spurtle

spurtle noun: either of two Scottish kitchen implements made of wood: a flat one for turning oatcakes, or a stick for stirring porridge.

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Noun

spurtle (plural spurtles)

Either of two Scottish kitchen implements made of wood: a flat one for turning oatcakes, or a stick for stirring porridge.
- "It was till lately believed by the ploughmen of Clydesdale, that if they repeated the rhyme
  Fairy, fairy, bake me a bannock and roast me a collop,
  And I'll gie ye a spurtle off my gadend!
  three several times on turning their cattle at the terminations of ridges, they would find the said fare...1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 353
- One day they built a fire in the yard and made a black kettle of apple butter so big that when they stood over it and stirred the apple mash with spurtles, the scene put Ada in mind of the witches in Macbeth working at their brew.1997, Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain, London: Hodder and Stoughton, page 311

Verb

spurtle (third-person singular simple present spurtles, present participle spurtling, simple past and past participle spurtled)

To spurt, spatter or sputter; to spurt in a scattering manner.
- Upon the head hee lent so violent a stroke,
  That the poore emptie skull, like some thin potsheard broke,
  The braines and mingled blood, were spertled on the wall1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 2 p. 29

Forms of spurtle

Noun
plural	spurtles
alternative form	spirtle
alternative form	spertle
Verb
third-person singular present	spurtles
present participle	spurtling
past participle	spurtled
past	spurtled

Origin of spurtle

From Scots spurtle, spurtill (“potstick, spatula”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps an alteration of Middle English spatyl, spatule, from Old French espatule (“spatula”). If so, then doublet of spattle and spatula.

From spurt + -le. According to the Poly-Olbion project, coined by poet Michael Drayton in 1606.

Questions about spurtle

What does spurtle mean?: Spurtle means either of two Scottish kitchen implements made of wood: a flat one for turning oatcakes, or a stick for stirring porridge.
What part of speech is spurtle?: Spurtle can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of spurtle?: The plural of spurtle is spurtles.

Words near spurtle in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: spurtle (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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