wold noun. [wǝʊld] In sense 3b also Wold.
[Old English (Anglian) wald, (West Saxon) weald (see WEALD) = Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Old High German wald (Dutch woud, German Wald) forest, Old Norse vǫllr untilled field, plain, from Germanic, perh. rel. to WELD noun¹ and cogn. with WILD adjective & noun.]
1. Forest, forest land; wooded upland. Long obsolete exc. dial. OE.

2. A hill, a down. ME-E16.

3. A piece of open country; a plain. Now esp. a tract of high open uncultivated country or moorland; in pl. & collect. sing. rolling uplands. Chiefly literary. ME.
■ Tennyson The wind, that beats the mountain, blows More softly round the open wold. attrib.:
■ A. S. Byatt The Mercedes was having difficulty with a hay-wain in the twisting little wold roads.
b. spec. In pl. & collect. sing. The hill country of N. Yorkshire and Humberside; the Cotswold district; the hilly districts of Leicestershire and Lincolnshire. L15.

► After E16 fell out of general use and was restricted to names of particular areas (e.g. the Yorkshire Wolds) which were probably once wooded, whence it was generalized in literary use (sense 3) after c E17.

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