Also whale. [f. WALE sb.1]
1. trans. To mark (the flesh) with wales or weals.
14[?]. in Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1903), 245. A wycked wound hath me walled [rhymes called, halt, salt], And traveyld me from topp to too.
1634. Bp. Hall, Contempl. N. T., Christ bef. Pilate, 263. O my blessed Saviour, was it not enough that thy sacred body was stripped of thy garments, and waled with bloudy stripes?
1661. Feltham, Resolves, II. lxxxv. (ed. 8), 375. Would the Horse … suffer his lazy Rider to bestride his patient back, with his hands and whip to wale his flesh?
2. ‘To fasten, secure, or protect with a wale or wale piece’ (Webster, 1911).
1909. E. Essex Advertiser, Aug. Suppl. 4/3. The wharf … is built with piles and strongly whaled.
3. a. Mil. To weave or wattle (a gabion, hurdle). b. Basket-making. To intertwine (rods) in making a wale (see WALE sb.1 6); also ‘to furnish (a basket) with a wale or wales’ (Webster, 1911).
1842. Burn, Nav. & Mil. Techn. Dict., Clayonner, to wattle, wale.
1892. Fox Irwin, Notes Fortific. (ed. 2), 60. To make a Wickerwork Gabion…. Wale the web by passing each rod in succession over the other two … till the waling is 2-ft. 6-in. high.
1907. Jrnl. Soc. Arts, 11 Jan., 190/2. The foot rods are waled and then laid down as in a border.
Hence Waled ppl. a., marked with weals. Waling vbl. sb. Mil., the process of making a gabion or hurdle; also, the basket-work thus made; also attrib. as waling rod.
1842. Burn, Nav. & Mil. Techn. Dict., Clayon, a … waling-rod. Clayonnage, wattling;… waling.
1885. Pall Mall Gaz., 31 March, 6/2. A horrible vision of a waled back would come before my eyes and the swish of that terrible whip would sound in my ears.
1892. G. Philips, Text-bk. Fortif., III. iii. (ed. 5), 88. In brushwood gabions the basket work is called the web, and the process of making it is termed waling.
1892. [see 3 above].
