Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To drag upon the ground; drag along with force or violence; trail.
- To entangle; confuse.
- To cut a slit in one of the hind legs of (a dead animal), in order to suspend it.
- To rough-east (a wall) with lime.
- To be dragged or pulled.
- To trail; drag one's self.
- n. The act of dragging.
- n. Flax, hemp, wool, hair, or other filaments as drawn out or hackled.
- n. A barb of a feather from a peacock's tail, used as a hackle in dressing fly-hooks. Also herl, hurl.
- n. Property obtained by means not accounted honorable.
- n. A considerable but indefinite quantity.
- n. A leash (three) of hounds.
Wiktionary
- n. a fibre, especially a fibre of hemp or flax, or an individual fibre of a feather
- n. A barb, or barbs, of a fine large feather, as of a peacock or ostrich, used in dressing artificial flies.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A filamentous substance; especially, the filaments of flax or hemp.
- n. A barb, or barbs, of a fine large feather, as of a peacock or ostrich, -- used in dressing artificial flies.
Etymologies
- Cognate with Middle Low German herle, Low German harle, East Frisian harrel ‘hemp fibre’. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“To "harl" is to drag slowly, and with imperfect success; a "harl" of anything expresses defect both in value and form.”
“Perhaps "harl" is a vegan or something but I think it's more likely that s/he's a rabid Islamophobe.”
“Here's one from a "harl" commenting on a post by Roy Hattersley on CiF.”
“UPDATE 2: As of March 2009 Google's sorting algorithm has dropped this series down to the #4 return for "harl vincent".”
“UPDATE: Thanks to Google's sorting algorithm, which is weighted toward newer content, this series is now the #1 return for "harl vincent".”
“_ -- The Peacock Harl -- dubbed with ruddy peacock's harl, warped with green silk, and a red cock's hackle over that.”
“The Black Palmer -- dubbed with black copper coloured peacock's harl, and”
“White Palmer -- dubbed with white peacock's harl, and a black hackle over it.”
“A country fellow enumerating the miserable ailments that beset his poor Mother, added lastly, "and ony harl o 'health she has is ay about mealtime.”
“Carlyle keeps saying he is very bilious, etc., but he looks very passably, is not so desperately "/ill to deal wi '/" as you and I have known him, and has always a good "harl o 'health at meal-time.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘harl’.
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phrontistery - h
from phrontistery.info
habanera, habergeon, habilable, habilatory, habile, habiliment, habilitate, habromania, hachure, hackle, hackney, hadal and 568 more...
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Words of the day
The list of Wordnik words of the day.
panurgic, chapfallen, billingsgate, latration, witticaster, slitheroo, rux, crotchet, mirliton, arenose, ruelle, jane-of-apes and 76 more...
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Professional Scrabble Lexicon (TWL)
A myriad of game-changing words every Scrabble addict must have in his arsenal.
Keep in mind that these are all tried-and-true feasibly playable words selected for their handiness, i.e...paragon, pignora, ganef, suttee, origan, ohia, aioli, abasement, lehr, mho, tallow, harelike and 842 more...
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Wordnik Notebooks
All the words from the cover of the Wordnik notebook.
A few words appear twice: frass, cruet, luna, thalweg, and possibly some more.
Careful: Contains spoilers!spilth, frass, fomite, rux, worricow, alizarin, mundungus, parthenocarpy, jib, whinyard, weisure, nimiety and 217 more...
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Wordie/Wordnik Curio Cabinet
Oddments culled from my "main" lists that belong in a display cabinet of their own, plus sundry other curiosities. :-)
zeugma, ziggurat, xiphoid, xeric, whizgigging, whangdoodle, viviparous, vivific, vinolent, verjuice, vellicate, velleity and 1193 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1406 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for harl.
grant_barrett This word was chosen as Wordnik word of the day. Nov 11, 2009