hale

Etymology 1

From Northern Middle English hal, hale, variants of hole (“healthy; safe; whole”) (whence whole), from Old English hāl, from Proto-West Germanic *hail, from Proto-Germanic *hailaz (“whole; entire; healthy”). See whole for more.

adj

1. (dated) Sound, entire, healthy; robust, not impaired.

Etymology 2

From Middle English hale, an alteration of hele (“health”) after Etymology 1. Cognate with Scots hale (“health”), German Heil (“salvation, well-being”).

noun

1. (archaic) Health, welfare.

Etymology 3

From Middle English halen, from Anglo-Norman haler, from Old Dutch *halon (compare Dutch halen), from Proto-Germanic *halōną (compare Old English ġeholian, West Frisian helje, German holen), from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₁- (“to lift”) (compare Latin ex-cellō (“to surpass”), Tocharian B käly- (“to stand, stay”), Albanian qell (“to halt, hold up, carry”), Lithuanian kélti (“to raise up”), Ancient Greek κελέοντες (keléontes, “upright beam on a loom”)). Doublet of haul.

verb

1. To drag or pull, especially forcibly.
   A ſpacious Breach we make, and Troy’s proud Wall / Built by the Gods, by our own hands doth fall; / Thus, all their help to their own Ruin give, / Some draw with Cords, and ſome the Monſter drive / With Rolls and Leavers, thus our Works it climbs, / Big with our Fate, the Youth with Songs and Rhimes, / Some dance, ſome hale the Rope; at laſt let down / It enters with a thund’ring Noiſe the Town. 1636, John Denham, “The Destruction of Troy, an Essay on the Second Book of Virgil’s Æneis. Written in the Year 1636.”, in Poems and Translations; with the Sophy, a Tragedy, 5th edition, London: Printed for Jacob Tonson,[…], published 1709, →OCLC, page 38
   They will hale the King to Paris, and have him under their eye. 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial, published 2007, page 262