Word.ws English Dictionary

birled

birled is the simple past and past participle of birl.

Meaning of birl

Verb

birl (third-person singular simple present birls, present participle birling, simple past and past participle birled)

  1. (Scotland, ambitransitive) To spin.
    • About nine in the morning, in a burst of wintry sun between two squalls of hail, I had my first look of Holland - a line of windmills birling in the breeze.1893, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter XXII, in Catriona, Helvoetsluys
  2. (transitive) To cause (a floating log) to rotate by treading on it.
    • "That's nothing!" my companion repressed me, "anybody can birl a log. Watch this."
      Roaring Dick for the first time unfolded his arms. With some appearance of caution he balanced his unstable footing into absolute immobility. Then he turned a somersault.1903 April, Stewart Edward White, “The Riverman”, in McClure's Magazine, volume 20
  3. (transitive) To throw down a coin as one's share in a joint contribution.

See all 5 meanings of birl

Questions about birled

What is birled the simple past and past participle of?
Birled is the simple past and past participle of birl.

Words near birled in the dictionary

  1. birl
  2. birladie
  3. birlaw
  4. birlaws
  5. birle
  6. birled
  7. birler
  8. birlers
  9. birles
  10. birley
  11. Birley with Upper Hill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: birled (page history and authors); birl (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “birled.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/birled. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.