(chûrl)
noun- A rude, boorish person. See Synonyms at boor.
- A miserly person.
a. A ceorl.
b. A medieval English peasant.
Word History: The word
churl comes almost unchanged in meaning and pronunciation, though not in spelling, from Old English
ceorl, “freeman of the lowest class.” An Anglo-Saxon
ceorl had a social position above a slave but below a
thegn, “thane.”
Ceorl comes from Germanic
*karilaz, whose basic meaning is “old man.” In Finnish, which is not a Germanic language, the Germanic word was borrowed and survives almost unchanged as
karilas, “old man.” The Old Norse descendant of the Germanic word,
karl, means “old man, servant,” and the Old High German equivalent,
karal, meaning “man, lover, husband,” has become the name
Karl. Middle High German
karl, “freeman,” was adopted into northern French as
Charles, from which we have the name
Charles. The Medieval Latin form
Carolus is based on the Old High German
karal. The fame of
Carolus Magnus, “Charles the Great,” or Charlemagne, added luster to the name
Carolus and explains why the Slavic languages borrowed the name as their general word for “king,”
korol' in Russian.
