wariangle
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any of various aggressive shrikes of the genus Lanius, such as the red-backed shrike or great grey shrike, sometimes known as butcherbirds.
British usage
Example Sentences
- "This was Charles Albert de Luines, a gentleman of the country of Avignon, who was introduced to a familiarity with Louis XIII. by breaking wariangles to catch sparrows."
- "[…] the young monarch when he was one day amusing himself with his wariangles, that being upwards of fixteen years of age, he was capable of taking the reins of government into his own hands, and that he ought to shake off the yoke which his mother and Concini had imposed on him[…]"
- "[page 95:] '[…] what is that bird?' 'It is a shrike, a great grey shrike. Some say wariangle.' [page 104:] '[…] There is your wariangle again, carrying a mouse, upon my word.' Stephen spoke of shrikes he had known [page 117:] […] to make his apologies to Sophie: 'he had been contemplating on wariangles, and had overlooked the time.'"
- "By one rill, where low tangled hawthorn and gorse grew among the long sea grass, she found a row of tiny wrens and mouse pups spiked on thorns: the work of the wariangle, the butcher-bird. She walked half a mile inland,[…]"
Etymology
From Middle English wariangel, weryangle, possibly from Old English *weargincel with the second element reanalyzed as *weargengel. Compare Old English wearg (“outlaw, criminal”), German Würgengel (“destroying angel, destroyer, killer”), -incel (“diminutive suffix”) and English worry.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: wariangel, *weargincel
Usage
- British usage