also 7–8 abeele, abeal, abeile. [a. Du. abeel (abeel-boom), a. OFr. abel, earlier aubel (albel), north Fr. aubiel:—late L. albell-us (found in 12th c., applied to this tree), dim. of alb-us, white. (See Diez, 351, and Grimm, Dict., I. 22.).] The white poplar tree (Populus alba).
1681. Lond. Gaz., mdclxii. 4. If any Person desire to be furnished with young Abeele Plants … they may be furnished with what quantity they please,… at 10s. a hundred.
1681. Worlidge, Syst. Agric., 96. The Abele-tree is a finer kind of white Poplar, and is best propagated of Slips from the Roots.
1703. Art’s Improvement, I. 33. The whitest Wood, and such as the Grain is least visible in, is fitest for this purpose; as Aspen, Abel, Sycamore, Maple or good white Beech.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Poplar, There is a finer sort of white Poplar, which the Dutch call Abele, and is transported hither from Holland. Ibid., s.v. Garden-fences, Lime-trees or Horse Chesnuts, whose Roots do less harm than those of Elms, Abeals, or almost any other Tree.
1730. Swift, Wks., II. 636. You have cut down more plantations of willows and abeles than would purchase a dozen such islands.
1850. Mrs. Browning, Poems, II. 49. Six abeles i’the kirkyard grow, on the north-side in a row.
1859. Kingsley, Plays & Puritans (1873), 76. The one great abele tossing its sheets of silver in the dying gusts.
