(a.) Like a churl; rude; cross-grained; ungracious; surly; illiberal; niggardly.
(a.) Wanting pliancy; unmanageable; unyielding; not easily wrought; as, a churlish soil; the churlish and intractable nature of some minerals.
Example Sentences:
(1) And maybe you'll ask how she is, rather than simply responding to her questions with churlish, one-word answers.
(2) Surely it would be churlish now for MPs not to take him at his word, and demand a clear explanation from Starbucks and the other multinationals that, at first glance at least, appear to be gaming Britain's tax system?
(3) Dan Ashworth, David Gill and I have carried out a thorough process in the last three weeks and ultimately we could not look beyond Sam as the ideal candidate.” Allardyce performed a minor miracle to save Sunderland from relegation after succeeding Dick Advocaat last October but, in a terse statement which will interpreted as churlish, the Wearside club failed to reference his contribution, let alone thank him or offer their good wishes.
(4) Magnus Thue, a government adviser, tweeted: “The clown is ousted as chairman.” He later offered an apology in another tweet, claiming it was “churlish”.
(5) Jonathan Ford, chief executive of the Football Association of Wales, said some Ifab members did consider whether an outright ban would be "a little bit churlish".
(6) But right now (and despite those gathering storm-clouds) it seems churlish to argue against her brand of old-school artistic patronage.
(7) I've never celebrated any of the times it has posted record profits, so it does feel a bit churlish to berate it for not making quite as much money this time.
(8) Lewis said it would be "churlish" of Labour to resist Patten's appointment, but while accepting the peer had the "experience and credibility" to do the job, he said his party's support would "be conditional" on the peer meeting a series of tests, including clarifying his business and political interests.
(9) In a post-crash, post-expenses-scandal world, it would be churlish not to recognise that on some issues the Liberal Democrats have hit a nerve.
(10) The corner isn't much of an event, but so good has the entertainment been, it'd be churlish to moan too much.
(11) That is not churlishness or ingratitude, but a mark of the country’s real progress.
(12) His award of a Nobel prize in economics was richly deserved - even if he was churlish in accepting it (he said after winning: "I would not want a professional judgment of my scientific work to be those seven people who selected me for the award").
(13) You'd have to be pretty churlish to pick on one that has raised thousands of pounds for breast cancer care.
(14) For years we've been arguing that Sky makes all this money and it should use it to fund original content, so I think it's cheap and churlish point scoring to ignore them or want them to fail.
(15) Towards the close of our session in the holding cells it seemed churlish for there not to be a little banter with Karadzic.
(16) It seemed churlish to point out that sometimes you really do need to be careful what you wish for or that Newcastle had not proved that hot at strategy in recent years.
(17) It seems churlish to be critical when so many people, for whom Brent Cross must seem as ancient as Canterbury cathedral, will say this is the best place they have ever been.
(18) To criticise a business that has just pumped out profits of £2.5bn on sales of £44.6bn may seem churlish but UK industry data has shown Tesco's underlying growth lagging behind that of peers such as Sainsbury's and Morrisons for several years.
(19) At an ebullient Nick Clegg's side at the agreement's launch, David Cameron reproached the "churlish" media for not giving credit where it was due.
(20) Let's not be churlish when there's much to celebrate.
Tread
Definition:
(v. i.) To set the foot; to step.
(v. i.) To walk or go; especially, to walk with a stately or a cautious step.
(v. i.) To copulate; said of birds, esp. the males.
(v. t.) To step or walk on.
(v. t.) To beat or press with the feet; as, to tread a path; to tread land when too light; a well-trodden path.
(v. t.) To go through or accomplish by walking, dancing, or the like.
(v. t.) To crush under the foot; to trample in contempt or hatred; to subdue.
(v. t.) To copulate with; to feather; to cover; -- said of the male bird.
(n.) A step or stepping; pressure with the foot; a footstep; as, a nimble tread; a cautious tread.
(n.) Manner or style of stepping; action; gait; as, the horse has a good tread.
(n.) Way; track; path.
(n.) The act of copulation in birds.
(n.) The upper horizontal part of a step, on which the foot is placed.
(n.) The top of the banquette, on which soldiers stand to fire over the parapet.
(n.) The part of a wheel that bears upon the road or rail.
(n.) The part of a rail upon which car wheels bear.
(n.) The chalaza of a bird's egg; the treadle.
(n.) A bruise or abrasion produced on the foot or ankle of a horse that interferes. See Interfere, 3.
Example Sentences:
(1) Will it continue treading water, deciding cases in pretty much the same way as the law lords used to do - although using blunter language?
(2) He has to tread some of the same path as Joe Biden but without the posturing and aggression.
(3) I'm not in the least ambitious, never have been, and I don't tread on people.
(4) Dombey treads proudly towards his doom with the author's unheard warnings ringing in his ears.
(5) Admittedly, there has been a bit of sour grapes in the English response to the success of Dempsey et al, and no doubt we will be treading those grapes into wine and drinking ourselves into oblivion if Team USA get much further – they are, as today's typically excitable NY Daily News front page informs us, now just "four wins from glory" .
(6) Kristen Woolf, girl-centred practice and strategy director, The Girl Hub , London, UK, @girleffect Don't lose focus on girls: Very clearly men and boys have got to be a central component of the solution, but we need to tread carefully here not to lose the focus on equality and empowerment for girls and women.
(7) Incongruous and illusory depth cues, arising from 'interference patterns' produced by overlapping linear grids at the edges of escalator treads, may contribute to the disorientation experienced by some escalator users, which in turn may contribute to the causes of some of the many escalator accidents which occur.
(8) This assignment to Cairo had been relatively routine - an opportunity to get to know Egyptian politics a little better; but with only three weeks on the ground, hardly time to do anything other than tread water.
(9) UK schools are treading water when we know that matching the very best could boost the growth rate by one percentage point every year.
(10) A noninvasive criterion of occlusions of the lower limb arteries was elaborated from the results of transcutaneous measurement of oxygen tension (TmO2) during treading on a treadmill.
(11) 1982) suggested to require DA (head weaving, reciprocal forepaw treading).
(12) But the oxygen saturations on swimming were in all patients higher than after tread-wheel exercise.
(13) The changes at CDC, which is supposed to invest where other investors fear to tread, follow criticism of the organisation for focusing too much on profits and not enough on development.
(14) Now he’s remarried, with a young, new family, and treading the boards on Broadway.
(15) These figures illustrate how millions of people are treading water, struggling to keep afloat and afford the very basics.
(16) It was only when I was criticized for writing science fiction that I realized I was treading on sacred ground."
(17) That line is trickier to tread for working-class comics, into which category Bishop – with a Liverpool accent so rich it's got calories – falls.
(18) We tread a fine line and, because each picture is judged on its merits on the day, it is very difficult to have hard and fast rules.
(19) Where German officials have feared to tread, dramatists have rushed in.
(20) That doesn’t mean no one should ever criticise Israel, for fear of treading on Jewish sensitivities.