Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The vault of heaven; the sky.
- noun The upper air.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The sky; the vault of heaven; the heavens.
- Sky-blue.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The visible regions of the air; the vault of heaven; the sky.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun archaic The
sky , the upper air; theheavens .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the apparent surface of the imaginary sphere on which celestial bodies appear to be projected
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The welkin is being made to ring with the figures of unemployment insurance registrations.
Dollars and Sense 1958
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And the orient welkin is smit to flame with auroral crimsoning.
The Watchman and Other Poems Lucy Maud 1916
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Among the less pleasing sounds that fill the welkin are the _tonk_, _tonk_, _tonk_ of the coppersmith, the
A Bird Calendar for Northern India Douglas Dewar 1916
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Rides the bleak puffing winds, that feem to fpit Their foam fparfe thro 'the welkin, which is nothing If not beheld.
The works of the English poets; with prefaces, biographical and critical 1790
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But that the sea, mounting to th 'welkin's cheek, [369-1]
Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 Charles Herbert Sylvester
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The only improvements I would recommend are a smoking lounge inside security -- Miami International has that -- and a similar soundproof room where parents could take their children who insist on screaming at the exact pitch that sets off car alarms and makes the welkin ring.
Greetings from D-27 2009
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The intense gaze of his welkin blue eyes suggested an immense self-regard.
A Country of Vast Designs Robert W. Merry 2009
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The intense gaze of his welkin blue eyes suggested an immense self-regard.
A Country of Vast Designs Robert W. Merry 2009
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Just for variety, he poured syrup all over Robin Walker, the son of the former Cabinet minister Peter Walker, by praising his dad to the very welkin.
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Ah, pay no mind to the welkin blue if you would be thought as "green."
December 14th, 2008 m_francis 2008
sionnach commented on the word welkin
See also make the welkin ring.
January 11, 2008
yarb commented on the word welkin
Also (more commonly) the sky, the heavens.
"with feats of Arms / From either end of Heav'n the welkin burns." - Paradise Lost, Book 2.
January 11, 2008
missanthropist commented on the word welkin
Antiquated word for clouds.
Described in "To make the welkin ring".
from James Greenough's Words and Their Ways in English Speech, 1901
May 17, 2008
she commented on the word welkin
"Sky with wooly clouds" from Saxon wealcan 'to roll,' wolke 'cloud,' and German wolle 'wool.'
July 11, 2008
qroqqa commented on the word welkin
Whoa! Etymological connexion with 'wool'? Or 'walk'? I think not. It's true that 'welkin' originally meant "cloud" and it has no cognates outside West Germanic, but it's pretty clearly a stem *wolk(ə)n- in all those (OE and OFris wolcn-, OS wolcan, OHG wolkan), so if it were related to 'wool' you'd have to account for both the /k/ and the /n/.
It's true also that 'walk' originally meant "roll", but it was always the rolling or tossing of the sea (10th cent.: Feruentis oceani wealcendre sæ), or people's metaphorical tossing with discomfort. There's no evidence that it was associated with the motions of clouds. Again, the deeper etymology of 'walk' is unknown as it has no clear cognates outside Germanic. So 'welkin' doesn't look like it comes from (the etymon of) 'walk'.
Finally, to derive either of these from (the etymon of) 'wool' is really stretching plausibility. The Germanic root was *wull-, so it's got the wrong vowel. You then have to suggest a semantic pathway from "wool" to "toss" (the waves of the sea don't toss like wool), and put forward a /k/ suffix to make this transition.
Or you could disregard 'walk' and try to get straight from 'wool' to 'welkin' by losing the doubled /l/ and adding a /-k(ə)n/ suffix and claiming that clouds were called woolly things. I'm not saying that's impossibile, just that there's no evidence for it and it looks a lot like mere vague similarity.
July 11, 2008
she commented on the word welkin
Intriguing, qroqqa! Poplollies and Bellibones: A Celebration of Lost Words, where I found welkin, states (This was simplified in the book's glossary to what I posted below): "From the Saxon words wealcan 'to roll,' and wolke 'a cloud.' It is also connected to the German word wolle 'wool,' used to describe the wooly quality of clouds. Shakespeare wrote in A Midsummer Night's Dream,
The starry welkin cover thee anon
With drooping fog as black as Alcheron"
You may very well be right, but it's one author's (informed?) opinion. I don't find myself leaning in either direction in particular.
July 17, 2008
jmjarmstrong commented on the word welkin
JM wandered out, squinted up at the welkin, saw all was where it should be, wandered back, shut the door behind him.
February 1, 2009