Hale

//heɪl// adj, name, noun, verb

adj, name, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Health, welfare. archaic, uncountable

    "Then let them vale a bonet of their proud ſayle, / And of their taunting toies reſt with il hayle."

Verb
  1. 1
    To drag or pull, especially forcibly. transitive

    "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."

  2. 2
    draw slowly or heavily wordnet
  3. 3
    to cause to do through pressure or necessity, by physical, moral or intellectual means wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Sound, entire, healthy; robust, not impaired. dated

    "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!"

Adjective
  1. 1
    exhibiting or restored to vigorous good health wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A topographic surname from Old English.
  2. 2
    A place name:; A number of places in England:; A village and civil parish in Halton borough, Cheshire (OS grid ref SJ4682).
  3. 3
    A place name:; A number of places in England:; A hamlet in Beetham parish, Westmorland and Furness, Cumbria, previously in South Lakeland district (OS grid ref SD5078).
  4. 4
    A place name:; A number of places in England:; A village in the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, Greater Manchester (OS grid ref SJ7786).
  5. 5
    A place name:; A number of places in England:; A small village and civil parish in New Forest district, Hampshire (OS grid ref SU1818).
Show 14 more definitions
  1. 6
    A place name:; A number of places in England:; A hamlet south of Gillingham, Medway borough, Kent (OS grid ref TQ7765).
  2. 7
    A place name:; A number of places in England:; A hamlet in Cucklington parish, Somerset, previously in South Somerset district (OS grid ref ST7527).
  3. 8
    A place name:; A number of places in England:; A suburban village in the north of Farnham parish, Waverley district, Surrey (OS grid ref SU8448).
  4. 9
    A place name:; A number of places in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Yuma County, Colorado.
  5. 10
    A place name:; A number of places in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Jones County, Iowa.
  6. 11
    A place name:; A number of places in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Salt Creek Township, Chautauqua County, Kansas.
  7. 12
    A place name:; A number of places in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Plainfield Township, Iosco County, Michigan.
  8. 13
    A place name:; A number of places in the United States:; A neighbourhood in southern Minneapolis, Minnesota.
  9. 14
    A place name:; A number of places in the United States:; A minor city in Carroll County, Missouri.
  10. 15
    A place name:; A number of places in the United States:; A ghost town in Carbon County, Utah.
  11. 16
    A place name:; A number of places in the United States:; A town and unincorporated community therein, in Trempealeau County, Wisconsin.
  12. 17
    A place name:; A locality on the Algoma Central Railway, Algoma District, Ontario, Canada.
  13. 18
    A place name:; A town in Korogwe District, eastern Tanzania.
  14. 19
    A place name:; A locality in the south of the Northern Territory, Australia, named after the Hale River.

Synonyms

All synonyms
haulhealthyable-bodiedbeefybouncingbuilt like a brick shithouse

Example

More examples

""I heard that Tom was dying." "Dying? He's hale and hearty!""

Etymology

Etymology 1

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.

Etymology 2

From Middle English hale, an alteration of hele (“health”) after Etymology 1. Cognate with Scots hale (“health”), German Heil (“salvation, well-being”).

Etymology 3

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.

Etymology 4

* As an English surname, Old English dative form of halh (“hollow, nook”). * Also as an English surname, from Old English hæle (“hero”). Compare Hain. * As an Irish surname, from mac céile; see McHale. * As a Jewish surname, variant of Halle.

Related phrases

Hale CenterHale CountyHale EndHolme HaleTottenham Haleand heartyget taxigreater manchesterhealthy heartymetropolitan borough

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.