aul

plural auls · alternative aoul · alternative auol

1. A village encampment in the Caucasus, Central Asia or the Southern Urals.

   His sorrel face, his long narrow eyes and dusty boots, where he goes on his travels and what really transpires inside the lonely hide tents Out There, among the auls, out in that wind, these are mysteries they don’t care to enter or touch.

   1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Bitter fighting took place for Gimry, the home both of Khadzhi-Murat and Shamil. A highway ran along here, which permitted us to bring up artillery and to subject the aul to preliminary bombardment. We did not fire at any specific target, but if even half of our thirteen hundred shells had landed there, there would have been only a heap of ruins in place of the aul.

   1993, Eduard M[artynovich] Dune; Diane P. Koenker and S[tephen] A[nthony] Smith, translators and editors, Notes of a Red Guard, Urbana; Chicago, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, →ISBN, page 221

   Crossing the large plateau, they passed the auls of Megeb and Chokh before reaching Gunib, a significant Avar settlement. […] The Avar auls were surrounded by a virtually uninterrupted circle of mountain ranges and occupied most of the plateaus between the tributaries of the Sulak River: Andi Koysu, Avar Koysu and Kara Koysu.

   2011, Michael Khodarkovsky, “Journey through the Northeast Caucasus”, in Bitter Choices: Loyalty and Betrayal in the Russian Conquest of the North Caucasus, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 55

1. alternativeAlternative form of auld.

plural auls

1. obsoleteObsolete spelling of awl.

   […] and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul […]

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 21:6

plural Auls

1. A surname.