wassail

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wassail, also wæshail, wæshæil and wesseil,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old Norse ves heill (“be in good health”),^{[4][5][6][7][8]} a phrase made of ves, the imperative singular of vesa (“to be”) (later vera), and heill (“healthy, whole”).^[5][6][3][9] The Old Norse verb is a relative of English was and were,^[10][5] and heill is the same word as English hale and whole.^[10][7][9] The MED calls the Norse origin probable, comparing the Middle English imperative wæs.^[2] Old English had the corresponding greeting wes hāl, also hāl wes þū, "be in good health" or "be fortunate",^[4][11][9] and Old Norse a plural verið heilir, but neither language, nor any other Germanic language, is known to have used such a phrase as a drinking formula.^[4][5][12] The OED therefore thought that the drinking use arose among the Danish-speaking inhabitants of England and spread to the native population.^{[4][12][13][14]} The polite reply was drinkhail, "drink good health".^[4][14][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The phrases are first found in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1140), where Hengist's daughter Rowena greets the British king Vortigern with wes heil and he is told to answer drinc heil.^[4][15][12] Geoffrey's dating of the custom to the 5th century is an anachronism: the older story in Nennius has nothing like it.^[4][15] In English the word is first recorded in Laȝamon's Brut (c. 1275, perhaps composed before 1200), as a salutation used when offering a cup of wine to a guest or drinking someone's health.^[4][12]

Semantic evolution

In the Anglo-Norman of Wace's Brut (c. 1180) the phrase appears as weshel and waisseil,^[4][11][16] and by the 12th century the Normans regarded it as typically English.^[4][13][14] By about 1300 the word had passed from the toast to the liquor in which healths were drunk, especially the spiced ale of Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night,^[4][5][15] and the verb, to sit drinking healths, is recorded from the same time, in Havelok.^[4][12][5] Hoad notes that after the 14th century the word was used only in historical writing and in dialect.^[8] In the early 17th century it widened to any riotous drinking or revelry: Shakespeare's Hamlet complains that the king "keeps wassail".^[4][15][17] Johnson (1755) defined it as a liquor of apples, sugar and ale, and as a drunken bout.^[17] Herrick (1648) records the custom of wassailing fruit trees, drinking to them to make them bear,^[4] and since 1742 wassailing has been also the custom of going from house to house carolling at Christmas.^[5][3] Wright's dialect dictionary found it alive in many counties: children near Sheffield sang a carol with the refrain "Oh my jolly wessel", in Cornwall men went from house to house about New Year's Day calling out Warsail, and in Somerset the apple trees were wassailed on Christmas Eve.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 1275 – a salutation used when presenting a cup of wine or drinking someone's health, in Laȝamon's Brut.^[4][12]
• c. 1300 – the liquor in which healths were drunk; verb, to carouse and drink healths, both in Havelok.^[4][5][12]
• c. 1400 – ironically, a salute or smart attack (now obsolete).^[4]
• 1598 – the custom of drinking healths from the wassail bowl on Twelfth Night and New Year's Eve (obsolete by 1689).^[4]
• 1603 – a carousal, riotous festivity, in Shakespeare's Hamlet.^[4] Barnhart dates the play's use to 1602.^[12]
• 1607 – a carol or drinking song sung by wassailers (obsolete by 1650).^[4]
• 1648 – verb, to drink to fruit trees or cattle to make them thrive, in Herrick.^[4]
• 1742 – wassailing, going from house to house singing carols at Christmas.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) A toast to someone's health, made at a feast or festival.^[19][3][4]
2. A drink of ale or wine flavoured with spices, sugar and roasted apples, drunk at Christmas and Twelfth Night.^[3][19][4]
3. Riotous drinking; revelry: After a night of wassail the hall was littered with cups.^[3][19][4]
4. The custom of going from house to house at Christmas singing carols.^[19][7]
5. (archaic) A drinking song.^[19][3]

Verb

1. To drink and make merry at a wassail; to carouse.^[3][4]
2. To drink the health of someone; locally, to drink to fruit trees or cattle so that they thrive.^[19][3][4]
3. To go from house to house singing carols at Christmas.^[19][3]

Word family

• wassailer
• wassail bowl

Related words

• hail
• drinkhail
• hale
• whole
• health
• was
• were

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
13. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
16. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
17. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ 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)
19. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins