Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Free from infirmity or illness; sound. synonym: healthy.
  • transitive verb To compel to go.
  • transitive verb Archaic To pull, draw, drag, or hoist.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A pseudo-archaic form of hole.
  • noun Safety; welfare: same as heal.
  • Sound; entire; healthy; robust; not impaired in health: as, hale of body.
  • Whole; entire; unbroken; without a break or other impairment.
  • To pour out.
  • noun A tent; a pavilion; a temporary shelter.
  • noun A violent pull; a haul; the act of dragging forcibly.
  • noun A rake with long teeth for raking pebbles from brooks.
  • noun An instrument for hanging a pot over a fire.
  • To drag; draw; pull; move by dragging.
  • To vex; trouble; worry; “pull and haul.”
  • To get by solicitation or importunity.
  • To go or come by means of drawing, pushing, or pressing; push or press on; move on; proceed.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Welfare.
  • transitive verb To pull; to drag; to haul.
  • adjective Sound; entire; healthy; robust; not impaired.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To drag, pull, especially forcibly.
  • adjective Sound, entire, healthy; robust, not impaired.
  • noun archaic Health, welfare.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective exhibiting or restored to vigorous good health
  • verb draw slowly or heavily
  • noun United States astronomer who discovered that sunspots are associated with strong magnetic fields (1868-1938)
  • noun a soldier of the American Revolution who was hanged as a spy by the British; his last words were supposed to have been `I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country' (1755-1776)
  • noun prolific United States writer (1822-1909)
  • verb to cause to do through pressure or necessity, by physical, moral or intellectual means :

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English hāl; see kailo- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English halen, to pull, drag, from Old French haler, of Germanic origin; see kelə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English halen, from Anglo-Norman haler, from Old Dutch *halōn (compare Dutch halen), from Proto-Germanic *halōnan (compare Old English geholian, West Frisian helje, German holen), from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₁- ‘to lift’ (compare Latin excellere ‘to surpass’, Tocharian B käly- ‘to stand, stay’, Albanian qell ("to halt, hold up, carry"), Lithuanian kélti ‘to raise up’, Ancient Greek κελέοντες (keléontes) ‘upright beam on a loom’). Doublet of haul.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Representing a Northern dialectal form of Old English hāl ("whole"), perhaps influenced by Old Norse heill (Webster's suggests ‘partly from OE, partly from ON’). Compare whole, hail (adjective).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English hǣlu, hǣl, from a noun-derivative of Proto-Germanic *hailaz (“whole, healthy”).

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