[var. of WALE v.2, by confusion with WHEAL v.1] trans. To mark (the flesh) with weals; = WALE v.2 1.
1722. De Foe, Col. Jack, i. I saw him afterwards, with his back all wealed with the lashes.
1820. Clare, Rural Life (ed. 3), 100. The lash that weal’d poor Dobbin’s hide.
1825. Scott, Talism., xviii. His bare arm … wealed with the blows of the discipline.
1886. Fenn, Master Cerem., xxx. Were you ever beaten—cut—and wealed with your own whip?
b. absol.
1908. Times, 17 Jan., 4/6. The school authorities allowed only four strokes, two on each hand, as a maximum punishment, and they must not weal.
1922. Martin Puich, in Blackw. Mag., March, 355.
| The knotted ropes that weal and flay, | |
| The Captain’s heavy-handed clip, | |
| Were part and parcel of my pay | |
| As ’prentice-boy aboard a ship. |
Hence Wealed ppl. a., Wealing vbl. sb.
1841. Tupper, Twins, xvii. (1844), 131. His wealed body, full of pains and aches and bruises.
1902. Westm. Gaz., 20 Nov., 7/2. The governess and upper housemaid examined the child afterwards and found severe wealing of the back and stomach, besides bruises.
