wealh

Learned borrowing from Old English wealh. Compare Wales, Welsh.

• IPA^(key): /ˈwæl(x)/

wealh (plural wealhs)

1. (historical) In Anglo-Saxon England, a speaker of a Brythonic language, especially Welsh.
   • 1885, John Beddoe, The Races of Britain: A Contribution to the Anthropology of Western Europe, Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, […]; London: Trübner and Co., […], pages 61–62:

     It is possible that the services on the royal manors, of which Seebohm gives one instance even in the very Saxon Hampshire, may have been heavier than the average of manors held by eorls or thanes. If so, the tenantry on the former may have been in larger proportion wealhs.

   • 1889 October, A[ndrew] G[eorge] Little, “Gesiths and Thegns”, in Mandell Creighton, editor, The English Historical Review, volume IV, number 16, London: Longmans, Green, and Co. and New York: […], page 728:

     That the kings had wealhs in their service, whose position rose in consequence of that service, is shown by Ine, cap. 83: […]

   • 1905, P[aul] Vinogradoff, The Growth of the Manor, London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Lim.; New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Co., page 141:

     Wealhs may also be placed on the same footing by being recognised as free gafolgelders of the king and being connected with a family land, a hide of their own, though their personal estimation will not reach that of Englishmen of equal social standing. This possible equation with the wealhs gives us also a clue as to the probable constitution of the family settled on the land.

From Proto-West Germanic *walh, from Proto-Germanic *walhaz, from a Celtic name also represented by Latin Volcae.

Having originally apparently referred to a neighboring Celtic tribe, it was broadened to refer to any inhabitant of the Western Roman Empire and then, in Britain, narrowed to refer to native Brythons, and later to Welsh people in particular. Owing to the presence of native Brythonic slaves in some areas, it also came to be used to refer to slaves (compare semantic formation of Slav), though only alongside – never supplanting – its ethnic meaning.^[1] The narrowing of meaning away from the continental Germanic meaning of Roman towards referring to Insular Celtic peoples was finalized by the late seventh century; rare occurrences of this term referring to Romans, such as the term Rumwalas found in Widsith, are explained as archaisms inherited from an older tradition.^[2]

• IPA^(key): /wæ͜ɑlx/, [wæ͜ɑɫx]

wealh m (nominative plural wēalas)

1. Celt
2. Welsh person
3. (rare) Roman
4. (rare) foreigner
5. (rare) slave
   • c. 995, Ælfric, Excerptiones de Arte Grammatica Anglice

     hoc sapiens mancipium þēs wīsa weal

     hos sapiens mancipium this wise slave

Strong a-stem:

• (Roman): Rōmānisċ
• (foreigner): elþēodiġ
• (slave): þēow

• Middle English: wælh, wale
• → English: wealh (learned)
• → Medieval Latin: wallus