snurl - From Ulster to America
Source: From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English
Author: Michael Montgomery
Comments: From Ulster to America recounts the lasting impact eighteenth-century settlers from Ulster have made on the development of the English language of the United States. The book documents over 500 vocabulary items contributed to American English by these ‘Scotch-Irish’ settlers. Each ‘shared’ term with its meaning is authenticated by quotations from both sides of the Atlantic. This searchable online version of his book takes its text from the dictionary part of the second edition published by the Ullans Press in 2017.
snurl, snirl n A knot, tangle, twist. Hence snirly, snurly adj Of wood: knotty, gnarly, twisted. [probably a variant of snarl; cf oed snurl vb 1 ‘to ruffle or disturb’ dialect; snd snirl n 1 ‘a snigger, snarl’; dare noun South Midlande, especially southern Appalachians]
Ulst.:
1953 Traynor Donegal Glossary 269 snirl = a knot, tangle, loop: ‘When a twisted hay-rope is allowed to go slack, it goes into a snirl’.
2014 Fenton Hamely Tongue 225 snurly = of carrots, roots, branches, etc.: gnarled or twisted.
U.S.:
1925 Dargan Highland Annals 21 It had lost so many limbs when it was young and pushin’ up, that it was jest the snirliest tree I ever saw.
1941 Hall Coll I hit a snurly place in the wood [when sawing it].
