bale

bale¹ evil, woe

Etymology

The noun meaning evil or woe is inherited from Middle English bale, inherited from Old English bealu (“harm, injury, evil”), also balu,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} from Proto-Germanic *balwą,^[8] the noun use of the Old English adjective of the same spelling, meaning baleful or deadly.^[2][5][9][8] It is cognate with Old Saxon balu, Old Frisian balu, Old High German balo (“evil, destruction”) and Old Norse bǫl (“misfortune”),^{[4][5][10][8]} and with the compounds Gothic 𐌱𐌰𐌻𐍅𐌰𐍅𐌴𐍃𐌴𐌹 (balwawesei, “wickedness”) and 𐌱𐌰𐌻𐍅𐌾𐌰𐌽 (balwjan, “to torment”).^[2][10][5] In Middle English the word seems to have been strengthened by the Old Norse noun.^[2][5] Etymonline calls its further origin uncertain;^[11] Kroonen and Merriam-Webster compare Slavic words for pain and illness, and Merriam-Webster also an Old Cornish word for plague.^[8][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Evil, especially as an active force that destroys, harms or torments: Old English, in the Anglo-Saxon Psalter.^[2][4] Merriam-Webster dates its first use to before the 12th century,^[3] and the Middle English Dictionary's first quotation, for evil-doing, is from Laȝamon's Brut (c. 1275).^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the word was almost confined to poetry,^[2][11] where it often appears in compounds such as Old English bealubenn (“mortal wound”) and bealuþonc (“evil thought”).^[11] In Middle English it moved from evil done to evil suffered: physical torment and pain (about 1325) and then mental suffering, grief (about 1400, in Pearl).^[2][4] It was set against boot, relief, perhaps under Norse influence, as in the proverb "when bale is highest, boot is nighest",^[2][12] and alliteratively against bliss.^[2] Chaucer used it six times, for suffering or misery.^[13] Dictionaries marked it obsolete soon after 1600, and it was rare until 19th-century poets took it up again for its vague sense of evil.^[2][4][14] In older Scots and northern dialect it meant sorrow or misery.^[12] It was often confused with the unrelated bale, a great fire, especially in balefire.^[4][2][14] The adjective baleful, Old English bealufull, has survived better, but is still chiefly literary.^[2][11]

Timeline

• Old English – evil as an active, destructive force.^[2][4]
• c. 1200 – to brew bale, to make mischief.^[2]
• c. 1220 – evil-speaking, abuse.^[2]
• c. 1275 – set against boot, relief.^[2]
• before 1325 – suffering, torment, pain.^[2]
• c. 1400 – mental suffering, grief, in Pearl.^[2]
• early 17th century – marked obsolete in dictionaries; revived by 19th-century poets.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic, literary) evil as a destructive force; harm or ruin.^[3][4][15]
2. (archaic, literary) Physical or mental suffering; torment, woe or misery.^[3][4][15]

Word family

• baleful
• baleless

bale² large bundle

Etymology

The bundle is inherited from Middle English bale,^[6][2] borrowed from Old French bale (“rolled-up bundle”) (modern balle)^{[11][2][16][5]} and Medieval Latin bala (“ball, round package”).^[6][16] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from 1235–55, meaning a bag, pack or sack.^[17] Several dictionaries think that the English word came through Middle Dutch bale, now Dutch baal,^{[4][5][15][18]} and the OED and Etymonline allow that it came directly from Flemish or Dutch, which had it from French.^[2][11] The French word is of Germanic origin,^[3][18] from Frankish *balla,^[19] related to Old High German balla (“ball”),^[16][3][2] from Proto-Germanic *ball- and ultimately Proto-Indo-European *bhel- (“to blow, swell”).^[11] It is thus ultimately the same word as ball,^[4][5][2] although the two have been distinct in English from the first.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A large bundle or package of merchandise, at first more or less round: about 1380, in Sir Ferumbras,^[2][16] and in Patience according to Barnhart.^[16] Etymonline dates it to the early 14th century.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The bale was at first a roundish package; later the word meant a package tightly pressed, wrapped in canvas and corded or hooped.^[2][4] From about 1503 it was used, more or less precisely, as a measure of quantity,^[2] and in the United States a bale of cotton is 500 pounds.^[15][20] From the late 15th to the early 19th century a bale was also a set of dice for a game, usually three.^[2][4] Johnson (1755) defined it as a bundle of goods packed up for carriage.^[21] The verb, to make up into bales, is recorded from 1762, in Goldsmith,^[2][3] or from 1750 according to Etymonline.^[11] In drug slang a bale has been a quantity of marijuana, usually a pound, since 1969.^[22]

Timeline

• 1235–55 – Anglo-Norman bale, a bag or pack.^[17]
• c. 1380 – a large bundle of merchandise.^[2][16]
• 1481 – a set of dice (obsolete by 1822).^[2]
• c. 1503 – a measure of quantity.^[2]
• 1762 – verb, to make up into bales.^[2][3]
• 1969 – drug slang, a pound of marijuana.^[22]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large bundle of goods or raw material, pressed tightly and bound with cords, wire or hoops for storage or transport: a bale of straw.^[20][3][15]
2. The quantity in a bale, used as a measure; in the United States, 500 pounds of cotton.^[20][15][3]
3. (obsolete, 1481–1822) A set of dice for a game.^[2][4]

Verb

1. To make hay, wool or other material up into bales: They spent the evening baling the last field.^[20][3][2]

Word family

• baler
• rebale
• unbale