squally

adj

1. Characterized by squalls, or sudden violent bursts of wind; gusty.

   “On the eighth of February the winds grew ſtrong and ſqually, accompanied with rain and a north-weſt ſwell;[…].”

   “Feb. 9. 1820.[…]The night was rather squally and cloudy, with occasional showers.”

   “Within three days, having sailed into increasingly squally winds but still with extremely high temperatures, Arndell found himself kept busy with renewed bouts of seasickness.”

2. Producing or characteristic of loud wails.

   “Something whimpered in the room—high and squally.”

   “One baby was three times as big as his brother and different in other ways. He wasn't bald and squinched and squally like most infants, but had a nimbus of red-gold hair and huge gray eyes and lay there smiling to himself.”

   ““Well,” he said, “if I can't have a Buick, I'll at least have a son.” When I was born, he very quickly saw that I was a scrawny, squally baby girl. I was not a Buick, and I was not his son.”

3. (UK, obsolete)Having unproductive wet spots due to poor drainage.

   “Red bird eyne (Primula veris flore rubro), and white bird eyne (albo), p. 784 , grow very plentifully in moist and squally grounds in the north parts of England, as in Harwood neere to Blackburn in Lancashire, and ten miles from Preston in Aundernesse, also at Crosby Rauenswaith, and Crag-close in Westmoreland.”

   “This method is accounted the best and cheapest way of hollow ditching, or draining, and will make the wettest squally land fit to bring very good corn, or to be laid down for grass, or other uses.”

   “They grow in my garden, where they flourish exceedingly, except Butterwoort, which groweth in our English squally wet grounds,”

4. Not equally good throughout; not uniform; uneven; faulty.

   “It is enacted, That if at any time after the first day of May, any cloth or kerſie, through the default or negligence of the carders, spinners or weavers, or any of them, shall or do prove pursy, cockly, bandy, squally or rowy by warp or woof, […]”