Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Free from infirmity or illness; sound. synonym: healthy.
  • transitive verb To compel to go.
  • transitive verb Archaic To pull, draw, drag, or hoist.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A tent; a pavilion; a temporary shelter.
  • noun A pseudo-archaic form of hole.
  • noun A violent pull; a haul; the act of dragging forcibly.
  • noun A rake with long teeth for raking pebbles from brooks.
  • noun An instrument for hanging a pot over a fire.
  • To drag; draw; pull; move by dragging.
  • To vex; trouble; worry; “pull and haul.”
  • To get by solicitation or importunity.
  • To go or come by means of drawing, pushing, or pressing; push or press on; move on; proceed.
  • Sound; entire; healthy; robust; not impaired in health: as, hale of body.
  • Whole; entire; unbroken; without a break or other impairment.
  • noun Safety; welfare: same as heal.
  • To pour out.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To pull; to drag; to haul.
  • noun obsolete Welfare.
  • adjective Sound; entire; healthy; robust; not impaired.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To drag, pull, especially forcibly.
  • noun archaic Health, welfare.
  • adjective Sound, entire, healthy; robust, not impaired.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective exhibiting or restored to vigorous good health
  • verb draw slowly or heavily
  • noun United States astronomer who discovered that sunspots are associated with strong magnetic fields (1868-1938)
  • noun a soldier of the American Revolution who was hanged as a spy by the British; his last words were supposed to have been `I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country' (1755-1776)
  • noun prolific United States writer (1822-1909)
  • verb to cause to do through pressure or necessity, by physical, moral or intellectual means :

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English hāl; see kailo- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English halen, to pull, drag, from Old French haler, of Germanic origin; see kelə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English halen, from Anglo-Norman haler, from Old Dutch *halōn (compare Dutch halen), from Proto-Germanic *halōnan (compare Old English geholian, West Frisian helje, German holen), from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₁- ‘to lift’ (compare Latin excellere ‘to surpass’, Tocharian B käly- ‘to stand, stay’, Albanian qell ("to halt, hold up, carry"), Lithuanian kélti ‘to raise up’, Ancient Greek κελέοντες (keléontes) ‘upright beam on a loom’). Doublet of haul.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English hǣlu, hǣl, from a noun-derivative of Proto-Germanic *hailaz (“whole, healthy”).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Representing a Northern dialectal form of Old English hāl ("whole"), perhaps influenced by Old Norse heill (Webster's suggests ‘partly from OE, partly from ON’). Compare whole, hail (adjective).

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