Words / P / General

purl

verb/pəːl/

C2CEFR level
85/100Rarity: very rare
LiteraryRegister

To flow with a gentle, murmuring, rippling sound.

The beck purled over its stones a few feet from where we sat.

Similar: ripple, murmur, babble

Origin: Probably of Scandinavian origin, imitative.

Topic: sound / water in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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