wall
/wɔːl/ noun, verb, proper noun
Also a form of well
Forms walls walling walled the Wall
- noun A rampart of earth, stones etc. built up for defensive purposes.
- noun A structure built for defense surrounding a city, castle etc. “The town wall was surrounded by a moat.”
- noun Each of the substantial structures acting either as the exterior of or divisions within a structure. “We're adding another wall in this room during the remodeling. The wind blew against the walls of the tent.”
- noun A point of desperation.
- noun A point of defeat or extinction.
- noun An impediment to free movement. “A wall of police officers met the protesters before they reached the capitol steps.”
- noun The butterfly Lasiommata megera.
- noun (often in combination) A barrier. “a seawall; a firewall”
- verb (transitive) To enclose with, or as if with, a wall or walls. “He walled the study with books.”
- verb (video games, slang) To use a wallhack.
- verb (video games, slang, transitive) To wallbang. “I walled her. She's low [health].”
- verb To boil.
- verb To well, as water; spring.
- noun (chiefly dialectal) A spring of water.
- noun (nautical) A kind of knot often used at the end of a rope; a wall knot or wale.
- verb (transitive, nautical) To make a wall knot on the end of (a rope).
- proper noun A surname.
- proper noun A village in Gwinear-Gwithian parish, south-west Cornwall (OS grid ref SW6036).
- proper noun A village and civil parish in south Northumberland (OS grid ref NY9169); part of Hadrian's Wall is in the parish.
- proper noun A village and civil parish in the City of Lichfield district, Staffordshire (OS grid ref SK0906).
Synonyms
rampart wall brown paries chandelier profile bulwark palisade fence fence in surround
Antonyms
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.
From Middle English wallen, from Old English weallan (“to bubble, boil”), from Proto-West Germanic *wallan, from Proto-Germanic *wallaną (“to fount, stream, boil”), from Proto-Indo-European *welH- (“wave”).
Cognate with Middle Dutch wallen (“to boil, bubble”), Dutch wellen (“to weld”), German wellen (“to wave, warp”), Danish vælde (“to overwhelm”), Swedish välla (“to gush, weld”). See also well.
From Middle English walle, from Old English *wealla, *weall (“spring”), from Proto-Germanic *wallô, *wallaz (“well, spring”). See above. Cognate with Old Frisian walla (“spring”), Old English wiell (“well”).
Of various origins, principally from Old English wælisc etc. ("non-Germanic speaker, stranger") from Proto-Germanic *walhaz (“foreigner, stranger”), the source of numerous other surnames such as Walsh and Wales and from Middle English wall, from Old English weall (“wall, dike, rampart”), from Proto-Germanic *wallaz or *wallą (“wall, rampart”), from Latin vallum (“wall, rampart, palisade”), from Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“to turn, wind, roll”). Also from transcribed foreign surnames such as German Wahl and Swedish Wahlberg.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A kind of knot often used at the end of a rope; a wall knot; a wale. Wall knot, a knot made by unlaying the strands of a rope, and making a bight with the first strand, then passing the second over the end of the first, and the third over the end of the second and through the bight of the first; a wale knot. Wall knots may be single or double, crowned or double-crowned.
- noun A work or structure of stone, brick, or other materials, raised to some height, and intended for defense or security, solid and permanent inclosing fence, as around a field, a park, a town, etc., also, one of the upright inclosing parts of a building or a room.
- noun A defense; a rampart; a means of protection; in the plural, fortifications, in general; works for defense.
- verb To inclose with a wall, or as with a wall. "Seven walled towns of strength." Shak.
Etymology [AS. weall, from L. vallum a wall, vallus a stake, pale, palisade; akin to Gr. Interval.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “wall”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details