to be a churl
- idiom
- Offensive
:
ser un grosero (formal, ofensivo)
- Please don't be a churl when guests arrive at your home.
Examples
-
It's easy to be a churl when you're having a bad day, but try to be polite.
-
Don't be a churl and refuse to help!
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He was told not to be a churl in front of his grandmother.
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Why must you be a churl at the party?
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It's easy to be a churl when you're feeling stressed, but kindness goes a long way.
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He didn't mean to be a churl, but the long wait made him irritable.
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Please don't be a churl at the dinner table; we should show respect to our guests.
Synonyms
56
9.9
Treating other people in an unkind, harsh way
9
8.4
To behave rudely or meanly toward other people
1
9.9
Behave rudely and selfishly, ignoring other people's feelings
1
9.9
To act rudely and annoy other people
To treat other people rudely and think only about yourself
To behave rudely and arrogantly toward other people
To act in a rude and unhelpful way
Act in a rude, annoying way toward other people
Behave in a very rude and insulting way to other people
Behave in a very rude and thoughtless way that upsets other people
To behave very rudely and make other people angry or upset
Behave rudely and selfishly and annoy other people
Behave in a rude and stupid way
Behave in a rude, annoying, and foolish way toward other people
To behave in a rude and annoying way
To behave rudely or foolishly in a way that annoys others
To behave rudely and foolishly in a way that annoys or embarrasses people
To act in a rude, annoying way that other people dislike
To act selfishly and treat other people badly
Behave loudly and show off, for example by shouting or flashing money in Britain
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'be' + 'a' + 'churl' yields 'be a rude/ill-mannered person' because 'churl' denotes a person lacking manners and the copula construction 'be a X' is straightforward. Although 'churl' is archaic/low-frequency, the sense is transparent for a learner who already knows the constituent words and the simple noun phrase structure.
Etymology
The phrase be a churl may come from the old word churl, which once meant a poor country worker who lived a hard life and was thought to have rough manners. So to be a churl now means 'to act rude or ill-mannered'.