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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

purlieu.

The ground on the edges of a forest, especially when partly subject to the same forest laws concerning game hunting etc.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈpɜːljuː/Received-Pronunciation/ˈpɝl(j)u/General-American
  1. The ground on the edges of a forest, especially when partly subject to the same forest laws concerning game hunting etc.

    historical
  2. The outskirts of any place; an adjacent district; the environs or neighborhood; milieu.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English purlewe (“piece of land on the edge of a forest”), modification under the influence of Old French lieu (“place”) of porale, purale (“royal perambulation”), from Old French porale, from poraler (“to traverse”), from por- (“forth”) (from Latin prō-) + aler, aller (“to go”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.