shail

present singular third person shails · participle present shailing · participle past shailed · past shailed · alternative obsolete shayle · alternative obsolete shoyle · alternative shale

1. dialectalintransitiveTo walk or move unsteadily or haphazardly; stumbling or shuffling.

   The mysterious woman meandered up the street, shailing and leaning precariously at times.

   3 more examples

   ...some were amiable for favour, perfect of bodie, yet ill legged; other, which were well legde, shaled with their feete, or were splafooted...

   1876 [1593], anonymous author, Tell-Trothes New-Yeares Gift and The Passionate Morrice, &c., London: The New Shakspere Society, The Passionate Morris, page 82

   Child, (ſays the Mother) You muſt Uſe your ſelf to Walk Streight, without Skewing, and Shailing ſo Every Step you ſet: Pray Mother (ſays the Young Crab) do but ſet the Example your ſelf, and I'll follow ye.

   1692, Roger L’Estrange, “[The Fables of Anianus, &c.] Fab[le] CCXXI. An Old Crab and a Young.”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC, page 193

   "Fancy her white hands getting redder every day, and her tongue losing its pretty up-country curl in talking, and her bounding walk becoming the regular Hintock shail and wamble!" "She may shail, but she'll never wamble," replied his wife, decisively.

   1904 [1887], Thomas Hardy, The Woodlanders, New York and London: Harper & Brothers, page 80