different between currish vs churlish

English

Etymology

From cur +? -ish.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?k?????/

Adjective

currish (comparative more currish, superlative most currish)

1. Pertaining to a cur or mongrel.
2. (now rare) Ignoble, mean-spirited.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.4:

     more enfierced through his currish play, / Him sternely grypt, and haling to and fro, / To ouerthrow him strongly did assay […].

   • c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV scene i^[1]:

     Gratiano:

     O, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!

     And for thy life let justice be accused.

     Thou almost makest me waver in my faith,

     To hold opinion with Pythagoras,

     That souls of animals infuse themselves

     Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit

     Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter,

     Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,

     And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam,

     Infused itself in thee; for thy desires

     Are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous.

Synonyms

• doggish

Anagrams

• cirrhus

English

Etymology

From Middle English churlysshe, cherlissh, from late Old English ?eorlis?, ?ierlis? (“of or pertaining to churls”), equivalent to churl +? -ish.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?t???l??/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?t???l??/
• Rhymes: -??(r)l??

Adjective

churlish (comparative more churlish, superlative most churlish)

1. Of or pertaining to a serf, peasant, or rustic.
   • 1996, Jeet Heer, Gravitas, Autumn 1996

     […] the eloquence and truth of his tribute stands in marked contrast to Kramer's churlish caricature of Kael as a happy pig wallowing in the dirt.

   Synonym: rustic

2. Rude, surly, ungracious. [from late 14th c.]

   Synonyms: cross-grained, rude, surly, ungracious
3. Stingy or grudging.

   Synonyms: grudging, illiberal, miserly, niggardly, stingy

4. (of soil) Difficult to till, lacking pliancy; unmanageable.
   • 1730–1774, Oliver Goldsmith, Introductory to Switzerland

     Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread,

     And force a churlish soil for scanty bread.

Related terms

Translations