![]() So that places the word squarely on the left coast of Britain, not North America. 1" refers to the following bibliography entry: I 'a bin up all night an fare kienda owly this morning. However, The English Dialect Dictionary: M-Q from 1903 has the following quote: Think of a grumpy faced owl, that's being owlie. When my mother called me to get up and get ready for school, I yelled "Do you have to be so loud?" She said, "Oh, feeling owly this morning, are we?" owly (punctuation and capitalization edited) ![]() One of the Urban Dictionary entries asserts that "owly" is common in Nova Scotia: All the three dictionaries below say that owly is a word in Suffolk dialect. ![]() The meaning might have expanded in time or this usage might be unrelated and archaic in British English. Coupled with the owl’s intense, piercing stare, you have a perfect visual metaphor for someone in a persistently implacable bad mood.Īn older dialectal dictionary gives the meaning as stupid and tired for owly and sleepy and stupid for owlish. Many species of owl have tufts of feathers above their eyes, making the bird resemble a little man with his brow furrowed in disapproval and annoyance. “Owly” as a synonym for “cranky” or “irritable” appears to draw on another aspect of the owl’s appearance. The Oxford English Dictionary lists “owly” first as a synonym of “owlish,” meaning, literally, “resembling an owl,” but usually applied to people who exhibit an unblinking, calm (but often critical) gaze, similar to that of a wide-eyed owl (“The little man with his most owlish air of wisdom,” I. Since at least the mid-19th century, “owly” has been a colloquial term meaning “cranky, cross, angry or fretful.” It’s considered a regional usage, found largely in eastern Canada and the Upper Midwest of the US. Such is the case with “owly,” which is indeed how it’s spelled. It also relates the term to owl's appearance: The Word Detective also talks about the origin of this term based on a question asked by a Nova Scotian whose mother called her and her sister "owly" when they were in irritable moods. There is a strong evidence that it might be originated from Nova Scotia or around that region in colloquial usage: They look grumpy! (at least most of them).
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