varsal

English

Etymology

Short for universal.

Adjective

varsal (not comparable)

1. (obsolete, colloquial, usually with world) Whole, entire.
   • 1731, Jonathan Swift, A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation:

     Why, my Lord, you see he's the provokingest Creature in Life: I believe, there is not such another in the varsal World.

   • 1826, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, The Rose, Thistle and Shamrock, act III, scene II:

     Now I would give five golden guineas this minute, that her father or any mortal man, woman or child in the varsal world, would come in and say something; for 'tis so awk'ard for I to be sitting here, and I nothing to say to she.

   • 1855, Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South:

     Yo' see, if yo'd spoken o' religion as a thing that, if it was true, it didn't concern all men to press on all men's attention, above everything else in this 'varsal earth, I should ha' thought yo' a knave for to be a parson; and I'd rather think yo' a fool than a knave.

References

• “Varsal” listed on page 56 of volume X, part II (V–Z) of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles [1st ed., 1928]

Anagrams

• Ravals, alvars, arvals, larvas, lavras, salvar