wall
Pluralwalls
Pluralwalls
- 1A solid upright structure forming the outside of a building or dividing its interior into rooms.
Workers knocked down an interior wall to combine the two rooms.
The walls of the old farmhouse were nearly a foot thick.
UsageThings hang on the wall; a crack, door or window is in the wall.
- 2A structure or obstacle that blocks passage or separates one area from another.
The dense thicket served as a natural wall that kept the livestock penned in.
Officers linked arms to make a wall holding the crowd back from the stage.
Similarbarrier, cordon, fence, screen
Note
The compound-forming sense, as in seawall and firewall. In these compounds the first element names what the barrier holds back or keeps out, the sea in one case and fire in the other. Both are usually written as one word. Not every -wall compound works this way: in drywall, the first element describes the wall itself, not what it keeps out.
- 3A substantial barrier of stone, earth, or similar material built around a city, castle, fort, or other position to defend it from attack.
Medieval builders raised a thick stone wall around the entire town.
Sections of the ancient wall still surround the old quarter.
UsageMostly plural for a whole ring: the city walls, the castle walls.
Similarrampart, fortification, bulwark
- 4The side or enclosing outer layer of a hollow thing, such as a container, a body organ or cavity, or a cell.
The surgeon repaired a small tear in the wall of the artery.
Inflammation had thickened the wall of the intestine.
UsageUsually the wall of an organ (the wall of the artery), or a compound: cell wall.
Note
Biology uses the word at every scale. It can mean the back wall of a throat, or the capsule wall of a liverwort, whose epidermal cells Rudolf Schuster described in 1992. Its learned synonym is paries.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Rudolf Schuster described the epidermal cells of a liverwort's capsule wall. en.wiktionary.org
- The Schuster volume containing this description was published in 1992. herbarium.science.oregonstate.edu
- 5To surround or close off something with a wall, or as though with one.
The monks chose to wall their orchard against the bitter wind.
Engineers walled the reservoir with thick reinforced concrete.
UsageCommon as wall in or wall off, and as walled: a walled garden, a walled city.
- 6Something that appears as solid, opaque, or large as the side of a building.
The band produced a wall of sound that filled the entire arena.
A wall of flame swept across the dry hillside within minutes.
UsageUsually a wall of + noun: a wall of sound, a wall of water, a wall of fog.
Less common meanings
- 7A point at which one feels unable to continue, overcome by exhaustion or despair.
The exhausted climbers hit a wall and could go no farther up the ridge.
By the third all-nighter, the student had clearly hit a wall.
UsageMostly in hit a wall; runners say hit the wall.
- 8An online space on a user's profile where messages and posts addressed to them are displayed.
He thanked everyone who had left greetings on his wall.
Older posts now linger near the bottom of her wall.
UsageUse on: post or write on someone's wall.
Similartimeline
Note
Social-network vocabulary borrowed from the noticeboard. A greeting left there is usually visible to that person's circle, which is the point of using it instead of a private message.
- 9A line of defending players positioned between a free-kick taker and the goal to block the shot.
The keeper organized a four-man wall before the free kick.
She bent the ball around the wall to score from the edge of the box.
UsageTeams set up a wall; a free kick goes over, around or into the wall.
Note
Defenders stand shoulder to shoulder at a regulation distance from the ball, set up to cover the most direct line to goal. A free kick can go over the wall, around it, or straight into it. In Alistair Magowan's 2011 BBC report, Chris Brunt "slammed" his kick into the wall.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Defending players form a line to obstruct a shot at goal. bundesliga.com
- The defenders must observe a regulation distance from the ball. theifab.com
- A free kick can pass over or around the wall. en.wikipedia.org
- Alistair Magowan's 2011 BBC report describes Chris Brunt slamming a free kick into the wall. en.wiktionary.org
- 10A very steep section of road or hillside, especially one that riders struggle to climb.
The race exploded on the cobbled wall near the finish.
Only a handful of riders held their pace on the brutal wall.
Note
Cyclists use it for a pitch of road so steep it seems to stand upright in front of them. A wall is often short, but it demands everything a rider has. Commentators treat it as the place where a race splits, because there is nowhere to hide on it.
- 11A point of final defeat, ruin, or extinction.
Several family firms went to the wall during the long recession.
After three years of losses, the family restaurant finally went to the wall, and the building now sits empty.
UsageFixed phrase: go to the wall, or send something to the wall.
Note
Writing in 2022 about Chelsea's crisis, David Hytner describes people who do not want to "send Chelsea to the wall." A person can hit the point of desperation and push through it. Going to the wall means there is no coming back.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Hytner’s 2022 Chelsea quotation. theguardian.com
- 12The stage of aging at which physical appearance and attractiveness begin to decline rapidly.
The magazine ran a piece claiming celebrities hit the wall earlier than ordinary people.
She was tired of hearing that women hit the wall at thirty and lose their looks almost overnight.
UsageMostly in hit the wall. It mocks women's looks, so quote it rather than use it.
Note
Seduction-community slang found on Usenet from 1996, almost always with the: hit the wall, near the wall, get ready for the wall. The article alone does not separate it from the point of desperation, which can also take the; context does. It is pejorative and contested, typically aimed at women's looks, and even its users argued over it.
- 13Any of the rock surfaces that enclose a mineral vein, or lode.
Geologists examined the wall enclosing the copper lode for signs of fracturing.
The vein's walls were rich with quartz.
Note
Miners name the two sides of a lode by their position. The rock above an inclined lode is the hanging wall, and the rock beneath it is the footwall. Here wall means the surrounding rock, which may itself contain ore, so a vein is said to lie between its walls.
- 14To boil, as a heated liquid bubbles up.
Note
A separate word from the masonry wall, though spelled the same. It comes from Old English weallan, "to bubble, boil", and keeps that picture of liquid heaving up under heat. The two walls may meet far back, at an Indo-European root *welH-, though the masonry word's link to it is uncertain. Do not confuse it with the "well up" verb: that one describes water springing from the ground, while this one describes a pot coming to the boil.
- 15Two or more blockers skating together to block and slow the opposing team.
- 16A character with high defenses that greatly reduces the damage taken from an opponent's attacks.
- 17A fictitious bidder used at an auction to drive up the price.
- 18A doctor who works to admit as few patients to the hospital as possible.
- 19The stacked rows of face-down tiles that players draw from during a game of mahjong.
- 20To cheat in a video game by using a wallhack, a program that reveals enemies hidden behind walls.
- 21To shoot and hit an opponent through a wall or other solid surface in a video game.
- 22The right or privilege of taking the side of a street nearest the wall when passing another pedestrian, said to be given or taken.
All persons, in walking the streets, whose right sides are next the wall, are intitled to take the wall.
1822, The Pamphleteer - 23A type of knot, also called a wall knot or wale, tied at the end of a rope.
- 24To finish the end of a rope by working a wall knot into it.
- 25An orange-brown butterfly, Lasiommata megera, known for basking on walls and bare ground in the sun.
- 26A spring of water; a place where water rises naturally from the ground.
- 27Of water, to rise up and flow out from the ground.
- 28A spelling of the exclamation "well" that shows a regional way of saying it.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
From Middle English wal, from Old English weall ("wall, rampart, dike, cliff"), from Proto-West Germanic *wall, from Latin vallum ("wall, rampart, palisade"), possibly going back to Proto-Indo-European *welH- ("to turn, wind, roll"). It may have been conflated with an older word for an interior wall or room partition. It is related to Dutch wal and German Wall.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Wall derives through Middle English wal and Old English weall, with the stated Old English meanings. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English weall descends from Proto-West Germanic *wall, borrowed from Latin vallum. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin vallum meant wall, rampart or palisade. en.wiktionary.org
- Wall may have been conflated with an older word for an interior wall or room partition. en.wiktionary.org
- English wall is related to Dutch wal and German Wall. en.wiktionary.org
Proto-Indo-European *welH- ("wave") led to Proto-Germanic *wallaną ("to fount, stream, boil") and Proto-West Germanic *wallan. Old English had weallan ("to bubble, boil"), which became Middle English wallen. Related words include Middle Dutch wallen ("to boil") and German wellen ("to wave").