Bale Definition

bāl
baled, bales, baling
noun
A large bundle of raw or finished material tightly bound with cord or wire and often wrapped.
A bale of hay.
American Heritage
A large bundle, esp. a standardized quantity of goods, as ginned cotton, hay, straw, etc., compressed, bound, and sometimes wrapped.
Webster's New World
Evil.
American Heritage
Evil; disaster; harm.
Webster's New World
Mental suffering; anguish.
American Heritage
verb
To wrap in a bale or in bales.
A machine that bales cotton.
American Heritage
To make into a bale or bales.
Webster's New World

To wrap into a bale.

Wiktionary

(UK, nautical) To remove water from a boat with buckets etc.

Wiktionary

Other Word Forms of Bale

Noun

Singular:
bale
Plural:
bales

Origin of Bale

  • Precise derivation uncertain: perhaps from Old French bale, balle, from Medieval Latin balla (“ball, rounded package”), from Germanic; or perhaps from Dutch baal, itself borrowed from French.

    From Wiktionary

  • Old English bǣl, from Proto-Germanic *bēlō, from Proto-Indo-European. Cognate with Old Norse bál (which may have been the direct source for the English word).

    From Wiktionary

  • Old English bealo, from Proto-Germanic *balwô. Cognate with Gothic (balweins, “torture”), Old High German balo (“destruction”), Old Norse bǫl (“disaster”).

    From Wiktionary

  • Middle English from Old French bhel-2 in Indo-European roots

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • Middle English from Old English bealu

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • Alternative spelling of bail

    From Wiktionary

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