carl

See also: Carl and carl-

English

From Middle English carl, from Old English carl, a borrowing from Old Norse karl (“man, husband”), from Proto-Germanic *karilaz. Cognate with English churl.

carl (plural carls)

A rude, rustic man; a churl.
- 1974, Guy Davenport, Tatlin!
  In Lent noblemen and carls alike had got into the traces and pulled the carts of stone themselves.

Origin uncertain.

carl (third-person singular simple present carls, present participle carling, simple past and past participle carled)

(obsolete) To snarl; to talk grumpily or gruffly.
- 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970, (please specify |partition=1, 2, or 3):
  , New York 2001, p.210:
  […] full of ache, sorrow, and grief, children again, dizzards, they carle many times as they sit, and talk to themselves, they are angry, waspish, displeased with everything […]

From Old Norse karl (Swedish karl (“man”)), from Proto-Germanic *karlaz. Cognate with Old High German karl, karal and related to Old English ċeorl.

carl m

a freeman, a man of middle rank or social class (in Norse and Anglo-Saxon society)

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