Dictionary

wariangle en · NOUN

Etymology

From Middle English wariangel, weryangle, possibly from Old English *weargincel with the second element reanalyzed as *weargengel. Compare Old English wearg (“outlaw, criminal”), German Würgengel (“destroying angel, destroyer, killer”), -incel (“diminutive suffix”) and English worry.

Meanings

1. (UK, dialectal, qualifier:largely obsolete, regional) Any of various aggressive shrikes of the genus Lanius, such as the red-backed shrike or great grey shrike, sometimes known as butcherbirds.
   • […] the young monarch when he was one day amusing himself with his wariangles, that being upwards of fixteen years of age, he was capable of taking the reins of government into his own hands, and that he ought to shake off the yoke which his mother and Concini had imposed on him[…] 1792, The Historical magazine; or, Classical library of public events, page 182:
   • By one rill, where low tangled hawthorn and gorse grew among the long sea grass, she found a row of tiny wrens and mouse pups spiked on thorns: the work of the wariangle, the butcher-bird. She walked half a mile inland,[…] 2013 November 12, Nicola Griffith, Hild: A Novel, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 347:
   • [page 95:] '[…] what is that bird?' 'It is a shrike, a great grey shrike. Some say wariangle.' [page 104:] '[…] There is your wariangle again, carrying a mouse, upon my word.' Stephen spoke of shrikes he had known [page 117:] […] to make his apologies to Sophie: 'he had been contemplating on wariangles, and had overlooked the time.' 2011 December 5, Patrick O'Brian, The Commodore (Vol. Book 17) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels), W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, pages 95-117:
   • This was Charles Albert de Luines, a gentleman of the country of Avignon, who was introduced to a familiarity with Louis XIII. by breaking wariangles to catch sparrows. 1768, Adrien Richer, Great events from little causes. Or, A selection of interesting and entertaining stories, drawn from the histories of different nations, etc, page 204:

Forms