Definitions

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  • verb Present participle of waulk.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The Walker, Fuller, and Tucker, all did very much the same work of "waulking," or trampling, the cloth.

    The Romance of Names Ernest Weekley 1909

  • Wel, kitteh: yuur hyuoomin finks hims bees waulking yuu; soe jes plaiy alaung adn goe foar teh waulkee-waulkee liek hims wunts;

    Go wawk da hoomin she sayz - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? 2008

  • Most waulking songs have a panegyric element, where one of the good qualities of the young man being praised is his membership of a particular clan.

    Them and Us 2002

  • The clans are addressed as bands of women who are invited to do a very special waulking.

    Them and Us 2002

  • Some of the waulking women, such as two rivals extolling

    Them and Us 2002

  • One of the manifestations of that erudition is to be found in waulking songs.

    Them and Us 2002

  • The other women had watched at first, to see if I would shrink back from the work, but wool-waulking was no great shock, after the things I had seen and done in France, both in the war of 1944 and the hospital of 1744.

    Dragonfly in Amber Gabaldon, Diana 1992

  • I was pulled back from my memories of wool-waulking by the noise of heavy boots in the hallway, and a gust of cool, rainy air as the door opened.

    Dragonfly in Amber Gabaldon, Diana 1992

  • And smell aside, the waulking shed was a warm, cozy place, where the women of Lallybroch visited and joked between bolts of cloth, and sang together in the working, hands moving rhythmically across a table, or bare feet sinking deep into the steaming fabric as we sat on the floor, thrusting against a partner thrusting back.

    Dragonfly in Amber Gabaldon, Diana 1992

  • I had a sudden memory of the waulking shed, where the women sat in two facing rows, barefooted and bare-armed in their oldest clothes, bracing themselves against the walls as they thrust with their feet against the long, sodden worm of woolen cloth, battering it into the tight, felted weave that would repel Highland mists and even light rain, keeping the wearer safe from the chill.

    Dragonfly in Amber Gabaldon, Diana 1992

Comments

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  • What these jolly ladies are doing:

    waulking Scotswomen

    Another, similar, term is "fulling". The general objective is to make the wool more malleable; the process involves softening it by soaking in urine (see lant) and pounding the bejasus out of it, either through the pressure of dainty feet, as in the picture, or - for example - using hammers, like the infamous "fulling-hammers" which so frightened Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in Chapter 20.

    March 26, 2009

  • See waulk.

    March 26, 2009