roily

[Kjetil Rå Hauge]

On 22 Apr 2013, at 15:23, John Dunn wrote:

> Indeed, but the answers are more interesting on SEELangs, and in any case I wanted to know why I didn't know, which a dictionary wouldn't necessarily tell me.  It seems that part of the problem is that the verb 'to roil', which until this morning was equally mysterious to me, is obsolete in British English, but current in the U.S. variety.
> 
> I have also discovered a further complication.  It may be that the adjective 'roily' is derived not from the verb, but from a noun 'roil': this is listed in the Concise Scots Dictionary, which notes that the noun is recorded from the late 19th century onwards in Argyll with the meaning 'a storm, a heavy sea'.   It is conceivable that this noun was used elsewhere in the English-speaking world, not necessarily with the exact same meaning.

The OED has no certain etymology for "roil" ' 1. Tumult, disturbance; a state of confusion. Also: a fight, a quarrel.; 2. A mass of water churned up by a boat.' There is, however, an interesting entry in the "metadictionary", i.e., the total research material, for the project for a Norwegian dialect and Nynorsk dictionary (<http://no2014.uio.no>): 

røyl I. m. kvervel: 
a) um skyer som kvervlar el. tunnar (Eid i Nfj), 
b) liten kvervlande fiskestim (Sfj, Nfj, Snm). R. Sjå røyla.

"røyl, masc., eddy, swirl: a) about swirling clouds b) small swirling school of fish. See [v.] røyla [to swirl]", and found in the western dialects (reasonably close to Scotland…). Not to be confused with røyl 'kind of sail', which has come the other way, from English "royal (sail)".
-- 
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Kjetil Rå Hauge, U. of Oslo, PO Box 1003 Blindern, N-0315 Oslo, Norway
Tel. +47/22856710, fax +1/5084372444

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