by unaccountable likes and dislikes. More than one found a lover in a knight or a churl; but generally such loves came to a bad end. And, when all is said, gentle or terrible, they remained the Fates, they were ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... account for the fact that the poet often writes of her. Yet in poetical pictures of the mother the reader seldom finds anything patently explaining genius in her child. The glimpse we have of Ben Jonson's mother is an exception. A twentieth century poet conceives of the woman who was "no churl" as ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... sternly, turning to one who rode behind him, "you have failed in your trust. I told you to watch the boy, and from time to time you brought me news that he was growing up but a village churl. He is no churl, and unless I mistake me, he will some day be dangerous. Let me know when he next returns to the village; we must then take speedy steps for preventing him ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... 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

... 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 children sing ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow

... sore, Had gained the home of the Interpreter, He saw a sorry fellow with great stir Ply a vile muck-rake on a filthy floor; And the more mire the churl raked, the more He smiled, although a winged messenger Floating aloft was eager to confer On him the crown that in her hands she bore. So is it with those fools that waste their days In raking stores of dross ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... 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 ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... not commonly called a 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. ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... 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

... a man of gentle birth put it on, it suited him well; but if a churl, it would not ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... him and said, "O king, Even the emerald stone which some do call The Emerald of the Virtues Mystical." And they who thronged the hall of judgment were Astonished at the stranger who could dare Ask such a boon; and some base mouths did curl With sneers, churl whispering to his fellow churl, "Who could have deemed the man so covetous, So void of shame in his great greed?" For thus It shall be ever underneath the sun, Each man believing that high hearts are none Whose own is as the dust ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... wild road whereon we stray, Meseems, might bring us face to face with one Whom seeing we could not but give thanks, and pray For England's love our father and her son To speak with us as once in days long done With all men, sage and churl and monk and mime, Who knew not as we know the soul sublime That sang for song's love more than lust of fame. Yet, though this be not, yet, in happy time, Our father Chaucer, here we praise ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... where abundance lies, Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel: Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament, And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content, And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding: Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world's due, by ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... 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 ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... but the oyster—Art's the pearl: Our DICK is neither sycophant nor churl. Not as he was but as he might have been Had the Unkind Gods been poets of the scene, Fired with our fancy, shaped and tricked anew To touch your hearts with love, your eyes with rue, He stands or falls, ere he these boards depart, Not as dead ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley

... of Crecy is memorable for several reasons, but chiefly because Feudalism and Chivalry there received their death-blow. The yeomanry of England there showed themselves superior to the chivalry of France. "The churl had struck down the noble; the bondsman proved more than a match, in sheer hard fighting, for the knight. From the day of Crecy, Feudalism tottered slowly but surely to its grave." The battles of the world were hereafter, with few exceptions, to be fought and won, not by mail-clad knights ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... STRIKE, churl; hurl, cheerless wind, then; heltering hail May's beauty massacre and wisped wild clouds grow Out on the giant air; tell Summer No, Bid joy back, have at ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... Jack Ireton, 'tis you who are the true lover and the gentleman; and I am naught but a selfish churl with my face in my own trencher!" he burst out, wringing my hand yet again. "'Tis as you say; yet I will not be driven from this; for aught you have told me to prove it otherwise, Madge has yet to choose ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... on the hither side of that loud morn Into the hall stagger'd, his visage ribb'd From ear to ear with dogwhip-weals, his nose Bridge-broken, one eye out, and one hand off, And one with shatter'd fingers dangling lame, A churl, to whom indignantly the King, "My churl, for whom Christ died, what evil beast Hath drawn his claws athwart thy face? or fiend? Man was it who marr'd ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... that know him; it can hardly have a good word in all that end of the town where he dwells, through him. [Rom. 2:24,25] Thus say the common people that know him, A saint abroad, and a devil at home. His poor family finds it so; he is such a churl, such a railer at and so unreasonable with his servants, that they neither know how to do for or speak to him. Men that have any dealings with him say it is better to deal with a Turk than with him; for ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan

... obsequious prisoner, Lieutenant Preville. "If we could but fall in with two or three more fat prizes we should be able to set up as independent gentlemen when we get back home again, and I should be able to regain the lands of the McAllisters from the southern churl who has dared to take ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... house. He and M. le Comte are as thick as thieves. Before we came to Paris they lodged together. So when M. le Comte came here he brought M. de Grammont. Dare I speak ill of Monsieur's cousin, Felix? For I would say, at the risk of a broken head, that he is a sour-faced churl. You cannot deny it. You never ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... king's nephew! the 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 ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... fool, old 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 ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... 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 ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe

... still with cares and fears; but out of peevishness, and not out of truth." That which St. Austin said of himself here in this place, I may truly say to thee, thou discontented wretch, thou covetous niggard, thou churl, thou ambitious and swelling toad, 'tis not want but peevishness which is the cause of thy woes; settle thine affection, thou ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... the tent of Hoseyn, he cried, "A churl's!" Or haply, "God help the man who has neither salt nor bread!" —"Nay," would a friend exclaim, "he needs nor pity nor scorn More than who spends small thought on the shore-sand, picking pearls, —Holds but in light esteem the seed-sort, bears instead 5 On his ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... of your hate? Perhaps his wedded life was hell; and you, at least, are free . . ." "That's where you've got it wrong," he snarled; "the fool she took was me. My rival sneaked, threw up the sponge, betrayed himself a churl: 'Twas he who got the happiness, I only got—the girl." With that he looked so devil-like he made me creep and shrink, And there was nothing else to do ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service

... upon this portion of David's career, by the incident of his meeting with Abigail, a woman fair and discreet, married to a sordid churl named Nabal. David and his band had protected Nabal's fields from other rovers, and had been, so to speak, a wall of fire between the churl's estate and the hand of depredation. But at the time of the sheep-shearing the surly ingrate refuses food ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... caused the death of so many good knights. Now in those days the law was that if any one were accused of treason by witnesses, or taken in the act, that one should die the death by burning, be it man or woman, knight or churl. So then the murmurs grew to a loud clamour that the law should have its course, and that King Arthur should pass sentence on the Queen. Then was the King's woe doubled; "For," said he, "I sit as King to be a rightful judge and keep all the law; wherefore I may ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... van 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 flung them into ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... said: "In our days and the olden time it was the wont of fathers to bless their children in this wise; but for thee, thy father is dead, and thy nighest kinsman is little-hearted and somewhat of a churl. Thus then have I done to thee to take the place of a father to thee, I who am of the warriors of while agone. And I think it will avail thee; and it is borne in upon me that before very long thou wilt need this avail, if thou ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... was in the vein of my father's talk no doubt. But I think that for once I may have been eloquent. And in the midst of my demand for ideals in politics that were wider and deeper than artful buying and selling, that looked beyond a vulgar aggression and a churl's dread and hatred of foreign things, while I struggled to say how great and noble a thing empire might be, I saw Rachel's face. This, it was manifest, was a new kind of talk to her. Her dark eyes were alight with a beautiful enthusiasm for what I was trying to ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... "The brawnier churl, who brags at times To front and top the rankest crimes, - To paunch a deer, Quarter a priest, or squeeze a wench, - Scuds from thee, clammy as a tench, ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor

... name: The hero and the tyrant change their style By the same measure that they frown or 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... all ready, interrupted our colloquy, and prevented my learning any thing further of my fellow-traveller, whom, however, I at once set down in my own mind for some confounded old churl that made himself comfortable every where, without ever thinking of any ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever

... that know him: it can hardly have a good word in all that end of the town where he dwells, through him. Thus say the common people, that know him, "A saint abroad and a devil at home." His poor family find it so: he is such a churl, such a railer at, and so unreasonable with his servants, that they neither know how to do for ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... miser, though he pays every body their own, cannot be an honest man, when he does not discharge the good offices that are incumbent on a friendly, kind, and generous person: for, faith the prophet Isaiah, chap. XXXII. ver. 7, 8. The instruments of a churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right. But the liberal soul deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand. It is certainly honest to do every thing the law requires; but ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... 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 of Hester, thought as little as he could ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... that arose from the group around were all in favour of Nero, who was a general favourite—as he was one of those large, peaceable, benevolent fellows, belieing his name, whom all liked, while there was something of the churl and savage about Rover, that caused him to have but ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... could I fell thee," The noisy Atle cries: "No one comes here, I tell thee, But either fights or flies. If peace thou ask'st, believe me,— I fight, but am no churl,— In friendship I'll receive thee, And lead ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner

... by birth, and brought up as I have been in republican principles and habits, I can feel nothing of the servile reverence for titled rank, merely because it is titled; but I trust that I am neither churl nor bigot in my creed. I can both see and feel how hereditary distinction, when it falls to the lot of a generous mind, may elevate that mind into true nobility. It is one of the effects of hereditary rank, when it falls thus happily, that ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... him with certain charming tricks of attire; and sometimes, with only a white rose-bud gleaming through the braided shadows of her hair, lighted herself up as with a star; then, not a carping churl, not an envious coquette in Hendrik, but confessed to the prettiness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... on the threshold of a modest 'career,' of a sort, after all," he thought, "and she will never give it up for me. Would she be willing to combine me with the career, and how would it work? I shouldn't be churl enough to mind her singing now and then, but it seems to me I couldn't stand 'tours.' Besides, hers is such a childlike, winsome, fragrant little gift it ought not to be exploited ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... when the 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, ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... scentless, Mariana found her lord Did something jar the nicer feminine sense With usage, being 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, a ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... thought of folly Ravidus (poor churl!) Upon my iambs thus would headlong hurl? What good or cunning counsellor would fain Urge thee to struggle in such strife insane? Is't that the vulgar mouth thy name by rote? 5 What will'st thou? Wishest on any wise such note? Then shalt be noted since my love so lief For love ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... Exeter demolished, through the French churl Hugh, whom the lady had appointed her steward there. And the army destroyed the town withal, and took there much spoil. In the same year came the army up into Wiltshire. Then was collected a very great force, from Wiltshire and from Hampshire; which was soon ready on their march against ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... No 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

... 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

... swift 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 idea had ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... Grace Joanna: On Fornham's Glebe and Pasture land A blessing pray. Long, long may stand, Not touched by Time, the Rectory blithe; No grudging churl dispute his Tithe; At Easter be the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... of the marquis, "out with you to the carriage! Daybreak shall not find you on my hands. Wed you shall be again, and to a living husband, this night. The next we come upon, my lady, highwayman or peasant. If the road yields no other, then the churl that opens my gates. Out with you into ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... We ought to be proud, too, we are bearing it. It's a grand country! I wasn't born here, like you, but I came here as a child, and the bones of my people are here. I mean to live in America and take what it offers, and wouldn't I be the churl not to give the little I can in return! I haven't money, but I can live up to the laws. Scotchman though I be 'twill no hinder me from making a good American ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett

... that having naught To pay the ferryman, the churl refused To ferry him across the swollen stream, When he was raised and wafted through the air. What matter whether that all-powerful Love Which moves the worlds, and bears with all our sins, Sent him ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... shorten 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, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... only a churl," he said as he stood upright again, "but I can risk my life like you for a lady, and if I win, I would rather win a sword than ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... always fall 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 ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... one-horse chair, And humblest gig, through sundry suburbs whirl; To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow, make repair; Till the tired jade the wheel forgets to hurl, Provoking envious gibe from each pedestrian churl. ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... is mean that they begem; No nosegay fair that holds them not; They melt the pride and stir the phlegm Of lord and churl, in court and cot, And ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... must have led a solitary intellectual 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 Diodati, "No delay, no rest, no care or thought ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... sauntering step, his shy demeanor, his observant yet abstracted eye. From such a man, as if another self had scared me, I scramble hastily over the rocks, and take refuge in a nook which many a secret hour has given me a right to call my own. I would do battle for it even with the churl that should produce the title-deeds. Have not my musings melted into its rocky walls and sandy floor, and made ...
— Footprints on The Sea-Shore (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... judgment. And let him that is a judge be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Then the vile person shall no more be called liberal; nor the churl bountiful; and the work of justice shall be peace; and the effect of justice, quiet and security; and wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of the times. Walk ye righteously and speak uprightly; despise the gains of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... plain, where he played at arms with his father and his lords, till night fall, when he returned to the palace, preceded by all the folk. He rode forth thus every day to the tilting ground, returning to sit and judge the people and do justice between earl and churl; and thus he continued doing a whole year, at the end of which he began to ride out a-hunting and a-chasing and to go round about in the cities and countries under his rule, proclaiming security and satisfaction and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... even so much courtesy, Barbara, for I have sought thee to say that I deserve none at thy hands. I, to whose protection and comforting thou hast come across the sea, have treated thee as no base-born churl hath warrant for treating the meanest of woman-kind. I, to pride myself upon gentle blood and knightly training, and then throw insult and taunt upon a woman's unshielded head! Nay, Barbara, had any man three days agone forecast my doing ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... gods, also dwelt for a time among men as "Rig", and had human offspring, his son Thrall being the ancestor of the Thralls, his son Churl of ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... man bought Olaf, and gave for him a good tunic or cloak. The man was named Reas, his wife Rekon, & their son Rekoni. There tarried Olaf long and it fared well with him, and always was he mightily beloved by the churl. Six winters did Olaf sojourn ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson

... is a good deal about how much you have to pay for a churl, and how much for an earl, and so on, leaving out only the slaves; for all the free people of England in Saxon times were divided into earls and churls; that is, noblemen and agricultural laborers or yeomanry; these were the two estates besides the church, always a class by itself. ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... been generous, and the other thing, that he felt blasted afterwards, which was his experience, that was fate, and not her fault. So he must see her again. He must not act like a churl. But he would tell her—he would tell her that he was a married man, and that though he had left his wife, and though he had no dogma of fidelity, still, the years of marriage had made a married man of him, and any other woman than his wife was ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... a full minute to comprehend the rascality in which he'd been an unconscious partner, but when he finally got it through his head that Jim had substituted the child of a base-born churl for the Earl's daughter, he fairly raged. Threatened him with exposure and arrest if he didn't make restitution to Castle, but Jim simply grinned and asked him whether he allowed to sing his complaint to the police. Wound up by saying that, even though Thorn had rounded ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... eloquence. A few days later the 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

... and cruel of mien. "Will you not rather be made an earl, proud knave?" he asked. "Go home, fool; go, and be evermore a thrall and churl, [Footnote: An Ignorant laborer of the lowest rank.] as you have ever been; no other reward shall be yours. For very little I would lead you to the ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... the bower; and as he stept To and fro in ireful mood, A stranger from the chamber came, And close behind him stood. Long locks of molten yellow gold Hung over his cheek so brown, And a red mantle of Venice silk, Fell from his shoulder, down. Dark frown'd the knight—'Vile churl!' he said; But ere he utter'd more, The stranger let the mantle fall Unclasp'd upon the floor,— And off he cast the yellow locks— And, lo! the lady fair, Blushing and casting from her cheek Her glossy raven hair! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... and the like were scenes of boisterous and light-hearted merriment, to which the whole neighborhood came, for it was accounted an insult if a man was not asked in to help on such occasions, and none but a base churl would refuse his assistance. The backwoods people had to front peril and hardship without stint, and they loved for the moment to leap out of the bounds of their narrow lives and taste the coarse pleasures that are always dear to a strong, simple, and primitive race. Yet underneath their moodiness ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... his 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 ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... a lonesome place close to the sea; there was no appearance of prosperity about it. Caius knew that the farmer, Day by name, was a churl, and was said to keep his family on short rations of happiness. As Caius turned off the public road he was not thinking specially of the bleak appearance of the particular piece of farmland he was crossing, ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... Offally all the Bards of Albyn and Erin, we cannot but envy the professors of the gentle art their good fortune in having lived in such times, and shared in such assemblies. As hospitality was the first of social virtues, so inhospitality was the worst of vices; the unpopularity of a churl descended to ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... subjugation of a proud lady who scorns all her wooers, by a juggler who assumes the guise of a knight. On the morrow the lady discovers her paramour to be a churl, and he is led away to execution, but escapes by juggling himself into a meal-bag: the dust falls in the ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various

... rude churl. I did not exactly tell the abbess that, but I said enough for a clever woman as she was to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... 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, ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... Sybil, generously. "You shall deny yourself no pleasure, for my sake, dear, dear Lyon! I am not such a churl as to require such a sacrifice. Only let me feel sure of your love, and then you may read with her all the morning, and play and sing with her all the evening, and I shall not care. I shall even be pleased, because you are so. But ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... Where Nature played the churl, it would be fit That fortune played it too. You would have had My lord absolve me of my agency! Fair lord, the flaw did cost me fifty times— A hundred times my agency:—but all's Recovered. Look, my lord, a testament To make ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles

... He knows the lofty spirit fills thy soul, And therefore feels indignantly the wrong A bold-faced villain dares to offer thee. Learn, then, in Poland, an audacious churl, A renegade, who broke his monkish vows, Laid down his habit, and renounced his God, Doth use the name and title of thy son, Whom death snatched from thee in his infancy. The shameless varlet boasts him of thy blood, And doth ...
— Demetrius - A Play • Frederich Schiller

... to study the tablet attentively: she kept her eyes for some moments fixed upon the sky, and then said, "Hateful churl, thou liest! Thy name is Hirvan the Kurd, and by profession thou art a thief. Confess ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

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

... thankful—that the servants were killed, or the gentlefolks were saved? Nor could young Esmond agree in the Doctor's vehement protestations to my lady, when he visited her during her convalescence, that the malady had not in the least impaired her charms, and had not been churl enough to injure the fair features of the Viscountess of Castlewood; whereas, in spite of these fine speeches, Harry thought that her ladyship's beauty was very much injured by the small-pox. When the marks of the disease cleared away, they did not, it is true, leave ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... door 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 handsomely for ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... 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 when thou art glad." ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris

... laws better than you do, churl! Due division of spoil is just and fair; but we cast lots for ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... hiding place they give the birds And foxes. Then we made our forest-laws, And he that dared to hunt, even for food, Even on the ground where we had burned his hut, The ground we had drenched with his own kindred's blood, Poor foolish churl, why, we put out his eyes With red-hot irons, cut off both his hands, Torture him with such horrors that ... Christ God, How can I help but fight ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... he improves every hour, as I see in his fine speeches to you. But it could not be Mr. B. if he did not: your merit extorts it from him: and what an ungrateful, as well as absurd churl, would he be, who should seek to obscure a meridian lustre, that dazzles the eyes of every ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson



Words linked to "Churl" :   crosspatch, grump, tike, pinchgut, skinflint, unpleasant person, misanthropist, boor, grouch, niggard, scrooge, fire-eater, crabby person, peasant, hothead, barbarian, disagreeable person, tyke, Goth, crank



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