Waulk
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 to make cloth (especially tweed in Scotland) denser and more felt-like by soaking and beating. transitive
"The frame on which the cloth is waulked is a board some twelve to twenty-four feet long and about two feet broad, grooved lengthwise along its surface."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"The frame on which the cloth is waulked is a board some twelve to twenty-four feet long and about two feet broad, grooved lengthwise along its surface."
Etymology
From Middle English walken, from Old English wealcian (“to roll up; muffle up”), from Proto-West Germanic *walkōn, from Proto-Germanic *walkōną (“to roll about; full (cloth)”). Cognate with Scots waulk (“to full”), Dutch walken (“to full”), German walken (“to full”), Danish valke (“to full”), Swedish valka (“to full”). Doublet of walk.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.