dwale

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dweɪl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪl

Etymology 1

From Middle English dwale (“stupor; deception; delusion, evil”), from Old English dwala, dwola (“error, heresy; doubt; madman, deceiver, heretic”) and Old Norse dvala (“sleep, stupor”).

Noun

dwale (countable and uncountable, plural dwales)

1. Belladonna or a similar soporific plant.
   • 1842, J. van Voorst, The Phytologist, page 595:

     Beneath and around the clumps of ragged moss-grown elder and hoary stunted whitethorn (...) rise thickets of tall nettles and rank hemlock, concealing the deadly but alluring dwale —

   • 1934, Chambers's Journal, page 198:

     All parts of the dwale are poisonous, said to resemble snake bite, but the roots are said to be four or five times as virulent as the rest of the plant.

   • 2014, Jenny Harper, Face the Wind and Fly:

     It was not bog myrtle at all, it was dwale.

   • 2014, Karen Maitland, The Vanishing Witch:

     Monkshood and dwale belong to Hecate, the moon goddess of the witches, and by their use are witches able to fly.

2. (archaic) A sleeping-potion, especially one made from belladonna.
   • 2007, Barbara S. Bowers, The Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice, page 197:

     The authors studied the ingredients and method of administration to try to ascertain whether dwale was effective, and they found it certainly could have worked.

   • 2016, Toby Clements, Broken Faith, page 258:

     'That is all?' Payne askes. 'You need no salve? No dwale?'

   • 2018, The World of Lore, Volume 3, The World of Lore, Volume 3:

     Dwale was a solution of wine mixed with a number of other ingredients, Some were pretty mile, like lettuce and boar bile. But the recipe also called for hemlock and belladonna, both known to be highly poisonous.

   • 2020, Sarah Woodbury, Chevalier:

     Cadell agrees the vial contains arsenic, not willow bark, and it is no wonder Rollo found relief from what was in the flask since it isn't wine but dwale.

3. (dialect) A torpor.
   • 1874, Charles Mackay, The Lost Beauties of the English Language, page 54:

     He's in a dwale, a dead sleep; a common expression in the North of England.

   • 2008, Mary Leared, A Horseshoe Clown, page 44:

     I stayed up there in a dwale – not seeing, not even thinking – until suddenly the wind got up and its chill woke me.

4. A bugbear.
   • 1856, Sydney Dobell, England in Time of War - Issue 34, page 72:

     Consume us; shake the darkness like a tree, And fill the night with mischiefs, — blights and dwales, Weevils, and rots, and cankers!

   • 1981, Alexander Theroux, Darconville's Cat, page 384:

     Tickle under their chins microscopical djinns or tease geloscopical dwales who live in The Tree That Can Never Be and fish for chocolate whales?

Etymology 2

From Middle English dwalen, from Old English dwalian, from Proto-Germanic *dwalōną, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰwelH- (“to make turbid”).

Verb

dwale (third-person singular simple present dwales, present participle dwaling, simple past and past participle dwaled)

1. (dialectal) To mutter deliriously.

Related terms

• dwaal — a dreamy, dazed, or absent-minded state

References

• “dwale”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “dwale”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Wadle, Weald, lawed, waled, weald

Dutch

Verb

dwale

1. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of dwalen

Middle Dutch

Etymology

From Old Dutch *thwāla, *twēla, *thweila, from Proto-West Germanic *þwahilu.

Noun

dwâle f or m

1. cloth
2. towel

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Alternative forms

• dwêle
• *dweile

Descendants

• Dutch: dwaal, dweil
• Limburgish: dweiel

Further reading

• “dwale”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E., Verdam, J. (1885–1929) “dwale (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN, page I

Middle English

Alternative forms

• duale, duole, dwole

Etymology

From Old English dwala, dwola; reinforced and semantically influenced by Old Norse dvala.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdwaːl(ə)/

Noun

dwale (plural dwales)

1. A stupor or trance; torpor.
2. Belladonna or a similar soporific plant.
3. A sleeping draught, especially if made from belladonna.
   • 1387–1400, [Geoffrey] Chaucer, “The Reue”, in The Tales of Caunt́bury (Hengwrt Chaucer; Peniarth Manuscript 392D), Aberystwyth, Ceredigion: National Library of Wales, published [c. 1400–1410], →OCLC, folio 54, recto:

     To bedde gooth Aleyn / and alſo John / Ther nas namooꝛe / hem neded no dwale

     To bed went Alan, and John too / There was no more; they didn't need any sleeping draught.

4. An evil individual; a wrongdoer.
5. (rare) Evil; wrongdoing.
6. (rare) A delusion or deception.

Descendants

• English: dwale
• >? Scots: dwall

References

• “dwāle, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.