nurdle

noun

nur·​dle ˈnər-dᵊl 

plural nurdles

: a plastic pellet (see pellet entry 1 sense 1a) that is usually less than 0.2 inch (0.5 centimeter) in diameter or length, that is the raw material from which plastic products are manufactured, and that is a common pollutant of global waters and beaches

—not used technically

Every nurdle is created to be melted down and turned into a product used by humans.

—Rachael Carlberg

The tiny pellets, nicknamed nurdles, are the most prevalent plastic trash found in coastal waters and the state's beaches.

—Kenneth R. Weiss

Tunnel's nurdle hunt on Grand Isle was in May 2019, during a very busy spring, when he and hundreds of volunteers with the "Nurdle Patrol" fanned out across the Gulf Coast to document the presence of nurdles at thousands of survey sites.

—Tristan Baurick

Examples of nurdle in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Workers in another, equally hot room fed the shreds into an extruder, which pumped out little gray pellets known as nurdles. —Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 26 June 2023

There the plastic is cleaned, chopped up, and turned into nurdles—the pellets used to make new plastic items. —Cassie Werber, Quartz, 13 June 2023

So citizens have taken up the cause. BEAVER, Pa.—Standing on the muddy edge of the Ohio River, James Cato held up a single nurdle, a plastic pellet the size of a lentil. —Kris Maher, WSJ, 19 Nov. 2022

Each nurdle found within 10 minutes is placed in a baggie or jar. —Tristan Baurick, NOLA.com, 19 Sep. 2020

Standing on the muddy edge of the Ohio River, James Cato held up a single nurdle, a plastic pellet the size of a lentil. —Kris Maher, WSJ, 19 Nov. 2022

Word History

Etymology

of expressive origin

Note: Comparison has been made with nodule and knurl (Oxford English Dictionary, third edition), but earlier the word was used in a less definite sense for synthetic packing material: "Merchandise usually arrives packed in multiple boxes and foam nurdles" (Miami Herald, June 25, 1989, p. 65); "Manufacturers seeking biodegradable packing are turning to popcorn … as a substitute for the familiar plastic nurdles" (San Pedro News-Pilot, October 31, 1990, p. 16). As a verb and noun nurdle has several earlier unrelated senses: 1) (in tiddlywinks) to shoot a wink (a small disc) so close to the pot (the target) that it cannot be flicked in; 2) (in cricket) to gently nudge the ball into empty areas of the field; 3) a plastic pipe filled with water used in nurdling, a sport in which the pipe is carried through a series of obstacles (Aldershot [England] News, July 25, 1980, p. 17); 4) a length of toothpaste extruded from the tube onto a brush. The latter usage dates from no later than 1968, when it was used in ads for a brand of toothpaste called Vote produced by Bristol-Myers: "A nurdle a day keeps the dragon [bad breath] away" (see https://beachpackagingdesign.com/boxvox/vote-toothpaste as of 3/9/2023). Nurdle figured in a lawsuit filed in July, 2010, by GlaxoSmithKline, claiming that Procter & Gamble's "Triple Action" toothpaste was an infringement of Glaxo's "Triple Protection" brand. Note that the sequence -dle \-dᵊl\ is a common ending of both nouns, where it sometimes has an instrumental sense (bridle, girdle, handle, needle, spindle), and of verbs, where the -le part continues Old English -lian, a frequentative suffix (curdle, doodle, kindle, piddle, waddle).

First Known Use

1997, in the meaning defined above