wold
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /wəʊld/
enpr: wōld
ipa: /woʊld/
rhymes: -əʊld
Forms: form: wolds
Etymology: 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.
Cognates
See also Saterland Frisian Woold (“forest”), West Frisian wâld (“forest”), Bavarian Woid (“forest”), Cimbrian balt (“forest”), Dutch woud (“forest”), German Wald (“forest”), German Low German Woold, Woolt (“forest”), Luxembourgish Wal (“forest”), Mòcheno bòlt (“forest”), Yiddish וואַלד (vald, “forest”), Danish vold (“field, meadow”), val (“plain”), Faroese vøllur (“field, lawn”), Icelandic völlur (“field, lawn”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk voll (“field, meadow”), Swedish vall (“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.
Senses: examples: text: Saint Withold footed thrice the ’old;
He met the nightmare, and her nine fold;
ref: 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]:
text: […]—I came with my cousin, Frank Osbaldistone, there, and I must shew him the way back again to the Hall, or he’ll lose himself in the wolds.
ref: 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter VIII, in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 180:
text: And therefore did he take a trusty band
To traverse Acarnania forest wide,
In war well-seasoned, and with labours tanned,
Till he did greet white Achelous’ tide,
And from his farther bank Ætolia’s wolds espied.
ref: 1812–1818, Lord Byron, “(please specify |canto=I to IV)”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, stanza 69:
text: The wind that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold,
ref: 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “To J. S.”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 158:
text: Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the robin and bluebird
Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel came not.
ref: 1847 November 1, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, Boston, Mass.: William D. Ticknor & Company, →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 1865, Christina Rossetti, “From Sunset to Star Rise”, in Poems, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., published 1906, page 26:
text: Before yon field of trembling gold
Is garnered into dusty sheaves,
Or ere the autumn’s scarlet leaves
Flutter as birds adown the wold,
ref: 1881, Oscar Wilde, “Rome Unvisited”, in Poems, 12th edition, London: Methuen & Co., published 1913, page 48:
text: 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.
ref: 1942, Neville Shute, chapter 8, in Pied Piper, New York: William Morrow & Co:
glosses: An unforested or deforested plain, a grassland, a moor.
glosses: A wood or forest, especially a wooded upland.
Derived terms: Æthelwold of Winchester
Barnetby le Wold
Cotswolds
Foston on the Wolds
Lincolnshire Wolds
Middleton-on-the-Wolds
Stanton-on-the-Wolds
Stow-on-the-Wold
Waltham on the Wolds
wolder
Yorkshire Wolds
Related terms: weald
wald