Definition
nounA rampart of earth, stones etc. built up for defensive purposes.
nounA structure built for defense surrounding a city, castle etc.
Sentence Examples
The car crashed into the wall.
You never listen. I might as well talk to the wall.
The first coat of plaster levels out the surface of the wall.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English wal, from Old English weall (“wall, dike, earthwork, rampart, dam, rocky shore, cliff”), from Proto-West Germanic *wall (“wall, rampart, entrenchment”), from Latin vallum (“wall, rampart, entrenchment, palisade”), from Proto-Indo-European *welH- (“to turn, wind, roll”).
Perhaps conflated with waw (“a wall within a house or dwelling, a room partition”), from Middle English wawe, from Old English wāg, wāh (“an interior wall, divider”), see waw.
Cognate with North Frisian wal (“wall”), Saterland Frisian Waal (“wall, rampart, mound”), Dutch wal (“wall, rampart, embankment”), German Wall (“rampart, mound, embankment”), Swedish vall (“mound, wall, bank”). More at wallow, walk.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much. Those entering it are greeted by wire fences, walls dating back to colonial times and security posts. For mariners leaving the port after lonely nights on the high seas, the delights of the B52 Night Club and Stallion Pub lie a stumble away."
— 2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 52:
"[…] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit."
— 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
"Nanny Broome was looking up at the outer wall. Just under the ceiling there were three lunette windows, heavily barred and blacked out in the normal way by centuries of grime."
— 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 14, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
"They want Abramovich out for obvious reasons, including the optics, and they do not want to send Chelsea to the wall as they consider the club to be of cultural significance to the country."
— March 11 2022, David Hytner, “Chelsea are in crisis but there is no will to leave club on their knees”, in The Guardian:
"Researchers found that 15 of 17 species which commonly live on farmland – including the small tortoiseshell, small skipper and wall butterfly – show declines associated with increasing neonic use."
— 2015 November 24, Patrick Barkham, “Pesticide may be reason butterfly numbers are falling in UK, says study”, in The Guardian: