Pa. t. and pa. pple. walled. [OE. *weallian (only in pa. pple. ʓeweallod), f. weall WALL sb.1 Cf. LG. wallen.]
1. trans. To furnish with a wall.
a. To enclose, surround or divide with a wall or walls; to provide (a town, etc.) with fortified walls.
[c. 1000. Ælfric, Num. xiii. 29. Micele burʓa þær sind and mærlice ʓeweallode.]
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 435. He ches a stede toward eden, And … Wallede a burȝ, e-no bi name.
a. 1366[?]. Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 138. I sugh a Gardin…, Enclos it was, and walled wel, With hye walles enbatailled.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), VI. 339. Þe citee of Ȝork, þat was not ful i-walled.
1421. Caxton, Recuyell (Sommer), 271. Laomedon the kynge of Troye was besy to walle and mure his cyte with mures and towres.
1589. Bigges, Summarie Drake’s W. Ind. Voy., 39. The same [Priorie] being walled with a wall of stone.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., V. iii. 14. Close by the battell, ditch’d, & wall’d with turph.
1643. R. Baker, Chron., 13. King Athelstan … new walled and beautifyed the City of Exceter.
1794. Trans. Soc. Arts, XII. 201. The expence of walling the forty-two acres was seventy-eight pounds.
1842. Dickens, Amer. Notes, iii. The House of Correction … is not walled, like other prisons, but is palisaded round about with … stakes.
1849. Lyell, 2nd Visit U.S., II. 295. Some lands near the river … have risen immensely in value, being now trenched and walled.
1881. Proc. R. Geog. Soc. (N.S.), III. 31. The town of Shonga … is walled and ditched.
b. with about, round about, round. To wall in, to enclose with a wall. To wall off, out, to shut off or out with a wall.
1297. R. Glouc. (Rolls), 1169. Þe vif tounes of þe vif pors he let walli aboute.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, II. 220. Till Perth then went thai … That then wes wallyt all about.
c. 1420. Wyntoun, Cron., V. 1303 (Cott.). He gert wal in al þat stede Qwhar Criste his passion tholit of dede.
1481. Caxton, Reynard, v. (Arb.), 10. They … wente in a yerde whiche was walled round a boute.
c. 1530. Tindale, Jonas, Prol. B vij. Enuironed it and walled it aboute on euery syde with ye feare of god.
1600. Surflet, Country Farm, VII. xix. 834. Their parkes therefore must bee walled about.
1633. Stow’s Surv., 761. He round walled the Church-yard.
1691. J. Gibson, in Archæologia, XII. 189. The garden not being walled about they have less summer fruit.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, II. (Globe), 564. It was a low marshy Ground, wall’d round with a Stone-wall.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1809), IV. 58. A gravel-walk that was walled in on the left hand.
1799. Wellington, Let. Lieut. Col. Close, 21 Dec., in Gurwood, Disp. (1844), I. 47. What I should propose would be to wall off that part occupied by him.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, vii. Traffic was walled out.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. ii. 19. A space for cooking walled off from the sleeping-room.
1865. W. G. Palgrave, Journ. Central & E. Arabia, II. 307. The town is walled in, but not strongly, on the land side.
c. To furnish (a building) with side and partition walls; to build the wall or walls of. Also with up.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XIX. 323. And þere-with grace bigan to make a good foundement, And watteled it and walled it with his peynes & his passioun.
c. 1394. P. Pl. Crede, 164. And all was walled þat wone.
1523. Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. ccix. 102 b/2. Therein was a square toure thick walled.
1691. Dryden, K. Arthur, II. 19. That Castle, were it wall’d with Adamant, Can hide thy Head, but till to Morrow’s Dawn.
1726. Leoni, trans. Alberti’s Archit., I. 78. The Towers … ought not to be open on the inside, but walled up quite round.
1799. A. Young, View Agric. Lincoln., 34. The old buildings are of timber, walled with clay.
1911. G. Macdonald, Roman Wall Scot., xii. 401. Perhaps it was now that Castlecary was walled with stone.
d. To line (a well, cistern) with a wall. Also with round.
1707. Mortimer, Husb., 229. A Cistern of Clay walled within with Bricks.
1833. Jas. Davidson, Brit. & Rom. Rem. Axminster, 84. A hole in the natural soil … walled round in a circular form with flint stones.
2. transf. and fig. To enclose, defend, bound or divide as with a wall, or as a wall does.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Manciple’s T., 219. My sone, god … Walled a tonge with teeth and lippes eke ffor man sholde hym auyse what he speeke.
1558. A. Jenkinson, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1599), I. 331. We feared nothing being walled with the said riuer.
1591. Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., IV. ii. 24. On either hand thee, there are squadrons pitcht, To wall thee from the liberty of Flight.
1595. Polimanteia, in Brydges, Brit. Bibl., I. 278. Yet both of you [Oxford and Cambridge] so deare to me,… so walled with priuiledges, so crowned with all kinde of honor.
1603–4. Shaks., Ham., IV. v. 122 (QQ 1, 2). There’s such diuinitie doth wall [Fol. hedge] a king, That treason dares not looke on.
c. 1620. Fletcher, False One, V. iv. 26. My free mind, Like to the palm-tree walling fruitful Nile, Shall grow up straighter.
1638. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (ed. 2), 165. Either side is wall’d with an amazing hill.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, IV. vii. 179. They … onely spoiled poore villages, which counted themselves walled with the truce as yet in force.
1667. Milton, P. L., III. 721. Each [star] had his place appointed, each his course, The rest in circuit walles this Universe.
1818. L. Hunt, Hero & Leander, II. 7. The struggling flare Seem’d out; but then he knew his Hero’s care, And that she only wall’d it with her cloak.
1834. Ld. Houghton, Mem. Tour Greece, 23. The tall white rock, Walled the far waste of silent sea.
1879. Daily News, 18 Sept., 6/1. The enclosures were walled with Union Jacks.
1883. Bridges, Prometheus, 14. Where the path Is walled with corn I am found.
1913. Engl. Rev., Dec., 59. On the right hand, walling the street, [is] the great monastery to the Passion of Christ.
b. with about, across, along, in, round.
c. 1430. Pilgr. Lyf Manhode, I. xx. (1869), 15. This closure that closeth yow and walleth yow in, disseueringe yow from the world.
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., V. ii. 3. A Lady wal’d about with Diamonds. Ibid. (1593), Rich. II., III. ii. 167. As if this Flesh, which walls about our Life, Were Brasse impregnable.
a. 1625. Bacon, War with Spain (1629), 45. The Spaniards … casting themselues continually into Roundels, (their strongest Ships walling in the rest).
1642. Denham, Sophy, I. i. ’Tis his single vertue And terror of his name, that walls us in From danger.
1690. C. Nesse, O. & N. Test., I. 38. A weekly sabbath walls in our wild natures.
1795. Southey, Joan of Arc, I. 475. At length I heard of Orleans, by the foe Wall’d in from human succour.
1837. W. Irving, Capt. Bonneville, II. 207. The high precipices which had hitherto walled in the channel of Snake river.
1845. J. Coulter, Adv. in Pacific, xi. 132. The … upper part of the clearing, which was walled along for several hundred yards by solid rock.
1878. Browning, Poets Croisic, Prol. 3. World—how it walled about Life with disgrace.
1883. Stevenson, Silverado Sq. (1886), 39. A canyon … was here walled across by a dump of rolling stones.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer, xiv. The … landlocked bay, with … a grand sandstone bluff guarding and walling-in the farther point like a grim jealous giant.
c. To form the sides of (a room) like walls; to line the walls of (an apartment).
1832. Lytton, Eugene Aram, I. iii. 20. The rest of the room was walled from the floor to the roof with books.
1846. G. B. Cheever, Lect. Pilgr. Progr., x. 126. It does not take long in such employment to make the room seem walled with retributive flames.
1910. G. W. E. Russell, 15 Chapters Autob. (1914), vii. 149. The great gallery, walled with the canvases of Rubens.
3. To shut up (a person or thing) within walls, to build up or entomb in a wall, to immure. Chiefly with up.
1530. Palsgr., 770/2. I wall, I shyt up, or close up, within walles. Je mure.… It is a harde relygyon to be an anchre, for they be shytte up within walles and can go no farther.
1600. E. Blount, trans. Conestaggio, 343. They were walled vp within their monasterie.
a. 1618. Fletcher, Mad Lover, I. i. In three [battles] he beat the Thunder-bolt his Brother, Forc’d him to wall himself up.
1621. Lady M. Wroth, Urania, 133. After the sight of one dead, the other wall’d to certaine death,… what could they say?
1647. in Verney Mem. (1892), II. xii. 285. The feather bedds that were waled up are much eaten with Ratts.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills (1872), VI. 87. But if ne’er so close you wall him,… Blind Love … Will find out the way.
1737. W. Cowper, in F. Peck, Mem. O. Cromwell, etc., II. (1740), 88. I am apt to think the person found in the vault was betrayed and walled up alive by them he trusted.
1845. Poe, Black Cat (end). I had walled the monster up within the tomb!
transf. 1867. G. Macdonald, Poems, 87. I will be a knight Walled up in armour black.
¶ b. An alleged synonym of GATE v.1
1860. C. Benson, Mr. Bedlow, Remin. Amer. Coll. Life, in Macm. Mag., II. 222/1. To ‘gate’ or ‘wall’ a refractory student would be simply impossible, for want of the material masonry.
1871. Hoppe, s.v. Gate gives the prec. quot.; hence the sense appears (as ‘Oxford university slang’) in Barrère & Leland, Slang, in Farmer, and in recent Dicts.
4. To close (a gate or other aperture) with or as with a wall. Chiefly with up.
1503. Engl. Misc. (Surtees, 1890), 30. John Mitteley & his heires frome now forthe shall wall up … the utter west syde of his swynstye.
1535. Coverdale, 1 Macc. v. 47. They that were in the cite, wolde not let them go thorow, but walled vp the portes with stones.
1605. Shuttleworths’ Acc. (Chetham Soc.), 168. A waller, one day wallinge uppe the dower … iiijd.
1667. Observ. Burning Lond., 23. [They] were talking of walling the Gates to prevent the coming in of the Tartarians.
1707–21. Mortimer, Husb. (ed. 5), II. 192. Wall up the sides with Brick.
1848. H. Greville, Leaves fr. Diary, 1 July (1883), 280. The door has been walled to prevent surprise.
1861. Dickens, Gt. Expect., viii. Some of the windows had been walled up.
1886. Willis & Clark, Cambridge, II. 125. Bishop Alcock … walled up the arches and inserted in each of them a window.
5. To build (stone) into a wall. Also of stone, to make (a specified length) of walling.
1621. Shuttleworths’ Acc. (Chetham Soc.), 251. P’d for soe many stones as walled nyne y’des, ijs iijd.
1791. Smeaton, Edystone L. (1793), § 209. When it [Bath Free Stone] is walled with this kind of mortar,… the joints are more permanent.
1848–9. L’pool. Archit. Soc. (1852), II. 190. It [the rubble] may be walled with or without mortar.
6. absol. or intr. To construct a wall or walls; to build walling.
1588. Shuttleworth’s Acc. (Chetham Soc.), 44. Towe mene for wallinge towe days, ijs ijd. Ibid. (1598), 112. Towe workemen, for waullynge and daubynge in the bru howse … xvjd.
1726. Leoni, Alberti’s Archit., I. 47. We may be said rather to wall than only to fill up.
7. trans. To chalk up (a score) on the wall. slang.
1848. Sinks of Lond., 129. Wall it, chalking a reckoning up at a public house.
