DictionaryAI

weald

noun
SayWEELDUS/wild/UK/wiːld/

Pluralwealds

2 meanings of weald

Practice

  1. 1
    woodlandnounarchaic
    An area of forest or thick woodland.
    Note

    The older English word for woodland: Old English weald, kin to German Wald and Dutch woud, and long since pushed aside by forest. Today it belongs to deliberately old-fashioned or poetic writing; in everyday prose, forest or wood is the natural choice. Its twin wold descends from Old English Anglian wald, the dialectal counterpart of West Saxon weald, and is a separate word in modern English.

  2. 2
    treeless landnounarchaic
    An open stretch of countryside; bare, largely treeless land.
    Note

    Open land rather than trees, which makes this the near-opposite of the woodland meaning. Tennyson's Idylls of the King (1859) pairs it with waste, as Guinevere flees "by glimmering waste and weald", and that alliterative coupling suits its archaic, poetic register. When the word turns up in older verse, the surrounding landscape has to tell you whether trees are meant.

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

    • Weald has an open-country meaning distinct from its woodland meaning. en.wiktionary.org
    • Alfred Tennyson wrote Idylls of the King, including Guinevere. d.lib.rochester.edu
    • Idylls of the King first appeared in 1859; that volume included Guinevere. d.lib.rochester.edu
    • The narrator describes Guinevere fleeing using the exact words “by glimmering waste and weald”. d.lib.rochester.edu

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Origin

From Middle English weeld or wæld (also wold, wald, giving English wold), from the West Saxon Old English weald, going back to Proto-West Germanic *walþu and Proto-Germanic *walþuz. It is related to German Wald and Dutch woud, and shares its origin with wold; it was largely displaced by forest.

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 8 facts