wall
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /wɔːl/
ipa: /waːl/
ipa: /wɔl/
ipa: /wɑl/
rhymes: -ɔːl
Forms: form: walls
Etymology: From Middle English wal, from Old English weall (“wall, dike, earthwork, rampart, dam, rocky shore, cliff”), from Proto-West Germanic *wall (“wall, rampart, entrenchment”), from Latin vallum (“wall, rampart, entrenchment, palisade”), from Proto-Indo-European *welH- (“to turn, wind, roll”).
Perhaps conflated with waw (“a wall within a house or dwelling, a room partition”), from Middle English wawe, from Old English wāg, wāh (“an interior wall, divider”), see waw.
Cognate with North Frisian wal (“wall”), Saterland Frisian Waal (“wall, rampart, mound”), Dutch wal (“wall, rampart, embankment”), German Wall (“rampart, mound, embankment”), Swedish vall (“mound, wall, bank”). More at wallow, walk.
Senses: glosses: A rampart of earth, stones etc. built up for defensive purposes.
examples: text: The town wall was surrounded by a moat.
text: From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much. Those entering it are greeted by wire fences, walls dating back to colonial times and security posts. For mariners leaving the port after lonely nights on the high seas, the delights of the B52 Night Club and Stallion Pub lie a stumble away.
ref: 2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 52:
glosses: A structure built for defense surrounding a city, castle etc.
examples: text: We're adding another wall in this room during the remodeling.  The wind blew against the walls of the tent.
text: […] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: Nanny Broome was looking up at the outer wall. Just under the ceiling there were three lunette windows, heavily barred and blacked out in the normal way by centuries of grime.
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 14, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
glosses: Each of the substantial structures acting either as the exterior of or divisions within a structure.
glosses: A point of desperation.
examples: text: They want Abramovich out for obvious reasons, including the optics, and they do not want to send Chelsea to the wall as they consider the club to be of cultural significance to the country.
ref: March 11 2022, David Hytner, “Chelsea are in crisis but there is no will to leave club on their knees”, in The Guardian:
glosses: A point of defeat or extinction.
examples: text: A wall of police officers met the protesters before they reached the capitol steps.
glosses: An impediment to free movement.
examples: text: Researchers found that 15 of 17 species which commonly live on farmland – including the small tortoiseshell, small skipper and wall butterfly – show declines associated with increasing neonic use.
ref: 2015 November 24, Patrick Barkham, “Pesticide may be reason butterfly numbers are falling in UK, says study”, in The Guardian:
synonyms: wall brown
glosses: The butterfly Lasiommata megera.
examples: text: a seawall; a firewall
glosses: A barrier.
examples: text: a wall of sound; a wall of water; a wall of smoke obscured their view of enemy forces
glosses: Something with the apparent solidity, opacity, or dimensions of a building wall.
examples: text: I built a wall between myself and the bullies.
glosses: A means of defence or security.
examples: text: The extraordinary thinness of the walls of these vases, which reminds us of the finest china, or even of Venetian glass
ref: 1907, Ronald M. Burrows, The Discoveries In Crete, page 60:
glosses: One of the vertical sides of a container.
examples: text: There is definitely some sort of lump on the back wall of my throat (right side).
ref: 1982 April 24, Matthew Ross, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, page 15:
text: The epidermal cells of the capsule wall of Jubulopsis, with nodose "trigones" at the angles, are very reminiscent of what one finds in Frullania spp.
ref: 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, pages 4-5:
topics: anatomy
biology
botany
medicine
natural-sciences
sciences
zoology
synonyms: paries
glosses: A dividing or containing structure in an organ or cavity.
synonyms: chandelier
glosses: A fictional bidder used to increase the price at an auction.
topics: medicine
sciences
antonyms: sieve
glosses: A doctor who tries to admit as few patients as possible.
examples: text: Blackburn were the recipients of another dose of fortune when from another Thomas pass Odemwingie was brought down by Jones inside the penalty area, but referee Mark Clattenburg awarded a free-kick which Chris Brunt slammed into the wall.
ref: 2011 January 23, Alistair Magowan, “Blackburn 2-0 West Brom”, in BBC:
topics: ball-games
games
hobbies
lifestyle
soccer
sports
glosses: A line of defenders set up between an opposing free-kick taker and the goal.
examples: text: It can also be used to maintain the presence of a wall when one of the blockers who makes up the wall is picked off by an opposing blocker attempting to shut down the wall.
ref: 2013, Ellen Parnavelas, The Roller Derby Athlete, page 48:
qualifier: roller derby
glosses: Two or more blockers skating together so as to impede the opposing team.
topics: business
mining
glosses: Any of the surfaces of rock enclosing the lode.
glosses: A personal notice board listing messages of interest to a particular user.
qualifier: roleplaying games
glosses: A character that has high defenses, thereby reducing the amount of damage taken from the opponent’s attacks.
topics: board-games
games
mahjong
glosses: Face-down tiles arranged in stacked rows from which players draw new tiles.
examples: text: Depreciation of assets happens. Prepare yourself
Marla. Get ready for the wall.
ref: 1996 December 27, “The Definitive Answer to "Why Nice Guys Finish Last"”, in alt.romance (Usenet):
text: At what age would you peg the
'wall' to be for men, on or thereabouts?
ref: 2001 February 2, “what a drag it is getting old”, in soc.singles (Usenet):
text: I have never had a problem getting the attention of men. I'm 44
and there's no wall staring me in the face
ref: 2001 June 19, “the laws of biomechanics”, in soc.singles (Usenet):
text: That was only six
years later and Natasha is not near the wall yet
ref: 2002 January 22, “towards a useful smv metric”, in soc.singles (Usenet):
text: As for the wall....Im convinced part of this is just something us guys tell ourselves to 'get back'(in our minds) at all the girls who wouldn't sleep with us 5-10 years ago
ref: 2015 July 20, “catcalls are bad”, in rec.sport.football.college (Usenet):
topics: lifestyle
seduction-community
sexuality
glosses: The stage of biological aging where physical appearance and attractiveness start to deteriorate rapidly.
examples: text: He related to me the following minute anecdote of this period: 'In the last age, when my mother lived in London, there were two sets of people, those who gave the wall, and those who took it; the peaceable and the quarrelsome. […] Now it is fixed that every man keeps to the right; or, if one is taking the wall, another yields it; and it is never a dispute.'
ref: 1791, James Boswell, Life of Johnson:
text: All persons, in walking the streets, whose right sides are next the wall, are intitled to take the wall.
ref: 1822, The Pamphleteer, page 118:
text: Taking the wall thus was also a social distinction. An entire episode in the second book is therefore dedicated “to whom to give the wall” and “to whom to refuse the wall” (II. 4564).
ref: 2017, Catharina Löffler, Walking in the City, page 135:
glosses: The right or privilege of taking the side of the road near the wall when encountering another pedestrian; said to be taken or given.
topics: cycling
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: A very steep slope.
Synonyms: sense: rampart
word: rampart
sense: fictional bidder at an auction
word: chandelier
sense: personal notice board
word: profile
Meronyms: sense: rampart
english: level walkway
translation: level walkway
word: terreplein
sense: rampart
word: parapet
sense: rampart
english: minor secondary wall protecting the terreplein
translation: minor secondary wall protecting the terreplein
word: crenellation
sense: rampart
english: area elevated above the terreplein for use by defenders
translation: area elevated above the terreplein for use by defenders
word: banquette
Derived terms: abdominal wall
accent wall
adiabatic wall
airwall
Apartheid Wall
back against the wall
backs to the wall
back to the wall
back wall
balls-to-the-wall
balls to the wall
bang one's head against a brick wall
basal wall
beat one's head against a stone wall
Berlin Wall
Bloch wall
block wall
blue wall
blue wall of silence
bounce off the walls
break the fourth wall
breast wall
brick wall
brick-wall limiter
café wall illusion
cavity wall
cell wall
cell-wall
chest wall
Chinese wall
city wall
climbing wall
climb the walls
cobwall
cookie wall
cosmic wall
crosswall
curtain wall
curtainwall
dead wall
diaphragm wall
domain wall
DonoWall
drive someone to the wall
drive someone up the wall
dry stone wall
drywall
dry wall
dwarf wall
enwall
ethical wall
eyewall
fall of the wall
feature wall
fifth wall
firewall
floodwall
flower wall
fly on the wall
footwall
force someone's back to the wall
forewall
forwall
fourth wall
fourth-wall
fourth wall joke
fourth-wall joke
four-wall
front wall
fruit wall
get the wall
glory wall
go to the wall
Great Wall of China
green wall
groundwall
Hadrian's Wall
handwriting on the wall
hanging wall
hardwall
harsh noise wall
headwall
head wall
Heddon-on-the-Wall
highwall
hit a brick wall
hit a wall
hit the wall
hole-in-the-wall
hot wall
house-wall
house wall
interwall
inwall
jersey wall
Jersey wall
knee wall
know someone from a hole in the wall
ladder wall
ledger wall
like speaking to a brick wall
like speaking to a wall
like talking to a brick wall
like talking to a wall
living wall
login wall
longwall
maternal wall
midwall
mudwall
multiwall
nail Jell-O to a wall
nail someone to the wall
nanowall
Néel wall
office-wall
office wall
off-the-wall
off the wall
outwall
paper wall
paperwall
party wall
passwall
paywall
peace wall
pellitory of the wall
pick bids off the wall
piss money up the wall
piss something up the wall
pitwall
pony wall
potwaller
power wall
primary cell wall
prison wall
pushwall
rat wall
red wall
registration wall
retaining wall
rewall
Rockwall
rope wall
run into a brick wall
screen wall
sea wall
seawall
secondary cell wall
service wall
shearwall
shear wall
shield wall
shortwall
sidewall
side wall
softwall
sound wall
Spanish wall
spite wall
stakewall
stare at the wall
Stonewall
stone-wall
stonewall
stone wall
storagewall
storage wall
streetwall
talk to a brick wall
text wall
the apples on the other side of the wall are the sweetest
the handwriting is on the wall
the writing is on the wall
thoracic wall
throw enough mud at the wall and some of it will stick
throw one's hat over the wall
throw spaghetti against the wall
throw spaghetti at the wall
throw things at the wall and see what sticks
tieback wall
toe wall
town wall
training wall
tribute wall
Trombe wall
tsunami wall
unwall
up against the wall
up the wall
up the walls
wag-at-the-wall
wag-on-the-wall
wall angel
wallball
wall barley
wall bars
wallbird
wall board
wallboard
wallbox
wall brown
wall cake
wall charger
wallchart
wall chart
wall chaser
wall clock
wall cloud
wallcovering
wall covering
wallcrawl
wall crawler
wall-crawler
wallcrawler
wallcrawling
wallcreeper
wallcrossing
wall energy
waller
wallette
wall-eyed
wall fan
wallfish
wall-flower
wall flower
wallflower
wallful
wall game
wall gecko
wall gun
wallhack
wallhacker
wallhacking
wall hanger
wall hanging
wallhanging
wall humping
wall jump
wall kick
wall-less
wallless
walllike
wall lizard
wall moss
wall-mounted
wall newspaper
wall of death
wall of shame
wall of silence
wall of sound
wall of text
wall-painting
wall paper
wallpaper
wall-pecker
wallpepper
wall piece
wall plate
wall plug
wallpress
wall railing
wall ride
wall rocket
wall-rocket
wallscape
wallscreen
wall screw-moss
Wallsend
wall-shade
walls have ears
wallside
wall-sided
wall sit
wall socket
wall spring
wallstead
Wall Street
wall table
wall time
walltop
wall-to-wall
wall tower
wall unit
wallure
wall walk
wallward
wallwards
wall wart
warped wall
waterwall
whitewall
wing wall
writing on the wall