squailer

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English

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Etymology

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From squail +‎ -er.

Noun

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squailer (plural squailers)

  1. A weighted stick used to throw, usually at small animals.
    • 1962 [1939], George Orwell, Coming Up for Air, London: Victor Gollancz, page 56 (in Penguin edition):
      They [the boys] all had catapults and squailers […]. In summer they used to go fishing and bird-nesting.

Usage notes

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The wilder boys [from Marlborough College] raged around the neighbourhood in gangs 'with knobbed sticks and squalars, with jackets buttoned tight up to their throat, and a look of pluck and determination on their faces'. The squalar was a ferocious home-made weapon consisting of a piece of lead the size and shape of a pear with an eighteen-inch cane handle'
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References

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  • George Edward Dartnell, Edward Hungerford Goddard, A Glossary of Words Used in the County of Wiltshire (1893)

Anagrams

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