Word.ws English Dictionary

wald

/wɔːld/

wald verb: to govern; inherit.

Verb

wald (third-person singular simple present walds, present participle walding, simple past and past participle walded)

  1. (UK, ambitransitive, dialectal) To govern; inherit.

Noun (1)

wald (countable and uncountable, plural walds)

  1. (UK, dialectal) Power; strength.
  2. (UK, dialectal) Command; control; possession.

Noun (2)

wald (plural walds)

  1. Forest; woods.
    • … we still recognize the ancient traditions of the Goths, concerning the wald-elven,…1812, Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Digitized edition, page 124
    • the romantic pass of the "wald path," along which runs a spur of an old Roman road1853, Robert Simpson, History of Sanquhar, page 16

Forms of wald

Verb
third-person singular presentwalds
present participlewalding
past participlewalded
pastwalded
alternative Scotlandwauld
Noun
pluralwalds

Origin of wald

From Northern Middle English walde, from Old English wealdan (“to rule, control, determine, direct, command, govern, possess, wield, exercise, cause, bring about”), from Proto-West Germanic *waldan, from Proto-Germanic *waldaną (“to reign”), from Proto-Indo-European *waldʰ- (“to be strong, be powerful, prevail, possess”). Cognates Cognate with German walten (“to prevail, reign, dominate”), Danish volde (“to cause”), Icelandic valda (“to cause”), Lithuanian valda (“land property”), Lithuanian valdyti (“to rule”).

From Northern Middle English wald, from Old English weald (“power, authority”), from Proto-Germanic *waldą (“power”), from Proto-Indo-European *waldʰ- (“to be strong, be powerful, prevail, possess”). Cognate with German Gewalt (“force, power, control, violence”), Swedish våld (“force, violence”).

From Northern Middle English wald, from Old English wald, weald, from Proto-West Germanic *walþu, from Proto-Germanic *walþuz (“forest”), possibly from a Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“to perceive, see”) or *welH- (“to roll, undulate”). Largely displaced by forest. Cognates Compare North Frisian wald, walt (“forest”), Saterland Frisian Woold (“forest”), West Frisian wâld (“forest”), Alemannic German and German Wald (“forest, woods”), Bavarian Woid (“forest, woods”), Cimbrian balt (“forest, woods”), Dutch woud (“forest, woods”), Low German Woold, Woolt (“forest”), Luxembourgish Wal (“forest”), Mòcheno bòlt (“wood, woodland”), Yiddish וואַלד (vald, “forest”), Danish val (“plain”), vold (“field, meadow”), Faroese vøllur (“lawn; field”), Icelandic völlur (“lawn; field”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk voll (“meadow”), Swedish vall (“field, pasture”); also Hittite 𒌑𒂊𒂖𒇻𒍑 (ú-e-el-lu-uš, “meadow, pasture”). See also weald, wold, ultimately of the same origin.

Phrases with wald

Words that rhyme with wald

Questions about wald

What does wald mean?
Wald means to govern; inherit.
What part of speech is wald?
Wald can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce wald?
Wald is pronounced /wɔːld/.
What is the past tense of wald?
The past tense of wald is walded.

Words near wald in the dictionary

  1. Walcourt
  2. Walczak
  3. Walczaks
  4. Walczyk
  5. Walczyks
  6. wald
  7. Wald test
  8. Wald tests
  9. Waldara
  10. Waldchen
  11. walded

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wald (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-wald.wav.

Cite this entry: “wald.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wald. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.