Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To shoot in a scattering manner; spurt.
- n. A stick used for stirring.
Wiktionary
- n. Either of two Scottish kitchen implements made of wood; a flat one for turning oatcakes, or a stick for stirring porridge
- v. To spurt, spatter or sputter
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To spurt or shoot in a scattering manner.
Examples
“A spurtle is a wooden stick like tool which is able to get right into the corners of the pot, but doesn't resist its path through the porridge like a wooden spoon can.”
“Take a knife (a 'spurtle' is the proper utensil) in the right hand, and some Scotch, or coarse, oatmeal in the left hand, and sprinkle the meal in gradually, stirring it briskly all the time; if any lumps form draw them to the side of the pan and crush them out.”
Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery A Manual of Cheap and Wholesome Diet
“Ugly, old words like piggin and spurtle and keeler, which are all kitchen implements.”
“Truly, the voice of the spurtle is heard in the land.”
“Whether they are stirred in with a wooden spoon or, as Mitchell advises, with a spurtle or a gruel-tree Shetland usage is probably optional, but the addition of cream or milk – never sugar – completes a winter experience that can only be described as truly halesome.”
“One of the best things with which to stir the porridge is a spurtle.”
“Mix the oats, water and salt in a pot and cook for a while, stirring frequently with your spurtle.”
“This lady had leaped on his back and was beating him about the head with a spurtle, uttering shrieks of condemnation.”
“She skimmed the grey foam off the water with a spurtle she had whittled that afternoon out of a poplar limb for lack of the dogwood she needed to do the job right.”
“She laid down the porridge spurtle like a queen abdicating her sceptre.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spurtle’.
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scots words
gowk, wellkenspeckled, dowie, crivvens, clashmaclavers, kludgie, perjink, puddock, well-kenspeckled, gaberlunzie, wheesht, thrawn and 65 more...
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New words
Words that are new to me.
autostrada, gimlet, clyster, gravida, skelped, nacreous, susurrus, intransigent, puissant, turbid, plangent, fungible and 99 more...
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Under The Kilt
Anything related to Scottish culture, cuisine, language, history and so on. Does not include Gaelic words unless acceptable (roughly speaking!) in a wider sense.
brae, machair, loch, burn, inverness, shieling, camanachd, shinty, diddy, bhoy, ghillie, brownie and 393 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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SAVED FAVES
Listless no more,
arrears, addle, akimbo, allure, appurtenance, bibelot, bibulous, bifurcate, blither, boodle, crapulous, coprolite and 122 more...
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today's word
copemate, quiddity, ere, maugre, argal, cultivar, exurb, spokesmodel, rollick, logy, cadastral, corpulent and 259 more...
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utensil strength
sieve, colander, whisk, chinoise, spatula, fork, spork, runcible spoon, tong, mandoline, crockery, ladle and 28 more...
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greensoapmonkey's list
words I never remember, but like.
virago, inamorato, ostranenie, apostasy, timorous, aposiopesis, corpuscule, peloother, shibboleth, hurple, titubate, puckfist and 2 more...
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Wordle
Instrumental nouns
pestle, handle, thimble, treadle, ladle, spurtle, girdle, needle, spindle, bridle, hurdle, windle and 1 more...
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mdoar's Words
vicissitudes, phlebotomist, diffability, proleptic, jetsam, gallimaufry, grunion, strappleberry, hunker, thwart, thwack, thwaite and 5 more...
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An Echo in the Bone
Words that were listed when reading An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon.
vivisection, emergent, portmanteau, apostrophize, apostrophe, dissentient, napery, adduce, provenance, vertiginious, spontoon, gorget and 25 more...
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fun ones
fun to say or fun in meaning
sizzard, clou, matutolagnia, grok, xiphoid, cwm, cattywampus, scroop, loblolly, katzenjammer, sphygmus, forfex and 68 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for spurtle.
chained_bear "'They call you the White Witch, do they not?' the man said, and smiled. It wasn't in any way a pleasant expression.
'Some do. What of it?' I said, taking a good grip on my spurtle and staring him down."
—Diana Gabaldon, An Echo in the Bone (New York: Delacorte Press, 2009), 586 Dec 17, 2009
qroqqa It could be what Seth did: after all that mollocking in the sukebind he turned to spurtling in the koumiss, and Adam had to cletter it up arter 'im. Dec 22, 2008
BrainyBabe But I never heard "spirtle" as a verb. Dec 22, 2008
BrainyBabe clettering -- yes! and what was the vine? Dec 22, 2008
reesetee Lee Valley has a nice one available here. Dec 22, 2008
sionnach Maaa! Sammy's been spurtling in the koumiss again!
I imagine this to be something akin to the clettering tool so beloved by Adam Lambsbreath down on the farm. Dec 22, 2008
BrainyBabe Also "spirtle". Akin to a bishkek. Dec 22, 2008
bilby "'Oh,' he would add as an afterthought, 'and would you chust fill up my bottle for me.' The wifie duly filled the old black glass bottle (six to the gallon) with whisky, totted it all up and announced the modest total. 'Ach,' he complained, 'I haven't that much money on me. I can manage if you chust take back the whisky' - which was duly poured back into the keg. At home, he upended bottle, and using his porridge spurtle, he squeezed out the sponge he had inserted earlier and retrieved a couple of satisfying drams. If ever a man deserved a nickname, it was surely 'The Sponger'!"
- 'The Name Game', P.A. MacNab in The Scots Magazine, Dec 2001. Jan 12, 2008
trivet a porridge stirring utensil. Jun 6, 2007