houle

Inherited from Middle French houle (“swell”), probably from an Old Northern French *houle (“cavity, hole”, attested in modern dialects), itself from Old Norse hol (“cave, hole”), from Proto-Germanic *hulą, whence also English hole. The sense would derive from the bulges and hollows of the waves.

• ^{(aspirated h)} IPA^(key): /ul/

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houle f (plural houles)

1. swell (of water)

• “houle”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Middle English holden, from Old English healdan, from Proto-West Germanic *haldan.

• IPA^(key): /hɔːɫ/
• Homophones: hol, hole

houle (past participle ee-halt)

1. to hold

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 47