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

(UK) IPA^(key): /wəʊld/
Audio (Southern England) (file)
(General American) enPR: wōld, IPA^(key): /woʊld/
Rhymes: -əʊld

Noun

wold (plural wolds)

(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 606515358, [Act III, scene iv]:
  Saint Withold footed thrice the ’old;
  He met the nightmare, and her nine fold;
- 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter 8, in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, OCLC 82790126:
  “ […] I came with my cousin, Frank Osbaldistone, there, and I must show him the way back again to the Hall, or he’ll lose himself in the wolds.”
- 1812–1818, Lord Byron, “(please specify |canto=I to IV)”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: Printed for John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], OCLC 22697011, stanza 69:
  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.
- 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “To J. S.”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], OCLC 3944791, page 158:
  The wind that beats the mountain, blows
  More softly round the open wold,
- 1847 November 1, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, Boston, Mass.: William D. Ticknor & Company, OCLC 12526426:
  Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the robin and bluebird>br>Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel came not.
- 1865, Christina Rossetti, “From Sunset to Star Rise” in Poems, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1906, p. 26,
  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,
  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,
  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.
(obsolete) A wood or forest, especially a wooded upland.

Usage notes

Used in many English placenames, always hilly tracts of land.
German Wald 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
wald

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

(UK) IPA^(key): /wəʊld/

Adjective

wold (comparative wolder, superlative woldest)

(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

Middle English

Verb

wold

Alternative spelling of wolde

Middle Low German

Noun

wôld

Alternative spelling of wôlt.