wold

Etymology 1

From Middle English wald, wold, from Old English wald, weald (“highland covered with trees, wood, forest”), from Proto-West Germanic *walþu, from Proto-Germanic *walþuz, from Proto-Indo-European *wel(ə)-t-. Doublet of weald. Related terms See also Norwegian voll (“field, meadow”), Welsh gwallt (“hair”), Lithuanian váltis (“oat awn”), Serbo-Croatian vlât (“ear (of wheat)”), Ancient Greek λάσιος (lásios, “hairy”)); also the related term weald.

noun

1. (archaic, regional) An unforested or deforested plain, a grassland, a moor.
   Take counsel, sever from my lot your lot, Dwell in your pleasant places, hoard your gold; Lest you with me should shiver on the wold, Athirst and hungering on a barren spot. 1865, Christina Rossetti, “From Sunset to Star Rise”, in Poems, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., published 1906, page 26
   Before yon field of trembling gold Is garnered into dusty sheaves, Or ere the autumn’s scarlet leaves Flutter as birds adown the wold, 1881, Oscar Wilde, “Rome Unvisited”, in Poems, 12th edition, London: Methuen & Co., published 1913, page 48
   It seemed to be a fairly large and prosperous farm, grouped round a modest country house standing among trees as shelter from the wind. About it rolled the open pasture of the wold, as far as could be seen. 1942, Neville Shute, chapter 8, in Pied Piper, New York: William Morrow & Co
2. (obsolete) A wood or forest, especially a wooded upland.

Etymology 2

adj

1. (archaic, dialect, West Country, Dorset, Devon) Old.
   [A] girt wind had a-blowed the wold tree auver, so that his head were in the water. 1873, Elijah Kellogg, Sowed by the Wind: Or, The Poor Boy's Fortune, Boston: Lee and Shepard, page 19
   "I've got a wold silver spoon, and a wold graven seal at home, too; but, Lord, what's a graven seal?" 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, volume 1, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., page 7