weel

See also: Weel

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /wiːl/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /wil/
  • (US)

    (file)

• Homophones: weal, wheel (in accents with the wine-whine merger), wheal (in accents with the wine-whine merger), we'll (one pronunciation)
• Rhymes: -iːl

Etymology 1

From Middle English wele, wyle, welle, likely a fusion of Old Norse vél ("device"; compare Icelandic vél (“a contrivance to catch fish”)) and Middle English welwe, wilwe (“a weir, trap, or other device made of willow branches”), from Old English wilige, wylige (“basket”), related to Old English welig (“willow”).

Alternative forms

• weal (dialectal)

Noun

weel (plural weels)

1. trap for catching fish; a weely.

Derived terms

• weely

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “weel”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Etymology 2

From Middle English wel, weel, wele, wæl, from Old English wǣl (“weel, a deep pool, gulf, deep water of a stream or of the sea”). Cognate with Scots weil, weel (“pool, eddy, whirlpool”), Middle Low German wêl (“a pool”), Middle Low German wêlen (“to swirl, whirl”).

Alternative forms

• weil, wiel, wale (dialectal)
• wheel (Lancashire)

Noun

weel (plural weels)

1. (dialectal or obsolete) A whirlpool.

Etymology 3

Verb

weel

1. Pronunciation spelling of will, representing Latino-accented English.

Middle English

Adverb

weel

1. Alternative form of wel
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Myllers Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC:

     He thakked hire aboute the lendes weel

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Adjective

weel

1. Alternative form of wel

Scots

Adjective

weel (comparative better, superlative best)

1. Well.

Adverb

weel (comparative better, superlative best)

1. Well.
   • 1794, Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose:

     And fare thee weel, my only Luve
     And fare thee weel a while!

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Derived terms

• guid an weel (“well and good”)
• weel-kent (“well-known”)

Interjection

weel

1. Well.

Yola

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wiːɫ/
• Homophones: wheel, whil, while

Verb

weel

1. Alternative form of woul

References

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 77