shirley
/ˈʃɜː(ɹ)li/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.73 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
An English habitational surname
name
A male given name transferred from the surname.
name
A female given name transferred from the surname, popular from the 1920s to the 1950s.
Example Sentences
- "Hold vp they head, vile Scot, or thou art like / Neuer to hold it vp againe! the spirits / Of valiant Sherley, Stafford, Blunt, are in my Armes;"
- "Shirley Blythe was with Una Meredith and both were rather silent because such was their nature. Shirley was a lad of sixteen, sedate, sensible, thoughtful, full of a quiet humour."
- "Shirley Keeldar (she had no christian name but Shirley: her parents, who had wished to have a son, finding that, after eight years of marriage, Providence had granted them only a daughter, bestowed on her the same masculine family cognomen they would have bestowed on a boy, if with a boy they had been blessed)—[…]"
- ""Why a girl like you should be named Shirley is beyond me. You haven't a ruffle or a furbelow anywhere in your nature." "Is that meant for an insult?" she asked, flushing angrily. "No, it's just that it's incongruous. You are the 'give us this day our daily bread' sort of person. Shirley is party stuff.""
- "Shirley the pepper mills are whipped away by the peppier after use, so no danger there. But what about the candles?"
Etymology
English place name from Old English sċīr (“county”) + lēah (“meadow”). Equivalent to shire + -ley (“lea”). More at shire, leigh.
Origin
- Source language: Old English
Word Breakdown
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in People.
Inflected Forms
Phrases
Frequently Paired Words
Skirlaugh