wall
/woːl/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.04 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Each of the substantial structures acting either as the exterior of or divisions within a structure.
noun
A point of desperation.
noun
A point of defeat or extinction.
noun
An impediment to free movement.
noun
The butterfly Lasiommata megera.
noun
A barrier.
Example Sentences
- "The town wall was surrounded by a moat."
- "From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much. Those entering it are greeted by wire fences, walls dating back to colonial times and security posts. For mariners leaving the port after lonely nights on the high seas, the delights of the B52 Night Club and Stallion Pub lie a stumble away."
- "We're adding another wall in this room during the remodeling. The wind blew against the walls of the tent."
- "[…] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit."
- "Nanny Broome was looking up at the outer wall. Just under the ceiling there were three lunette windows, heavily barred and blacked out in the normal way by centuries of grime."
- "They want Abramovich out for obvious reasons, including the optics, and they do not want to send Chelsea to the wall as they consider the club to be of cultural significance to the country."
Etymology
From Middle English wal, from Old English weall (“wall, dike, earthwork, rampart, dam, rocky shore, cliff”), from Proto-West Germanic *wall (“wall, rampart, entrenchment”), from Latin vallum (“wall, rampart, entrenchment, palisade”), from Proto-Indo-European *welH- (“to turn, wind, roll”). Perhaps conflated with waw (“a wall within a house or dwelling, a room partition”), from Middle English wawe, from Old English wāg, wāh (“an interior wall, divider”), see waw. Cognate with North Frisian wal (“wall”), Saterland Frisian Waal (“wall, rampart, mound”), Dutch wal (“wall, rampart, embankment”), German Wall (“rampart, mound, embankment”), Swedish vall (“mound, wall, bank”). More at wallow, walk.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /woːl/
- British English: /wɔːl/
Usage
- American usage
- Slang
- Transitive verb
- Countable
- Uncountable