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English
Etymology 1
Adjective
wurlie (comparative wurlier or more wurlie, superlative wurliest or most wurlie)
- (Scotland) Alternative spelling of wurly (“derisorily small”).
, volume II (K–Z) (in Scots), Edinburgh:
University Press; for
W & C Tait,
; London:
Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green,
→OCLC,
page 700, column 2:
Wurlie, 1. Contemptibly puny, or small in size; as "a wurlie bodie," an ill-grown person, Fife, Loth.- (please add an English translation of this quotation)]
, volumes VI (T–Z, Supplement, Bibliography and Grammar), London: Henry Frowde,
, publisher to the
English Dialect Society,
; New York, N.Y.:
G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
→OCLC,
page 515, column 1:
WIRL, sb. Sc. Yks. […] A small and harsh-featured person; an ill-grown child; a stunted animal. […] Hence (1) Wirly, adj. puny, small; (2) Wirly-bit, sb. a short time; a little way; a small portion. (1) Sc. There's nae a pilchard in my creel, Nor wurlie sprat … They're firm and fat (Jam.).]
- (Scotland) gnarled, knotted; wizened, wrinkled.
, volume II (K–Z) (in Scots), Edinburgh:
University Press; for
W & C Tait,
; London:
Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green,
→OCLC,
page 700, column 2:
Wurlie, […] 2. Rough, knotted; as, "a wurlie rung," a knotted stick, S. It is applied to a stick that is distorted, Lanarks. As this sense, however, is considerably remote from the other, the term may have had a different origin. 3. Wrinkled, applied to a person; as, a wurly body, Lanarks.- (please add an English translation of this quotation)]
Synonyms
Etymology 2
Noun
wurlie (plural wurlies)
- Alternative spelling of wurley.
1846, E. Lloyd, “Biographical Sketch”, in A Visit to the Antipodes: With Some Reminiscences of a Sojourn in Australia, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 65, Cornhill, →OCLC, page 165:But latterly they came in good numbers, and commenced a nightly system of annoyance by dancing their corroberies: […]. Finding remonstrance of no avail, one evening, when they were all seated quietly at the wurlie [footnote: Encampment.], I fired a charge of small shot into the midst of them, and retired to the hut: in the morning they had all disappeared.