harl
/hɑːl/
harl noun: a fibre, especially a fibre of hemp or flax, or an individual fibre of a feather.
Noun (1)
harl (plural harls)
- A fibre, especially a fibre of hemp or flax, or an individual fibre of a feather.
- She pushed her fingers under the cream lace, into the ginger harl of spun glass.1974, Guy Davenport, Tatlin!
- A barb, or barbs, of a fine large feather, as of a peacock or ostrich, used in dressing artificial flies.
- Should it be desired, however, to run the hackle all over the body, it may be tied on along with the peacock's harls.1875, Angling, 9th edition, volume 2, Encyclopædia Britannica, page 44
Verb (1)
harl (third-person singular simple present harls, present participle harling, simple past and past participle harled)
- To surface a building using a slurry of pebbles or stone chips which is then cured using a lime render.
- The east side facade is of rubble, studded with small windows and mannered details, while the harled rear (south) wall forms, as completed, a towering, roughly symmetrical grouping.1996, Miles Glendinning, Ranald MacInnes, Aonghus MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture, →ISBN, page 361
Verb (2)
harl (third-person singular simple present harls, present participle harling, simple past and past participle harled)
Noun (2)
harl (plural harls)
- The act of dragging.
- A small quantity; a scraping of anything.
Proper noun (1) capitalized: Harl
Harl
- A male given name.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Harl
Harl (plural Harls)
- A surname from German.
Forms of harl
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | harls |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | harls |
| present participle | harling |
| past participle | harled |
| past | harled |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Harls |
Origin of harl
Cognate with Middle Low German herle, Low German harle, Saterland Frisian harrel (“hemp fibre”).
Borrowed from German Harl.
Words formed from harl
Words that rhyme with harl
Questions about harl
- What does harl mean?
- Harl means a fibre, especially a fibre of hemp or flax, or an individual fibre of a feather.
- What part of speech is harl?
- Harl can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce harl?
- Harl is pronounced /hɑːl/.
- What is the plural of harl?
- The plural of harl is harls.
Words near harl in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: harl (page history and authors); Harl (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-harl.wav.
Cite this entry: “harl.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/harl. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.