| 释义 |
hirsel, n. Sc. and north. dial.|ˈhɜːsəl|
Forms: 4 hirsill, hyresel, hersale, 5 hyrsale, 8– hirsel, (8 hirdsell, hirsle, 9 her-, hirsell).
[ad. ON. hirzla from hirðsla custody, safe-keeping, f. hirða to herd, tend (sheep, etc.); but the north. Eng. and Sc. word has always been concrete, and intimately connected in sense with hird, herd2.]
1. a. The flock of sheep under the charge of a shepherd; the entire stock of sheep on one farm.
1366Durham Halm. Rolls (Surtees) 55 Ordinatum est..quod quilibet eorum teneat hirsill' et quod custodiant porcos..citra..ne quis eorum teneat porcos absque hirsill'. 1378Ibid. 148 Quilibet teneat hirsill cum porcis. 1728Ramsay Robert Richy & S. 4 Tenting his hirsle on the moorland green. 1737― Sc. Prov. (1776) 10 (Jam.) Ae scabbed sheep will smit the hale hirdsell. 1853G. Johnston Nat. Hist. E. Bord. I. 95 A hirsel of sheep animates the moor above. 1893Northumbld. Gloss., Hirsel, the general sheep stock belonging to a hill stock-farmer.
b. fig. A spiritual flock, a church.
c1375Sc. Leg. Saints, Petrus 670 Hyrde of goddis hersale all! Ibid., Jacobus Minor 848 Þat mene ine þis hale world sal se Bot a hyrde & a hyresel be. 1880A. Somerville Autobiog. 26, I had an easy hirsel and never wearied.
c. The ground occupied by a flock of sheep.
1822Scott Nigel III. ii. 50 Being in a strange country, like a poor lamb that has wandered from its own native hirsel. 1856J. C. Morton Cycl. Agric. II. 723/2. 1886 C. Scott Sheep-Farming 122 He will be able to divide the hill into ‘hirsels’, and the hirsel again into ‘cuts’. 1922Glasgow Herald 16 Dec. 4 There they are fed for days..till the hirsels are green again. 1944G. Henderson Farming Ladder i. 28 A mountain sheep farm, or hirsel, is selected in such a manner that food and shelter can be obtained by the stock. 1965Punch 3 Mar. 325/2 The Welsh fridd system, which keeps sheltered grazing fresh for lambing time, is so much better than the Scottish hirsel (where the flock grazes all the year round on one hill) that is rapidly winning popularity.
2. transf. A company or number to look after; a ‘lot’ of persons or things of one kind.
c1425Wyntoun Cron. viii. xi. 33 Thai thowcht for-thi mare honesté..to sla thame [prisoners] in mellé, Than swilke ane hyrsalle for till hald. 1808–80Jamieson s.v., It is common to speak of a hirsell of folk, a hirsell of bairns, etc. 1818Hogg Brownie of B. I. 160 (Jam.) Ye're just telling a hirsel o'eendown lees. a1845Hodgson MS. in Northumbld. Gloss. s.v., A great hirsel of wood or of corn stacks.
Hence hirsel v. (Sc. and north.) trans. to arrange in hirsels, form a hirsel of.
1794–5Statist. Acc. Scotl., Dumfries XIII. 573 (Jam.) In these [farms] there is room to hirsel or keep separate different kinds of sheep. 1802C. Findlater Agric. Surv. Peebles 195 (Jam.) The principles of hirseling are, to class into separate flocks such sheep as are endowed with different abilities. 1805A. Scott Poems 14 (Jam.) When a' the rout gat hirsel'd right. |