welt

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wɛlt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛlt

Etymology 1

From Middle English welten, from Old English weltan, wieltan, from Proto-Germanic *waltijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“to turn; wind; twist”). Cognate with German wälzen, Danish vælte, Swedish välta, Icelandic velta.

Verb

welt (third-person singular simple present welts, present participle welting, simple past and past participle welted)

1. (intransitive, obsolete) To roll; revolve

Derived terms

• welter

Etymology 2

Circa 1425, a shoemaker's term. Perhaps related to Middle English welten (“to overturn, roll over”), from Old Norse velta (“to roll”). Meaning "ridge on the skin from a wound" first recorded 1800.

Noun

welt (plural welts)

1. A ridge or lump on the skin, as caused by a blow.

   Synonyms: wheal, weal

   • 1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter XX, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume II, Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852, →OCLC:

     When she saw, on the back and shoulders of the child, great welts and calloused spots, ineffaceable marks of the system under which she had grown up thus far, her heart became pitiful within her.

   • 1880, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VII, in A Tramp Abroad; , Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company; London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     […] I am sure of one thing—scars are plenty enough in Germany, among the young men; and very grim ones they are, too. They crisscross the face in angry red welts, and are permanent and ineffaceable.

   • 2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, chapter 7, in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Henry Holt and Company:

     She was nearly four feet long, with a large welt on her shell, which was encrusted with ancient-looking barnacles.

2. (shoemaking) A strip of leather set into the seam between the outsole of a shoe and the upper, through which these parts are joined by stitching or stapling.
3. A strip of material or covered cord applied to a seam or garment edge to strengthen or cover it.
   • 1672, Elias Ashmole, The institution, laws & ceremonies of the most noble Order of the Garter, chapter III, section 1:

     [The] Mantle of this Order was of Skie-coloured Damask, having broad welt of Gold embroidered on the Collar, and [...]

   • 1688, Randle Holme, The academy of armory, book 1, chapter IV, "Of the Bend divers ways":

     surmounted of another Azure: but in my Judgment, it rather represents a Hem, or Welt of a Belt, or an Edg of Silver, than two Belts one upon another; which the Bend properly signifie

4. In steam boilers and sheet-iron work, a strip riveted upon the edges of plates that form a butt joint.
5. In carpentry, a strip of wood fastened over a flush seam or joint, or an angle, to strengthen it.
6. In machine-made stockings, a strip, or flap, of which the heel is formed.
7. (heraldry) A narrow border, as of an ordinary, especially one which does not extend all the way around the ends of it (where it touches the edges of the shield) as a fimbriation would.
   • 1688, Randle Holme, The academy of armory, book 1, chapter IV, "Of the Bend divers ways":

     Therefore this may be taken for an Observation, that an edg, or hem, or welt, only runs on the sides of the Ordinary; but the Border invirons, or goeth clear round the same,

8. Any other feature resembling a welt (strip).
   • 2018, Susan Orlean, chapter 6, in The Library Book:

     “The neighborhood is officially called Mid-City, but it is often referred to as Crenshaw. The area is wide and bright, a grid of small streets crisscrossed with boulevards and the welt of the I-10 freeway running along its southern edge.”

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

welt (third-person singular simple present welts, present participle welting, simple past and past participle welted)

1. To cause to have welts; to beat.
   • 1904 September, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., published February 1905, →OCLC:

     Well, gentlemen, I was standing with her just inside the window, in all innocence, as God is my judge, when he rushed like a madman into the room, called her the vilest name that a man could use to a woman, and welted her across the face with the stick he had in his hand.

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 113:

     "Cover your scut, or I'll welt the skin off it."

2. To install welt (a welt or welts) to reinforce.

Translations

Further reading

• (heraldry):
  1830, Thomas Robson, The British herald, or Cabinet of armorial bearings of the nobility & gentry of Great Britain & Ireland:

  WELT, or EDGE, a narrow bordure to an ordinary or charge: it differs from the fimbriation, as a cross, &c. should have the fimbriation all round it, showing itself where it joins the outer part of the shield, which the welt does not, when the ordinary touches or is attached to the outer part of the escutcheon.

Etymology 3

Verb

welt (third-person singular simple present welts, present participle welting, simple past and past participle welted)

1. (UK, dialect, archaic, intransitive) To decay.
2. (UK, dialect, archaic, intransitive) To become stringy.

Related terms

• wilt

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛlt

Verb

welt

1. inflection of wellen:
   1. second/third-person singular present indicative
   2. (archaic) plural imperative

Middle English

Noun

welt

1. Alternative form of welthe