churgle

Verb

churgle (third-person singular simple present churgles, present participle churgling, simple past and past participle churgled)

1. To chuckle and gurgle at the same time
   • 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.1899, John Ayscough, “Outsiders”, in Temple Bar, volume 118, page 169
   • 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.1970, Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books (1974), page 56
2. To hum or rumble, as an engine
   • 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.1952, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, The Clay Hand
   • Two motorboats covered with cameras churgle out and find me. I am circled and clicked at—talk about self-conscious!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