carl

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

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kɑːl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /kɑɹl̩/

carl (plural carls)

1. 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.

2. (Scotland, obsolete) A stingy person; a niggard.

Origin uncertain.

• carle

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

1. (obsolete, intransitive) 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:

     , 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 […]

• ACLR, CRLA

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

• IPA^(key): /kɑrl/, [kɑrˠɫ]

carl m

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