hale

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
Mrs. Ramshorn found the fancy of the sick man pleasant for the hale, and sent for her knitting.

View all »
Definitions (26)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. adjective Free from infirmity or illness; sound. See Synonyms at healthy.
  2. transitive verb To compel to go: "In short order the human rights campaign was haled before a high court of indignation” (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.)
  3. transitive verb Archaic To pull, draw, drag, or hoist.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (14)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (6)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • He was now sixty-two years of age, hale, and well proportioned,—with a manly countenance, tanned by the weather, yet having a ruddiness in his cheeks, over a great part of which his rough beard extended. —  Life Of Johnson, Volume 5
  • I am well and hale, and commend him in all ways for tendering the courtesies due my station. —  Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel 02 - Kushiel's Chosen
  • My wife subsequently recollects her as a hale, buxom, young widow coming to say good-bye before emigrating to America. —  The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent
  • The crocuses of spring are hearty and hale, the better to fend off chilly nights and lingering snow. —  Hoarded Ordinaries
  • In other respects he was a commonplace sort of a man Mr Millons, the first mate, was a short, hale, thick-set man, without any particularly strong points of character. —  The Red Eric
 

Tags

hale hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 153 times.

On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Suggestions Wordniks Suggest

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

hiki ·  hewa ·  manao ·  wahi ·  hoi ·  manawa ·  pii ·  malama ·  kuu ·  kaikamahine ·  hoao ·  kamailio
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (8)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English, from Old English hāl; see kailo- in Indo-European roots.
  2. Middle English halen, to pull, drag, from Old French haler, of Germanic origin; see kelə-2 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (6)

  1. from Middle English halen, halien, rarely haulen (whence the now usual form haul, q. v.), hale, haul, drag; partly from Anglo-Saxon *halian, *holian (found only once, in past participle plural geholode), get, acquire; and partly of Old Low German or Scandinavian origin, perhaps through Old French *haler, in Roquefort haller, drag a boat by a rope, modern F. haler, hale, haul, = Spanish halar = Portuguese alar, hale, haul, from Old Saxon halian, bring, fetch, = OFries. halia, fetch, = Dutch halen, fetch, draw, pull, = Old High German halōn, holōn, Middle High German haln, holn, summon, fetch, German holen, fetch, nautical haul, = Swedish hala = Danish hale, haul, = Latin calare, summon, = Greek καλεῖν, summon, call: see calends, calendar.
  2. from hale, v.
  3. Also (especially in sense 2) hail; from Middle English heil, heyl, in good health, sound, from Icelandic heill, whole, healthy, sound, = Swedish Danish hel, whole, entire, = Anglo-Saxon hāl, Middle English hol, hool, hole, English whole, of which hale is thus only a later (Scandinavian) form: see whole. Deriv. hail, q. v. Cf. healand health, related words of Anglo-Saxon origin.
  4. from Middle English hale, usually and properly hele: see heal, n., of which hale is a mere variant.
  5. A dial. variant of heel.
  6. Origin obscure.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

/heɪl/
by American Heritage

Charts

frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about twice a year.

Recently looked up

eschatology · now-defunct · appendicitis · good-night · vicissitudes

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Der dicke Dachdecker deckte dir dein Dach, drum dank dem dicken Dachdecker, dass der dicke Dachdecker dir dein Dach deckte. · weitläufig · und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, so leben sie noch heute · redescheu · selbstverständlich