squailer

English

Etymology

squail +‎ -er

Noun

squailer (plural squailers)

1. A weighted stick used to throw, usually at small animals.
   • 1962 [1939], George Orwell, Coming Up for Air, London: Victor Gollancz, page 56 (in Penguin edition):

     They [the boys] all had catapults and squailers […]. In summer they used to go fishing and bird-nesting.

Usage notes

• squalar a possible misspelling from William Morris, a Life for Our Time, Fiona MacCarthy, (1994, Faber & Faber, London):

The wilder boys [from Marlborough College] raged around the neighbourhood in gangs 'with knobbed sticks and squalars, with jackets buttoned tight up to their throat, and a look of pluck and determination on their faces'. The squalar was a ferocious home-made weapon consisting of a piece of lead the size and shape of a pear with an eighteen-inch cane handle'

Related terms

• squail

References

• George Edward Dartnell, Edward Hungerford Goddard, A Glossary of Words Used in the County of Wiltshire (1893)

Anagrams

• quailers