Forms: 4 wosseyle, wesseyle, 7 wassaile, -ayle, 6 wassal, 8 wessel, 8– wassail. [f. WASSAIL sb.]
1. intr. To ‘keep wassail’; to sit carousing and health-drinking.
c. 1300. Havelok, 1737. Hwan he … fele siþes haueden wosseyled, And with gode drinkes seten longe. Ibid., 2098. Hwat may þis be? Better is i go miself, and se: Hweþer he sitten nou, and wesseylen.
1686. Plot, Staffordsh., 430. A Horn; the ancient vessel in which the Danes use to Wassayle, or drink healths.
1889. F. M. Crawford, Greifenstein, III. xxv. 136. He feasted and wassailed with his warriors.
2. trans. To drink to (fruit-trees, cattle) in wassail, in order to ensure their thriving. local.
1648. Herrick, Hesper., Christmasse-Eve. Wassaile the Trees, that they may beare You many a Plum, and many a Peare.
1686–7. Aubrey, Rem. Gentilism & Judaism (1881), 9. Mðm. at Twelve-tyde at night they use in the Countrey to wassaile their Oxen and to have Wassaile-Cakes made.
1865. R. Hunt, Pop. Rom. W. Eng., 2nd Ser. 176. This drink was called lamb’s-wool, and with it the trees were wassailed.
1878. Folk-Lore Rec., I. 13. It is the custom, in the cider districts of Sussex, to worsle (wassail) the apple-trees.
1895. F. T. Elworthy, Evil Eye, iii. 105. The old Christmas custom of wassailing the apple-trees.
