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BALE (1),
a package. (F.,—M.H.G.) 'Bale of spycery, or
other lyke, bulga;' Prompt. Parv. p. 22.—F. bale, a ball;
also, a pack, as of merchandise; Cot.—Low Lat. bala, a round
bundle, package. Probably merely an adaptation of M.H.G. balle,
a ball, sphere, round body. The Swed. bal (as well as F. bale
above, which Cotgrave gives as a variant of balle) means, likewise, both
a ball and a bale. See Ball. [†] BALE
(2), evil.
(E.) Shak. has baile (1st folio), Cor. i. I. 166; and baleful,
Romeo, ii. 3. 8. M.E. bale, Havelok, 325 (and very common); balu,
Layamon, 1455, 259.—A.S. bealu, bealo, balu, Grein, i. 101. + Icel.
böl, misfortune. + Goth. balws*, evil; only in comp. balwa-wesei,
wickedness, balweins, torment, balwjan, to torment. + O.H.G. balo,
destruction; lost in mod. G. The theoretical Teut. form is balwa,
Fick, iii. 209. ¶
Fick compares Lat. fallere, but this seems to be wrong, as explained in
Curtius, i. 466. Der. bale-ful, bale-ful-ly. BALE
(3), to empty water out
of a ship. (Dutch?) Not in early use. We
find: 'having freed our ship thereof [of water] with baling;'
Hackluyt's Voyages, v. ii. pt. ii. p. 109. It means to empty by
means of bails, i.e. buckets, a term borrowed from the Dutch or Danish;
more probably the former.—Du. balie, a tub; whence balien, to
bale out (Tauchnitz, Dutch Dict. p. 23). + Dan. balle, ballie, a tub. +
Swed. balja, a sheath, scabbard; a tub. + G. balje, a half-tub
(nautical term); Flügel's Dict. β. By comparing this with Swed.
balg, balj, a pod, shell, G. balg, a skin, case, we see that bail is, practically, a
dimin. of bag. Probably pail is different from bail. See
Bag.
ADDENDA BALE
(1), We even find the
spelling balle in English; as in 'a balle bokrom,' a bale of
buckram, Arnold's Chron. ed. 1811, p. 206. On the other hand, we
find the Anglo-French bale, Stat. of the Realm, i. 218 (about A.D. 1284).
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