Forms: 5 beyl, bayl, 5–7 bayle, 7 baile, 7– bail, (8–9 erron. bale). [ME. beyl, prob. a. ON. beygla, Da. böile, Sw. bögel, bygel, bending, ring, hoop, guard of a sword-handle, etc.; cf. also ON. beyla hump, swelling (Vigf.); all from ON. beygja = OE. béʓan, býʓan, to bend, bow. There may even have been an OE. *beʓel, byʓel; cf. LG. bögel in same sense.]
1. A hoop or ring; a half-hoop for supporting the cover of a wagon or cradle, the tilt of a boat, etc.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys, 120. My right hand arayid … Wyth a precyous beyl of gold hath he.
1494. Ord. R. Househ., 127. Twoe cradlebands of crimsonne velvett and a bayle … for the same.
1529. Privy Purse Exp. Hen. VIII. (1827), 11. To the same watermen for fowre bayles for the saied barge.
1669. Worlidge, Syst. Agric. (1681), 216. Two small round Hoops or Arches … like unto the two end-Hoops or Bails of a Carriers Waggon, or a Tilt-boat.
1748. (ed. 4), De Foe, etc. Tour Gt. Brit., I. 143 (D.). An act of Parliament passed in 1736–7 … prohibits close Decks and Bails nailed down in the Wherries.
1884. W. Sussex Gaz., 25 Sept. A capital large rick cloth, with bail.
2. The hoop-handle of a kettle or similar vessel.
1463. Bury Wills (1850), 23. A litell chafour with a beyl and a lyd.
1607. Topsell, Serpents, 767. About the same vessel [caldron or kettle] … binde this … to the handle or bayl thereof.
1741. Payne, Phil. Trans., XLI. 823. A Handle or Bale … by which it may be hung or held up.
1865. E. Burritt, Walk to Land’s End, 460. The old-fashioned bails of our brass-kettles.
1866. Howells, Venet. Life, 36. A small pot of glazed earthenware having an earthen bale.
