26 January 2014
burl
[burl]
1. noun
Australianism, Ockerism, strine
– to have a go at something, as in, ‘give it a burl’.
Origin
It’s first known usage in Australian slang was in 1917. ‘Burl’ originally meant to spin, whirl, twirl. This was transferred to usage in the game of two-up in which coins are flipped in the air. For someone about to flip or spin the coin in two-up, others would say to them to ‘give it a burl’. The expression entered broader usage for giving something a go. Clive James used the term in one of his 1981 poems to Prince Charles.
2. noun
i. a small knot or lump in wool, thread, or cloth.
ii. a dome-shaped growth on the trunk of a tree; a wartlike structure sometimes 2 feet (0.6 meters) across and 1 foot (0.3 meters) or more in height, sliced to make veneer.
verb (used with object)
iii. to remove burls from (cloth) in finishing.
Origin:
1400–50; late Middle English burle ≪ Old French; akin to Medieval Latin burla bunch, sheaf, Late Latin burra wool, fluff
Related forms
burl·er, noun
Anagram
blur
Today’s quote
In 1905 Albert discovered Relativity, in 1906 he invented Rock and Roll.
– Yahoo Serious (Greg Pead), Australian comedian, from his 1988 movie ‘Young Einstein’, in which Einstein, the son of a Tasmanian apple farmer, discovers the secret of splitting the beer atom which enables him to put bubbles into beer.
On this day
26 January 1788 – Australia Day – the day that Captain Arthur Phillip landed at Botany Bay and took possession of Australia in the name of King George III of Britain.
26 January 1939 – During the Spanish Civil War, Nationalist forces loyal to General Francisco Franco enter Barcelona, overthrowing the Republican forces headquartered there.
26 January 1945 – Soviet troops liberate 7,000 survivors of the Auschwitz network of concentration camps in Poland.
26 January 1950 – India becomes a republic, freed from British rule. The new President, Dr Rajenda Prasad had campaigned with Mahatma Gandhi for Indian self-rule. Jawaharlal Nehru becomes the country’s first Prime Minister on 10 February 1952.
26 January 1965 – Hindi becomes the official language of India.
26 January 1988 – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Phantom of the Opera’ opens on Broadway for its first performance. The musical becomes a world-wide smash and is the longest running show on Broadway.