scroyle

English

Etymology

Compare Old French escrouselle (“a kind of vermin”), escrouelles pl (“scrofula”), French écrouelles, from (assumed) Latin scrofulae. See scrofula, and compare cruels.

Noun

scroyle (plural scroyles)

1. (obsolete) A mean person; a wretch.
   • 1596, Shakespeare, King John:

     By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings, / And stand securely on their battlements, / As in a theatre, whence they gape and point / At your industrious scenes and acts of death.

References

• “scroyle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• OED has more quotations

Anagrams

• Colyers, Corleys, Croleys, Crosley, Croyles, Lecroys