Hale

Pronunciation

• IPA: /heɪl/
• Rhymes: -eɪl
• Homophone: hail

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

Full definition of hale

Noun

1. (archaic) Health, welfare.
• SpenserAll heedless of his dearest hale.

Representing a Northern dialectal form of Old English hāl ("whole"), perhaps influenced by Old Norse heill (Webster's suggests ‘partly from Old English, partly from Old Norse’), both from Proto-Germanic *hailaz, from Proto-Indo-European *kóh₂ilus ("healthy, whole"). Compare whole, hail (adjective).

Adjective

1. Sound, entire, healthy; robust, not impaired.
• Jonathan SwiftLast year we thought him strong and hale.
• 1883, Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood"Good morrow to thee, jolly fellow," quoth Robin, "thou seemest happy this merry morn.""Ay, that am I," quoth the jolly Butcher, "and why should I not be so? Am I not hale in wind and limb? Have I not the bonniest lass in all Nottinghamshire? And lastly, am I not to be married to her on Thursday next in sweet Locksley Town?"

Antonyms

• unhale

Usage notes

Now rather uncommon, except in the stock phrase "hale and hearty".

From Middle English halen, from Anglo-Norman haler, from Old Dutch *halon (compare Dutch halen), from Proto-Germanic *halōną (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 ‘upright beam on a loom’). Doublet of haul.

Verb

1. To drag, pull, especially forcibly.
• 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, II.6:For I had beene vilely hurried and haled by those poore men, which had taken the paines to carry me upon their armes a long and wearysome way, and to say truth, they had all beene wearied twice or thrice over, and were faine to shift severall times.
• 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound,The wingless, crawling hours, one among whomAs some dark Priest hales the reluctant victimShall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood
• 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, p. 262:They will hale the King to Paris, and have him under their eye.

Anagrams

• heal
• Leah