wold

See also: Wold

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English wald, wold, from Old English wald, weald (“highland covered with trees, wood, forest”), from Proto-West Germanic *walþu, from Proto-Germanic *walþuz, from Proto-Indo-European *wel(ə)-t-. Doublet of weald.

Related terms

See also Norwegian voll (“field, meadow”), Welsh gwallt (“hair”), Lithuanian váltis (“oat awn”), Serbo-Croatian vlât (“ear (of wheat)”), Ancient Greek λάσιος (lásios, “hairy”)); also the related term weald.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wəʊld/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• enPR: wōld, IPA^(key): /woʊld/
• Rhymes: -əʊld

Noun

wold (plural wolds)

1. (archaic, regional) An unforested or deforested plain, a grassland, a moor.
   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]:

     Saint Withold footed thrice the ’old;
     He met the nightmare, and her nine fold;

   • 1865, Christina Rossetti, “From Sunset to Star Rise” in Poems, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1906, p. 26,^[1]

     Take counsel, sever from my lot your lot,

     Dwell in your pleasant places, hoard your gold;

     Lest you with me should shiver on the wold,

     Athirst and hungering on a barren spot.

   • 1881, Oscar Wilde, “Rome Unvisited” in Poems, London: Methuen & Co., 12th edition, 1913, p. 48,^[2]

     Before yon field of trembling gold

     Is garnered into dusty sheaves,

     Or ere the autumn’s scarlet leaves

     Flutter as birds adown the wold,

   • 1942, Neville Shute, Pied Piper, New York: William Morrow & Co., Chapter 8,^[3]

     It seemed to be a fairly large and prosperous farm, grouped round a modest country house standing among trees as shelter from the wind. About it rolled the open pasture of the wold, as far as could be seen.

2. (obsolete) A wood or forest, especially a wooded upland.

Usage notes

• Used in many English placenames, always hilly tracts of land.
• Wald (German) is a cognate, but a false friend because it retains the original meaning of forest.

Derived terms

• Barnetby le Wold
• Cotswolds
• Foston on the Wolds
• Lincolnshire Wolds
• Stanton-on-the-Wolds
• Stow-on-the-Wold
• Waltham on the Wolds
• wolder
• Yorkshire Wolds

 

Related terms

• weald

References

• OED 2nd edition 1989

Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wəʊld/

Adjective

wold (comparative wolder, superlative woldest)

1. (archaic, dialect, West Country, Dorset, Devon) Old.
   • 1873, Elijah Kellogg, Sowed by the Wind: Or, The Poor Boy's Fortune, Boston: Lee and Shepard, page 19:

     "[A] girt wind had a-blowed the wold tree auver, so that his head were in the water."

   • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, volume 1, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., page 7:

     "I've got a wold silver spoon, and a wold graven seal at home, too; but, Lord, what's a graven seal?"

Anagrams

• dowl, lowd, owld

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Middle English

Verb

wold

1. Alternative spelling of wolde

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Middle Low German

Noun

wôld

1. Alternative spelling of wôlt.