Wald
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Power; strength. UK, countable, dialectal, uncountable
- 2 Forest; woods.
"… we still recognize the ancient traditions of the Goths, concerning the wald-elven,…"
- 3 Command; control; possession. UK, countable, dialectal, uncountable
- 1 To govern; inherit. UK, ambitransitive, dialectal
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"… we still recognize the ancient traditions of the Goths, concerning the wald-elven,…"
Etymology
From Northern Middle English walde, from Old English wealdan (“to rule, control, determine, direct, command, govern, possess, wield, exercise, cause, bring about”), from Proto-West Germanic *waldan, from Proto-Germanic *waldaną (“to reign”), from Proto-Indo-European *waldʰ- (“to be strong, be powerful, prevail, possess”). Cognates Cognate with German walten (“to prevail, reign, dominate”), Danish volde (“to cause”), Icelandic valda (“to cause”), Lithuanian valda (“land property”), Lithuanian valdyti (“to rule”).
From Northern Middle English wald, from Old English weald (“power, authority”), from Proto-Germanic *waldą (“power”), from Proto-Indo-European *waldʰ- (“to be strong, be powerful, prevail, possess”). Cognate with German Gewalt (“force, power, control, violence”), Swedish våld (“force, violence”).
From Northern Middle English wald, from Old English weald (“high land covered with wood, woods, forest”), from Proto-West Germanic *walþu, from Proto-Germanic *walþuz, whence also Old High German wald (German Wald) and Old Norse vǫllr (Faroese vøllur, Norwegian voll, Icelandic völlur).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.