sprauchle

English

Alternative forms

• sprackle, sprachle, spraickle

Etymology

From Icelandic spraukla, "to sprawl".

Verb

sprauchle (third-person singular simple present sprauchles, present participle sprauchling, simple past and past participle sprauchled)

1. (Scotland, intransitive) To move in a clumsy manner; to stumble or sprawl; to clamber up with difficulty.
   • 1881, David Thomson, Musings Among the Heather: Being Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect:

     We'll sprauchle yont life's roughsome way, / As canny as we dow; / An' souther oor affections aye, / In love's heart-warmin' lowe.

   • 1897, Robert McLean Calder, William Shillinglaw Crockett, A Berwickshire Bard: The Songs and Poems of Robert McLean Calder:

     We've routh o' disappointments as / We sprauchle up the brae, / We dinna get the things we want, / We lose the things we hae ;

   • 1931, Arthur Alexander Thomson, The Burns We Love, page 86:

     However far he might sprauchle up the brae, he never forgot — or patronised — an old friend.

   • 2001, Janet Paisley, Not for Glory, page 265:

     Sandra, her man, Raymond an his wife, sprauchle ower roots an bushes, hurryin through the trees.

Noun

sprauchle (plural sprauchles)

1. (Scotland) An awkward or struggling movement; stumble.
   • 1830, Andrew Picken, The dominie's legacy, by the author of 'The sectarian'., page 137:

     Well, Sir, just when the gentlemen had got within three yards of her, Nelly geid a bit awckward sprauchle, an' shot out a leg, but whether Nelly had mistaken her distance, or whether the men were up to her fa'en system an' wadna bite, never clearly appeared; but they werna forward in time to catch the lassie in their arms as she expected, an' after a sprauchle an' a stumble, down she came in good earnest, an' broke her arm.

   • 1930, The Strand Magazine - Volume 80 -, page 535:

     But, with the planks bein' jammed as they were, he didn't sink as deep as his waist, an' after a sprauchle or two, that cost him his hat, he struggled out on the far side, an' moved on towards home, more muddled in his intellects than ever.

   • 1969, Mountain - Issues 6-19, page 114:

     ... this didn't instil a sense of security so with an incredibly awkward manoeuvre the axe was driven into the floor and a cowardly sprauchle backwards performed to stand secured by slings above the void.