carl

¹

Or carle

[kahrl]

noun

1. Scot.

   1. a strong, robust fellow, especially a strong manual laborer.

   2. a miser; an extremely thrifty person.

2. Archaic.,  a churl.

3. Obsolete.,  a bondman.

Carl

²

[kahrl]

noun

1. a male given name, form of Charles.

carl

/ kɑːl /

noun

1. archaic,  another word for churl

Other Word Forms

• carlish adjective
• carlishness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of carl¹

before 1000 (in compounds; housecarl ); Middle English; Old English -carl < Old Norse karl man; cognate with Old High German karl; akin to churl

Word History and Origins

Origin of carl¹

Old English, from Old Norse karl

Example Sentences

Behind the scenes, curator Carl Strehlke worked with a team of art historians and conservators to clean and reconstruct numerous multipanel altarpieces, or polyptychs, which an earlier era of rogue art dealers broke up and sold piecemeal.

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Many evidence-based models were developed from research on predominantly Eurocentric populations, explained Carl Highshaw, executive director of the National Assn. of Social Workers’ California chapter.

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WH Smith said Chief Executive Carl Cowling resigned after an accounting review identified issues at its North America unit.

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The character Paul Stafford, played by Jim Parsons, represented a number of the engineers I worked with, including Carl Huss, John Mayer, and Alton Mayo, as well as Ted Skopinski and Al Hamer, both of whom I was published with.

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It reminded me of the poet Carl Sandburg’s famous line: “The fog comes on little cat feet.”

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