different between wall vs rail

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /w??l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /w?l/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /w?l/
• Rhymes: -??l

Etymology 1

From Middle English wall, from Old English weall (“wall, dike, earthwork, rampart, dam, rocky shore, cliff”), from Proto-Germanic *wallaz, *wall? (“wall, rampart, entrenchment”), from Latin vallum (“wall, rampart, entrenchment, palisade”), from Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“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 w?g, w?h (“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.

Noun

wall (plural walls)

1. A rampart of earth, stones etc. built up for defensive purposes.
2. A structure built for defense surrounding a city, castle etc.
3. Each of the substantial structures acting either as the exterior of or divisions within a structure.
4. A point of desperation.
5. A point of defeat or extinction.
6. An impediment to free movement.

7. A type of butterfly (Lasiommata megera).
8. (often in combination) A barrier.

9. A barrier to vision.
10. Something with the apparent solidity and dimensions of a building wall.

11. (anatomy, zoology, botany) A divisive or containing structure in an organ or cavity.
12. (auction) A fictional bidder used to increase the price at an auction.

    Synonym: chandelier

13. (US, slang, medicine) A doctor who tries to admit as few patients as possible.

    Antonym: sieve

14. (soccer) A line of defenders set up between an opposing free-kick taker and the goal.
15. (Internet) A personal notice board listing messages of interest to a particular user.

Synonyms

• (rampart): rampart
• (fictional bidder at an auction): chandelier
• (personal notice board): profile

Meronyms

• (rampart): terreplein (level walkway); parapet, crenellation (minor secondary wall protecting the terreplein); banquette (area elevated above the terreplein for use by defenders)

Translations

Verb

wall (third-person singular simple present walls, present participle walling, simple past and past participle walled)

1. To enclose with, or as if with, a wall or walls.

   He walled the study with books.

Derived terms

• wall in
• wall off
• wall up

Translations

Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Middle English wallen, from Old English weallan (“to bubble, boil”), from Proto-Germanic *wall?n?, *well?n? (“to fount, stream, boil”), from Proto-Indo-European *wel?n-, *wel?m- (“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.

Verb

wall (third-person singular simple present walls, present participle walling, simple past and past participle walled)

1. To boil.
2. To well, as water; spring.

Related terms

• well
• overwhelm

Etymology 3

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”).

Noun

wall (plural walls)

1. (chiefly dialectal) A spring of water.

Etymology 4

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

wall (plural walls)

1. (nautical) A kind of knot often used at the end of a rope; a wall knot or wale.

Verb

wall (third-person singular simple present walls, present participle walling, simple past and past participle walled)

1. (transitive, nautical) To make a wall knot on the end of (a rope).

Etymology 5

Interjection

wall

1. (US) Pronunciation spelling of well.
   • 1858, The New Priest in Conception Bay by Robert Lowell [2]

     Wall, they spoke up, 'n' says to her, s'd they, "Why, look a-here, aunty, Wus't his skin, 't was rock?" so s's she, "I guess not." (Well, they spoke up and says to her, said they, "Why look a-here, aunty, was it his skin that was rock [referring to the Apostle Peter]?" So says she, "I guess not.")

   • 1988, Herbert M. Sutherland, Tall Tales of the Devil's Apron, The Overmountain Press ?ISBN, page 97

     Wall, be that as it may, ol' Hosshead was a purty good citizen in his day, an' he shore did make Juneybell toe the mark.

Anagrams

• lawl

German

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -al

Verb

wall

1. singular imperative of wallen
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of wallen

Middle English

Noun

wall

1. Alternative form of wale (“selection, preference”)

Adjective

wall

1. Alternative form of wale

Scots

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /w?l/, /wal/

Noun

wall (plural walls)

1. A well. (clarification of this definition is needed)

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?e?l/, [?e??]
• Rhymes: -e?l

Etymology 1

From Middle English rail, rayl, *re?el, *re?ol (found in re?olsticke (“a ruler”)), partly from Old English regol (“a ruler, straight bar”) and partly from Old French reille; both from Latin regula (“rule, bar”), from regere (“to rule, to guide, to govern”); see regular.

Noun

rail (plural rails)

1. A horizontal bar extending between supports and used for support or as a barrier; a railing.
2. The metal bar that makes the track for a railroad.
3. A railroad; a railway, as a means of transportation.

4. A horizontal piece of wood that serves to separate sections of a door or window.
5. (surfing) One of the lengthwise edges of a surfboard.
   • c. 2000, Nick Carroll, surfline.com [1]:

     Rails alone can only ever have a marginal effect on a board's general turning ability.

6. (Internet) A vertical section on one side of a web page.

7. (drugs) A large line (portion or serving of a powdery illegal drug).
   • 2013, Jason Isbell, "Super 8":

     Do a couple rails and chase your own tail

Derived terms

Descendants

Translations

Verb

rail (third-person singular simple present rails, present participle railing, simple past and past participle railed)

1. (intransitive) To travel by railway.
   • 1890, Rudyard Kipling, At the End of the Passage

     Mottram of the Indian Survey had ridden thirty and railed one hundred miles from his lonely post in the desert […]

2. (transitive) To enclose with rails or a railing.
   • 1726, John Ayliffe, Parergon juris canonici Anglicani

     It ought to be fenced in and railed.

3. (transitive) To range in a line.

   • They were brought to London all railed in ropes, like a team of horses in a cart.

Derived terms

• unrail

Translations

Etymology 2

From French râle, Old French rasle. Compare Medieval Latin rallus. Named from its harsh cry, Vulgar Latin *rasculum, from Latin r?dere (“to scrape”).

Noun

rail (plural rails)

Wikispecies

1. Any of several birds in the family Rallidae.

Usage notes

• Not all birds in the family Rallidae are rails by their common name. The family also includes coots, moorhens, crakes, flufftails, waterhens and others.

Derived terms

• Aztec rail
• banded rail
• buff-banded rail
• clapper rail
• king rail
• mangrove rail
• Mexican rail
• Okinawa rail
• Ridgway's rail
• water rail

Related terms

• ralline

Translations

See also

• corncrake

Etymology 3

From Middle French railler.

Verb

rail (third-person singular simple present rails, present participle railing, simple past and past participle railed)

1. To complain violently (against, about).
   • 1623, William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" (First folio)

     Till thou canst raile the seale from off my bond
     Thou but offend'st thy Lungs to speake so loud:
     Repaire thy wit good youth, or it will fall
     To endlesse ruine. I stand heere for Law.

   • 1882, Mark Twain, The Stolen White Elephant, [2]

     Now that the detectives were in adversity, the newspapers turned upon them, and began to fling the most stinging sarcasms at them. This gave the minstrels an idea, and they dressed themselves as detectives and hunted the elephant on the stage in the most extravagant way. The caricaturists made pictures of detectives scanning the country with spy-glasses, while the elephant, at their backs, stole apples out of their pockets. And they made all sorts of ridiculous pictures of the detective badge—you have seen that badge printed in gold on the back of detective novels no doubt, it is a wide-staring eye, with the legend, “WE NEVER SLEEP.” When detectives called for a drink, the would-be facetious barkeeper resurrected an obsolete form of expression and said, “Will you have an eye-opener?” All the air was thick with sarcasms. But there was one man who moved calm, untouched, unaffected, through it all. It was that heart of oak, the chief inspector. His brave eye never drooped, his serene confidence never wavered. He always said: “Let them rail on; he laughs best who laughs last.”

   • 1910, "Saki", H. H. Munro, The Bag,[3]

     The Major’s fury clothed and reclothed itself in words as frantically as a woman up in town for one day’s shopping tries on a succession of garments. He reviled and railed at fate and the general scheme of things, he pitied himself with a strong, deep pity too poignent for tears, he condemned every one with whom he had ever come in contact to endless and abnormal punishments.

   • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus 2010, p. 27:

     Chief Joyi railed against the white man, whom he believed had deliberately sundered the Xhosa tribe, dividing brother from brother.

Translations

Etymology 4

From Middle English rail, reil, from Old English hræ?l (“garment, dress, robe”). Cognate with Old Frisian hreil, reil, Old Saxon hregil, Old High German hregil (“clothing, garment, dress”).

Alternative forms

• rayle

Noun

rail (plural rails)

1. (obsolete) An item of clothing; a cloak or other garment; a dress.
2. (obsolete) Specifically, a woman's headscarf or neckerchief.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Fairholt to this entry?)

Derived terms

• night-rail

Etymology 5

Probably from Anglo-Norman raier, Middle French raier.

Verb

rail (third-person singular simple present rails, present participle railing, simple past and past participle railed)

1. (obsolete, of a liquid) To gush, flow.

   • his breste and his brayle was bloodé – and hit rayled all over the see.

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.2:

     So furiously each other did assayle, / As if their soules they would attonce haue rent / Out of their brests, that streames of bloud did rayle / Adowne, as if their springes of life were spent […].

See also

• ride the rail

Anagrams

• Lair, aril, lair, lari, liar, lira, rial

Catalan

Alternative forms

• raïl (superseded)

Etymology

Borrowed from English rail.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /?rajl/

Noun

rail m (plural rails)

1. rail

   Synonym: carril

Further reading

• “rail” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English rail.

Pronunciation

• (Belgium) IPA^(key): /rel/
• (Netherlands) IPA^(key): /re?l/

Noun

rail f (plural rails, diminutive railsje n or railtje n)

1. rail

Usage notes

The diminutive railsjes is only used if used for railway tracks.

Descendants

• ? Indonesian: rel

References

French

Etymology

From English rail.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?aj/
• Homophone: raï

Noun

rail m (plural rails)

1. rail

Further reading

• “rail” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• lira

Spanish

Noun

rail m (plural railes)

1. (rare) Alternative form of raíl

Further reading

• “rail” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.