A churl is a person who is rude, mean, and generally unpleasant. It is actually an incredibly old word and can be traced back to Old English. Back then, though, it wasn't so negative.
Churls were commoners. They were the peasants, the working class. They were uneducated, and may have been perceived as crude by the royalty, but truly they were just regular people.
An interesting fact is that the name Carl actually comes from churl. The 'ch' sound was pronounced more like a 'k' sound, so German had the name Karl, which became Carl in America (as well as other languages like Carlos in Spanish). Similarly, Charles also comes from the same origin.
Though "churl" has fallen out of use, it is an interesting word to know. It's a fancy sounding word, and the origin of many fancy-sounding names, but it actually is a word talking of the low class.
About Me
- Kevin Bahler
- I am a writer. A writer is one who writes. By the same logic, I am also a thinker, an observer, and a puzzle solver. I am a graduate from the State University of New York at Cortland with a degree in Professional Writing. The idea of the program is that one studies all three aspects of writing as a whole: Creative Writing, Technical Writing, and Rhetoric. The knowledge I have gained in those subjects is put to use in every aspect of my life. The worst thing a person can be is boring. I am most interested in people who can pique my interests. An example is people who can correctly use the word 'pique'.
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