Sc. and north. dial. [Apparently related to TIRVE v.1 and TIRR v. in same senses; perh. orig. a freq. *tyrflian: cf. whirl from hwirfl-.]
1. trans. To roll or turn back, pull or strip off (a garment or the clothes from a person, his back, etc.; the bed-clothes from a bed; the thatch or roof from a house, stack, etc.).
a. 1500. Priests Peblis, 993. Off his coate thay tirlit be the croun.
1810. Cromek’s Rem. Nithsdale Song, 33. The wind blaws loud and tirls our strae.
1819. W. Tennant, Papistry Storm’d (1827), 211. Nae thing was prosperin’ there and thrivin’, But tirlin’ roofs and rafter-rivin’.
1826. L. Proudlock, Poet. Wks., Cuddie & Crawin’ Hen, 43.
| While hail and rain pour’d down amain | |
| Without the heath-rooft biggin’, | |
| And winds loud blew, wi’ fury flew, | |
| And threat to tirl its riggin’. |
1835. Hogg, Tales & Sk. (1837), V. 275. He was tied to a tree, and his shirt tirled over his head.
1880. Antrim & Down Gloss., s.v. Tirl, thirl, The wun’ thirled the thatch las’ nicht.
1894. Northumbld. Gloss., s.v., To ‘tirl the bed-claes,’ to strip off the bed-clothes.
2. To uncover by rolling back the covering; to strip (a person) naked; to unroof (a building): often tirl naked, tirl bare.
1721. Ramsay, Lucky Spence, x. Suppose then they should tirle ye bare, And gar ye fike, E’en learn to thole.
1785. Burns, Addr. to Deil, iv. Whyles on the strong-wing’d tempest flyin, Tirlin the kirks.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., xxiii. Our folk had tirled the dead dragoons as bare as bawbees.
1843. Nicholson, Hist. & Trad. Tales, 120. Wi’ hideous yells she filled the air, And tirled Simon’s cottage bare.
b. To uncover (the peat in a moss, the stone in a quarry, etc.) by removing the surface soil, overlying earth, clay, etc.; to lay bare (anything) by removing its covering.
1815. Pennecuik’s Wks., 71, note. After removing the surface soil with the roots of the heath, or ling, growing on it (called the tirling of the moss).
1816. Scott, Antiq., xxiii. ‘If your honours are thinking of tirling the floor,’ said old Edie, ‘… I would begin below that muckle stane.’
Mod. Sc. About 1845 a new section of Denholm Hill Freestone Quarry was tirled.
