Welkin
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The sky which appears to an observer on the Earth as a dome in which celestial bodies are visible; the firmament.
"He leaues the vvelkin vvay moſt beaten playne, / And rapt with vvhirling vvheeles, inflames the ſkyen, / With fire not made to burne, but fayrely for to ſhyne."
- 2 the apparent surface of the imaginary sphere on which celestial bodies appear to be projected wordnet
- 3 The upper atmosphere occupied by clouds, flying birds, etc.
"[W]ho you are, and vvhat you vvould are out of my vvelkin, I might ſay Element, but the word is ouer-vvorne."
- 4 The place above the Earth where God or other deities live; heaven.
"[T]his villanous Poetry vvill vndoe you, by the VVelkin."
Example
More examples"Winds roll the waters, and the great seas rise. / Dispersed we welter on the gulfs. Damp night / has snatched with rain the heaven from our eyes, / and storm-mists in a mantle wrapt the light. / Flash after flash, and for a moment bright, / quick lightnings rend the welkin. Driven astray / we wander, robbed of reckoning, reft of sight. / No difference now between the night and day / e'en Palinurus sees, nor recollects the way."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English welken, wolken (“weather; heavens; earlier cloud”), from Old English wolcnu (“sky, heavens”), plural form of wolcn (“cloud”), from Proto-West Germanic *wolkn (“cloud”), from Proto-Germanic *wulkną (“cloud”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *wĺ̥ɡ-no-m, from *welg- (“damp; wet”). Cognate with Dutch wolk (“cloud”), German Wolke (“cloud”).
Related phrases
More for "welkin"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.