Shiel

//ʃiːl// name, noun, verb

name, noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A shepherd's hut or shieling.
2
A cottage.
"The craik amang the claver hay, The pairtrick whirrin o'er the ley, The swallow jinkin round my shiel, Amuse me at my spinnin wheel."

Verb

1
To use a place as a shieling. intransitive
"Patrick Robertson, who shieled on the Atholl side of Drumochter, confirmed this practice: his cattle 'continued there till about midsummer, when they were brought down to his farm, having continued there about three weeks, and were then sent back to the shealing."

Proper Noun

1
A surname. countable, uncountable
2
A short river in Highland council area, Scotland, which flows from Loch Shiel to Loch Moidart. countable, uncountable
3
A river in Glen Shiel, further north in Highland council area. countable, uncountable

"The craik amang the claver hay, The pairtrick whirrin o'er the ley, The swallow jinkin round my shiel, Amuse me at my spinnin wheel."

Etymology 1

From Middle English schele. Akin to Old Frisian skiāle (“stable”) and Old Norse skjōl (“shelter”). See also sheal.

Etymology 2

Variant of Shield or Shields.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.