v. Chiefly Anglo-Irish. Also streal. [Cf. Irish straoillim, to trail, drag along the ground.] intr. To trail on the ground; to stream, float at length. Also of persons, to stroll, wander aimlessly. Hence Streeling ppl. a.
1839. Carleton, Fardorougha, i. 13. It ’s on your knees you ought to be this same night,… an’ not grumblin’ an’ sthreelin’ about the place.
1841. Fraser’s Mag., XXIV. 216. No great, long, strealing, tails of periods,—no staring peonies and hollyhocks of illustrations.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xx. She had earrings like chandeliers; you might have lighted ’em up, by Jove—and a yellow satin train that streeled after her like the tail of a comet.
1884. G. H. Boughton, in Harper’s Mag., Oct., 713/2. The streeling lines of flapping wings and their rasping bronchial note accorded well with the lines and the color note of the picture.
1885. ‘Lucas Malet,’ Col. Enderby’s Wife, IV. IV. Across the lawn there drifted one of those streeling milk-white gossamers.
1892. Jane Barlow, Irish Idylls, iii. 66. Everybody else thought that … they would have him streeling home again in a couple of days.
