different between wold vs woll

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English wald, wold, from (Anglian) Old English wald (compare weald), from Proto-West Germanic *walþu, from Proto-Germanic *walþuz, from Proto-Indo-European *wel(?)-t-.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /w??ld/
• (General American) enPR: w?ld, IPA^(key): /wo?ld/
• Rhymes: -??ld

Noun

wold (plural wolds)

1. (archaic, regional) An unforested or deforested plain, a grassland, a moor.
   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act III, Scene 4,^[1]

     Saint Withold footed thrice the ’old;

     He met the nightmare, and her nine fold;

   • 1817, Walter Scott, Rob Roy, Volume I, Chapter 8,^[2]

     “ […] 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.”

   • 1818, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, stanza 69,^[3]

     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.

   • 1833, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “To J. S.” in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, p. 158,^[4]

     The wind that beats the mountain, blows

     More softly round the open wold,

   • 1847, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, Part IV,^[5]

     Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the robin and bluebird

     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,^[6]

     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,^[7]

     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,^[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.

2. (obsolete) A wood or forest, especially a wooded upland.

Usage notes

• Used in many English place-names, always hilly tracts of land.
• Wald (German) is a cognate, but a false friend because it retains the original meaning of forest.

Derived terms

Related terms

• weald

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): /w??ld/

Adjective

wold (comparative wolder, superlative woldest)

1. (archaic, dialect, West Country, Dorset, Devon) Old.

Anagrams

• dowl, lowd, owld

Middle English

Verb

wold

1. Alternative spelling of wolde

Middle Low German

Noun

wôld

1. Alternative spelling of wôlt.

English

Etymology

From Middle English wollen, a variant of Middle English wullen, willen, from Old English wyllan, willan. More at will.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /w?l/

Verb

woll

1. Obsolete form of will.
   • Chaucer

     I love no man in no gise, / That woll me reprove or chastise.

References

• woll in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /v?l/

Adverb

woll

1. (regional, colloquial, otherwise obsolete) Alternative form of wohl.

Derived terms

• jawoll

Interjection

woll

1. (regional, Sauerland, occasionally elsewhere in NRW) right?, isn't it?

Middle English

Etymology 1

Noun

woll

1. Alternative form of wolle

Etymology 2

Verb

woll

1. first-person singular present indicative of wollen