Also 9 dial. -gull. [f. WATER sb. + GALL sb.2: = G. wassergalle in various senses, also MLG. watergalle in sense 2.]
† 1. A boggy tract in a field. Obs.
1285. Yorks. Deeds (Yorks. Archæol. Soc.), II. 198, note. Cum toto prato suo falcabili, ut in capitibus, herbagiis, ranis, et watergallis.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva, xviii. 38. The Alder is of all other the most faithful lover of watery and boggy places, and those most despis’d weeping parts, or water-galls of Forests.
2. A secondary or imperfectly formed rainbow; also applied to various other phenomena in the clouds that are believed to portend rain. Now dial.: cf. WEATHERGALL.
1594. Shaks., Lucr., 1588. And round about her teare-distained eye Blew circles stream’d, like Rain-bows in the skie. These watergalls in her dim Element, Foretell new stormes.
a. 1676. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man. (1677), 16. As the Water-gall is the Image, Shadow, or weak Representation of the Rainbow.
1744. H. Walpole, Lett. to Mann, 29 June. False good news are always produced by true good, like the watergall by the rainbow.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine, II. (1780), Oeil de bouc, water-gall, or weather-gall.
† 3. A watery bubble in the liver of swine. [So G. wassergalle 1587.] Obs.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 685. Sometimes there appeare [in swine] certaine blathers in the liuer of water, which are called water-gals.
4. ? A flaw in a material or a manufactured article caused by the settling of water in a particular spot. (Implied in WATERGALLED a.) [Cf. G. wassergalle, flaw in marble.]
Hence Water-galled a., having water-galls (see 4).
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 934. The greatest difficulty formerly experienced in the paper manufacture upon the continuous system of Fourdrinier, was to remove the moisture from the pulp, and condense it with sufficient rapidity, so as to prevent its becoming what is called water-galled.
