Dictionary

waulk en · VERB

Etymology

From Middle English walken, from Old English wealcian (“to roll up; muffle up”), from Proto-West Germanic *walkōn, from Proto-Germanic *walkōną (“to roll about; full (cloth)”). Cognate with Scots waulk (“to full”), Dutch walken (“to full”), German walken (“to full”), Danish valke (“to full”), Swedish valka (“to full”). Doublet of walk.

Meanings

1. (qualifier:obsolete outside Northern England and Scotland, transitive) to make cloth (especially tweed in Scotland) denser and more felt-like by soaking and beating.
   • 1992, Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber, Random House Group (Arrow Books), page 590, I hid a smile at the mention of wool waulking. Alone among the Highland farms, I was sure, the women of Lailybroch waulked their wool not only to the old traditional chants but also to the rhythms of Moliére and Piron.
   • The frame on which the cloth is waulked is a board some twelve to twenty-four feet long and about two feet broad, grooved lengthwise along its surface. 1900, Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, volume 1, page 310:
   • Here, we compare waulking songs and shanties to see how they operated in bringing women and men, respectively, into a sense of close alignment. 2013, Marek Korczynski, Michael Pickering, Emma Robertson, Rhythms of Labour: Music at Work in Britain, Cambridge University Press, page 97:

Forms

Deriveds

waulkmill · waulker

Synonyms

walk (make denser and more like felt by soaking and beating) · full (make denser and more like felt by soaking and beating)