churgle
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English
[edit]Verb
[edit]churgle (third-person singular simple present churgles, present participle churgling, simple past and past participle churgled)
- To chuckle and gurgle at the same time
- 1899, John Ayscough, “Outsiders”, in Temple Bar, volume 118, page 169:
- He was a very grave man habitually, but a churgle (if for once I may be guilty of word-coining) a sort of cross between a chuckle and a gurgle, was audible in his fat throat as he walked over the thick red carpet of the corridor with his salver in his hand.
- 1970, Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books (1974), page 56:
- They knew they were going to have a whacking great feast before long and the fact that it was none other than Boggis's chickens they were going to eat made them churgle with laughter every time they thought of it.
- 2001, Oonya Kempadoo, Tide Running, Picador:
- She like to romp with Ossi. He know how to make she squeal and churgle till Lynette have to tell him, "Stop! You go give the child short breath." But she like me better. I have a way with she, like something, Lynette don't know what.
- 2015, Kathryn Lomer, Talk Under Water, University of Queensland Press, →ISBN:
- Beth quickly signs to her and points at Cassie. Summer laughs. I haven't heard her laugh before. It's an interesting laugh, somewhere between a gurgle and a chortle. A churgle? A gortle? I'm reminded of when she was with her friends at the cafe and the strange noises they made.
- To hum or rumble, as an engine
- 1952, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, The Clay Hand:
- In the distance, riding from one valley to another, the train whistle sounded. The waiting men stiffened. An occasional crow swooped over them, crying noisily, the only other sound the slowly rising churgle of the train.
- 1995, David Hays, Daniel Hays, My Old Man and the Sea: A Father and Son Sail Around Cape Horn, Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, page 214:
- Two motorboats covered with cameras churgle out and find me. I am circled and clicked at—talk about self-conscious!
- 2009, Robert Flanagan, Involuntary Tour, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 59:
- He stopped the car in the middle of the dark road. The wind against the flat side of the little square vehicle rocked it slightly. There was no sound above the low churgle of the engine.