waulk

Etymology

From Middle English walken, from Old English wealcian (“to roll up; muffle up”), from Proto-Germanic *walkōną (“to roll about; full (cloth)”). Cognate with Scots waulk (“to full”), Dutch walken (“to full”), German walken (“to full”), Danish valke (“to full”), Swedish valka (“to full”). Doublet of walk.

verb

1. (transitive, obsolete outside Northern England and Scotland) to make cloth (especially tweed in Scotland) denser and more felt-like by soaking and beating.
   The frame on which the cloth is waulked is a board some twelve to twenty-four feet long and about two feet broad, grooved lengthwise along its surface. 1900, Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, volume 1, page 310
   1992, Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber, Random House Group (Arrow Books), page 590, I hid a smile at the mention of wool waulking. Alone among the Highland farms, I was sure, the women of Lailybroch waulked their wool not only to the old traditional chants but also to the rhythms of Moliére and Piron.
   Here, we compare waulking songs and shanties to see how they operated in bringing women and men, respectively, into a sense of close alignment. 2013, Marek Korczynski, Michael Pickering, Emma Robertson, Rhythms of Labour: Music at Work in Britain, Cambridge University Press, page 97