Shirley

American  

[shur-lee] / ˈʃɜr li /

noun

1. James, 1596–1666, English dramatist.

2. William, 1694–1771, English governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony 1741–56: urged assault on Louisburg.

3. a city on the S shore of Long Island, in SE New York.

4. a male or female given name: a family name taken from an Old English placename.

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Shirley

Spark was much stranger: Waugh thought she was “a saint”—her prayers were so often heard—and the novelist Shirley Hazzard said she had “X-ray eyes.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

Neil Shastri-Hurst, Conservative MP for Solihull West and Shirley, told the programme his party would look at social security spending.

From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026

But the bigger lie is Shirley presenting himself as a “journalist,” when he eschews basic responsibility to the facts.

From Salon ● Jun. 5, 2026

Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s office said it would look into such posts, one of which falsely attributed the message to historian Heather Cox Richardson.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026

Only by locking her foot around a leg of the bench did Shirley manage to stay perched.

From "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson" by Bette Bao Lord