Weald

//wiːld// name, noun

name, noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A forest or wood. archaic
  2. 2
    an area of open or forested country wordnet
  3. 3
    An open country. archaic

    "[S]he to Almesbury / Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald, / And heard the Spirits of the waste and weald / Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan: […]"

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    The physiographic area in south-east England situated between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. British

Example

More examples

"[S]he to Almesbury / Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald, / And heard the Spirits of the waste and weald / Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan: […]"

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English weeld, wæld, (also wold, wald > English wold), from (West Saxon dialect) Old English weald, from Proto-West Germanic *walþu, from Proto-Germanic *walþuz. Compare German Wald, Dutch woud. See also wold, ultimately of the same origin. Largely displaced by forest.

Etymology 2

From weald.

Related phrases

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