wall

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“
Beyond the posts a bracket lamp showed a brick wall, and in the wall was an arch so full of gloom that it seemed impassable, except to a steady draught of cold air that might have been the midnight itself entering Limehouse from its own place.

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Definitions (74)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (15)

  1. noun An upright structure of masonry, wood, plaster, or other building material serving to enclose, divide, or protect an area, especially a vertical construction forming an inner partition or exterior siding of a building.
  2. noun A continuous structure of masonry or other material forming a rampart and built for defensive purposes. Often used in the plural.
  3. noun A structure of stonework, cement, or other material built to retain a flow of water.
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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

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Examples (50)

  • The strength of this man who had given her back her life seemed a shield against everything, just as a wall is a shield against the wind; she was content to sit in its shelter and rest. —  The Beach of Dreams
  • This occasioned him to pause, for the wall was a fearful antagonist, inasmuch that it knew not when it was beaten; but there was still an alternative left. —  Phelim Otoole's Courtship and Other Stories Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of William Carleton, Volume Three
  • Beyond the posts a bracket lamp showed a brick wall, and in the wall was an arch so full of gloom that it seemed impassable, except to a steady draught of cold air that might have been the midnight itself entering Limehouse from its own place. —  London River
  • It disappears abruptly behind a high wall, and if you let your eyes travel round towards your right front you see that the wall is a perpendicular cliff two hundred feet high of pure green and blue ice, which falls sheer into the sea, and forms, with Cape Evans, on which we stand, the bay which lies in front of our hut, and which we called North Bay. —  The Worst Journey in the World Antarctic 1910-1913
  • Posidonius, a later member of the school, objected to the metaphor from the vineyard on the ground that the fruit and the trees and the wall were all separable whereas the parts of philosophy were inseparable. —  Guide to Stoicism
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

floor ·  side ·  stone ·  roof ·  surface ·  line ·  room ·  light ·  front ·  build ·  table ·  tower

Used in the same contextWord Family

wall:   walled ·  walls
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 (6)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Old English weall, from Latin vallum, palisade, from vallus, stake.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (5)

  1. from Middle English wal, walle, from Anglo-Saxon weal, weall, a rampart of earth, a wall of stone, = Old Saxon wal = OFries. wal = Dutch wal = Middle High German wal, German wall = Swedish vall = Danish vold, wall, = Welsh gwal, rampart, from Latin vallum, an earthen wall or rampart set with palisades, a row or line of stakes, a wall, rampart, fortification, from vallus, stake, pale, palisade, circumvallation. From the same Latin source are ult. English vallate, vallation, circumvallation, etc. The native Anglo-Saxon word for ‘wall’ is wall: see waw. The L. word for a defensive stone wall is murus: see mure.
  2. from Middle English walle, wallen, wall, surround with walls.
  3. from Middle English wallen, from Anglo-Saxon weallan (preterit weól, past participle weallen), boil, well, = Old Saxon wallan = OFries. walla = Dutch wallen = Old High German wallan = Middle High German G. wallen = Icelandic vella (preterit val) = Gothic (Moesogothic) *wallan (not recorded), boil, well. Hence ult. well (a secondary form of wall), wall, n., well, n., wallop, etc.
  4. from Middle English walle, from Anglo-Saxon *weall (= OFries. walla), a well, from weallan, boil, well: see wall, v., and cf. well, n.
  5. Also waule; also erroneously whall, whal, whale, whaul (chiefly in comp.); from Icelandic vagl = Swedish vagel, a wall in the eye, a sty on the eye; prob. a particular use of Icelandic vagl, a beam, = Swedish vagel = Norwegian vagl, a roost, perch. Hence, in comp., walleye.
 

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/wɔl/
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