Spurtle
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Either of two Scottish kitchen implements made of wood: a flat one for turning oatcakes, or a stick for stirring porridge.
"One day they built a fire in the yard and made a black kettle of apple butter so big that when they stood over it and stirred the apple mash with spurtles, the scene put Ada in mind of the witches in Macbeth working at their brew."
- 1 To spurt, spatter or sputter; to spurt in a scattering manner.
"Upon the head hee lent so violent a stroke, That the poore emptie skull, like some thin potsheard broke, The braines and mingled blood, were spertled on the wall"
Example
More examples"One day they built a fire in the yard and made a black kettle of apple butter so big that when they stood over it and stirred the apple mash with spurtles, the scene put Ada in mind of the witches in Macbeth working at their brew."
Etymology
From Scots spurtle, spurtill (“potstick, spatula”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps an alteration of Middle English spatyl, spatule, from Old French espatule (“spatula”). If so, then doublet of spattle and spatula.
From spirt + -le. According to the Poly-Olbion project, coined by poet Michael Drayton in 1606.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.