Also 6 bale. [App. ad. OF. baillier to enclose, shut, of doubtful source: immediately related to bail, baille, BAIL sb.3, though it is not yet certain which is derived from the other; if the vb. be the source, it may be perh. only another sense of baillier, to have charge of, control, guard, etc.: see BAIL v.1]
1. To confine. rare.
c. 1600. Shaks., Sonnets, No. 133. Prison my heart in thy steele bosomes warde, But then my friends heart let my poore heart bale, Who ere keepes me, let my heart be his garde.
1852. Sir W. Hamilton, Disc., 303. The infinite spirit does not bail itself under proportion and number.
2. To bail up (in Australia): a. To secure the head of a cow in a ‘bail’ while she is milked; b. (said of bushrangers) To ‘stick up’ and disarm travellers in order to rob them without resistance; also, intr. To surrender without resistance, disarm oneself by throwing up the arms. [The identity of this with a. is disputed.]
1880. Melbourne Argus, 22 July, 1/7. We were bailed up by an armed man on horseback. Ibid., in Leisure Ho. (1885), 197. ‘Bail up! Throw up your arms, I’m Ned Kelly!’
Mod. (from E. A. Petherick) ‘Have you bailed up the cows?’ ‘Yes, they’re bailed up.’
