Now only U.S. Also 5–9 Sc. waul(e, wawl(e, 5–6 Sc. (? erron.) waill. [MSc. wawle:—*waȝle, related to waȝl- in WALL-EYED a.] trans. To roll (the eyes). Also absol., and intr. of the eyes. Hence Walling ppl. a. (Sc. waulen’).
c. 1480. Henryson, Cock & Fox, 469. The Cok … Vnwarlie winkand, wawland vp and doun.
c. 1500. in Makculloch MS. (S.T.S.), iv. 27. Cuttis for þi cot þai kest … out throw þi harnis þe pykis of thorne apliit, wawland [MS. Arundel wailland] þi ene.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VIII. vii. 154. In the breist of the goddes graif thai Gorgones heid,… Wyth ene wauland [L. vertentem lumina].
1818. Edin. Mag., Oct., 328/2. The sicht forhow’t her waulen’ een, Sho lay in the deadthraws.
1821. Scott, Pirate, xxx. But presently recovering himself, he wawls on me with his gray een, like a wild-cat.
1817. Hogg, Gude Greye Katt, xxvii. in Poetic Mirror (1817), 196. Quhill ilken bosome byrnit with lufe, And waulit ilken ee.
1876. ‘Mark Twain,’ Tom Sawyer, v. The ladies would lift up their hands,… and ‘wall’ their eyes, and shake their heads.
1883. Trans. Amer. Philol. Soc., 55. Wall the eyes, that is, ‘to roll the eyes so as to show the white.’ I can remember this as a very common way among the little negroes in South Carolina of showing displeasure.
