hale

Meanings

Noun

• Health, welfare.

Adjective

• Sound, entire, healthy; robust, not impaired.

Verb

• To drag or pull, especially forcibly.

Related

Opposite words

• unhale

Origin

• From Middle English hele, hæle, from Old English hǣlu, hǣl, from Proto-Germanic *hailį̄, a noun-derivative of Proto-Germanic *hailaz. Cognate with Scots haill, hale, German Heil.
• From Northern Middle English hal, hale, variants of hole (whence whole), from Middle English hāl, from Proto-West Germanic *hail, from Proto-Germanic *hailaz ("whole; entire; healthy"). See whole for more.
• From Middle English halen, from Anglo-Norman haler, from Old Dutch *halon (compare Dutch halen), from Proto-Germanic *halōną (compare Old English ġeholian, West Frisian helje, German holen), from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₁- ("to lift") (compare Latin excello ("to surpass"), Tocharian B käly-, Albanian qell ("to halt, hold up, carry"), Lithuanian kélti ("to raise up"), Ancient Greek κελέοντες ("upright beam on a loom")). Doublet of haul.