Word of the Day

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In Old English, "ceorl" referred to freemen who ranked above the servile classes but below the nobility. In this sense, "ceorl" is now primarily encountered in historical writings where, to this day, it has maintained its Old English spelling. The word also evolved, however, into a form that will be more familiar to most English speakers today. In Middle English, "ceorl" took on the spelling "churl" (among others), and with that variant spelling it began to develop disparaging senses by the early 14th century. "Churl" can still be used to refer to the historical rank of ceorl or as a general term for a medieval peasant, but it is now primarily encountered in the senses of "a rude ill-bred person" or "a stingy morose person."