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bale

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Pronunciation

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

Usage notes

The verb bale, to throw water out of a boat, is a variant spelling of bail.[2][14][5] An archaic bale, a great fire or funeral pyre, from Old English bǣl and Old Norse bál, survives mainly in balefire.[3][4][2]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  7. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  8. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  9. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  12. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  14. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ a b c d e f Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  17. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  18. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  19. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  20. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  21. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  22. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com