WASSAIL • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Wassail

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noun

Wassail n.

An ancient expression of good wishes on a festive occasion, especially in drinking to some one. "Geoffrey of Monmouth relates, on the authority of Walter Calenius, that this lady (Rowena), the daughter of Hengist, knelt down on the approach of the king, and, presenting him with a cup of wine, exclaimed, Lord king waes heil, that is, literally, Health be to you."

An occasion on which such good wishes are expressed in drinking; a drinking bout; a carouse. "In merry wassail he... peals his loud song." "The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail." "The victors abandoned themselves to feasting and wassail."

The liquor used for a wassail; esp., a beverage formerly much used in England at Christmas and other festivals, made of ale (or wine) flavored with spices, sugar, toast, roasted apples, etc.; called also lamb's wool. "A jolly wassail bowl, A wassail of good ale."

A festive or drinking song or glee. (Obs.) "Have you done your wassail! 'T is a handsome, drowsy ditty, I'll assure you."

verb

Wassail v. i. To hold a wassail; to carouse. "Spending all the day, and good part of the night, in dancing, caroling, and wassailing."

adjective

Wassail adj. Of or pertaining to wassail, or to a wassail; convivial; as, a wassail bowl. "Awassail candle, my lord, all tallow."

Wassail bowl, a bowl in which wassail was mixed, and placed upon the table. "Spiced wassail bowl." "When the cloth was removed, the butler brought in a huge silver vessel... Its appearance was hailed with acclamation, being the wassail bowl so renowned in Christmas festivity."

Wassail cup, a cup from which wassail was drunk.

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Etymology of 'Wassail'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Wassail" Quotes from Famous Books

... at which the first Traveller stayed was doubtless our old acquaintance, the Bull, "where the window of his adjoining bedroom looked down into the Inn yard, just where the lights of the kitchen redden a massive fragment of the Castle wall." Here was brewed the "wassail" contained in the "brown beauty," the "turkey" and "beef" roasted, and the "plum-pudding" boiled. As Mr. Robert Langton says, "the account of the treat to the poor Travellers is of course wholly fictitious, although it is accepted ...

— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... Bat Wiley, wild-eyed and raging, burst into the barroom of the Admiral Dewey and startled with a tale of wrongs such part of wakeful Cobre as there made wassail. At the crossing of Largo Draw he had been held up at a gun's point by a single robber on horseback; Zurich's money had been taken from him, together with some seventy dollars of his own; his team had been turned loose; it had taken him nearly an hour to catch them again, so delaying the ...

— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... strange tale bewitch'd my mind, Of forayers who, with headlong force, Down from that strength had spurr'd their horse, Their southern rapine to renew, Far in the distant Cheviots blue, And home returning, fill'd the hall With revel, wassail-rout, and brawl. Methought that still with trump and clang The gateway's broken arches rang; Methought grim features, seam'd with scars, Glared through the windows' rusty bars; And ever, by the winter hearth, Old tales ...

— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... single ball! Resurgam. Dawns dread and red the fateful morn— Lo, Resurrection's Day is born! The striding sea no longer strides, No longer knows the trick of tides; The land is breathless, winds relent, All nature waits the dread event. From wassail rising rather late, Awarding Jove arrives in state; O'er yawning graves looks many a league, Then yawns himself from sheer fatigue. Lifting its finger to the sky, A marble shaft arrests his eye— This epitaph, in pompous pride, Engraven on its polished side: "Perfection of ...

— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... wassail bowls, Their wines and barley bree; My ain wee house and winsome wife Are dearer far to me. To crack with her of joys to come, Of days departed long, When she was like a wee wild rose, And I a bird of song. When I come hame at e'en, When I come hame at e'en, How dear to me these memories ...

— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

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