hale
adjectivenounverbcommon in dialogue
- //heɪl//
To drag or pull, especially forcibly.
adjective
- 1
datedSound, entire, healthy; robust, not impaired.
His stomach too begins to fail: / Last year we thought him strong and hale; / But now he's quite another thing: / I wish he may hold out till spring!
"Good morrow to thee, jolly fellow," quoth Robin, "thou seemest happy this merry morn." / "Ay, that am I," quoth the jolly Butcher, "and why should I not be so? Am I not hale in wind and limb? Have I not the bonniest lass in all Nottinghamshire? And lastly, am I not to be married to her on Thursday next in sweet Locksley Town?"
Etymology
From Northern Middle English hal, hale, variants of hole (“healthy; safe; whole”, whence whole), from Old English hāl, from Proto-West Germanic *hail, from Proto-Germanic *hailaz (“whole; entire; healthy”). See whole for more.
noun
- 1
archaicHealth, welfare.
Then let them vale a bonet of their proud ſayle, / And of their taunting toies reſt with il hayle.
Eftſoones all heedleſſe of his deareſt hale, / Full greedily into the heard he thruſt: / To ſlaughter them, and vvorke their finall bale, / Leaſt that his toyle ſhould of their troups be bruſt.
Etymology
From Middle English hale, an alteration of hele (“health”) after Etymology 1. Cognate with Scots hale (“health”), German Heil (“salvation, well-being”).
verb
- 1
To drag or pull, especially forcibly.
For I had beene vilely hurried and haled by those poore men, which had taken the paines to carry me upon their armes a long and wearysome way, and to say truth, they had all beene wearied twice or thrice over, and were faine to shift severall times.
A ſpacious Breach we make, and Troy’s proud Wall / Built by the Gods, by our own hands doth fall; / Thus, all their help to their own Ruin give, / Some draw with Cords, and ſome the Monſter drive / With Rolls and Leavers, thus our Works it climbs, / Big with our Fate, the Youth with Songs and Rhimes, / Some dance, ſome hale the Rope; at laſt let down / It enters with a thund’ring Noiſe the Town.
The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom / —As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim— / Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood / From these pale feet, which then might trample thee / If they disdained not such a prostrate slave.
By night we dragg'd her to the college tower / From her warm bed, and up the corkscrew stair / With hand and rope we haled the groaning sow, / And on the leads we kept her till she pigg'd.
Etymology
From Middle English halen, from Anglo-Norman haler, from Old Dutch *halon (compare Dutch halen), from Proto-Germanic *halōną (compare Old English ġeholian, West Frisian helje, German holen), from Proto-Indo-European *kelH- (“to lift”) (compare Latin ex-cellō (“to surpass”), Tocharian B käly- (“to stand, stay”), Albanian qell (“to halt, hold up, carry”), Lithuanian kélti (“to raise up”), Ancient Greek κελέοντες (keléontes, “upright beam on a loom”)). Doublet of haul.
Forms
- comparative
- haler
- superlative
- halest
- past tense
- haled
- past participle
- haled
- present participle
- haling
- third person singular
- hales
hale · To drag or pull, especially forcibly.
Hale · A topographic surname from Old English.Haley · A surname from Old English, variant of Hayley, a common…half · One of two usually roughly equal parts into which anything…