carle

plural carles · alternative carl

1. Scotlandpeasant; fellow

   I am no sheephearde with a Curre, attending on the flockes:

   1567, Arthur Golding; Ovid's Metamorphoses; Bk. 1 lines 622-3

   4 more examples

   Eh, Mr Henry! but the carle gae him a screed o' doctrine! Ye might hae heard him a mile down the wind—He routed like a cow in a fremd loaning.

   1816, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter I, in Tales of My Landlord, […], volume III (Old Mortality), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for William Blackwood, […]; London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 9

   Had he instead of on the Doge's throne Stamped the same brand upon a peasant's stool, His blood had gilt the threshold; for the carle Had stabbed him on the instant.

   1820, Lord Byron, “Marino Faliero”, in The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4

   Ye may fancy I'm talking like a sour, disappointed auld carle.

   1885, Charles Kingsley, Daily Thoughts

   Spake the sad and sorry carle: "We seek the Land where the days are many: so many that he who hath forgotten how to laugh, may learn the craft again, and forget the days of Sorrow."

   1913, William Morris, The Story of the Glittering Plain

plural Carles

1. A surname.