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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

wield.

To handle with skill and ease, especially a weapon or tool.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/wiːld/
  1. To handle with skill and ease, especially a weapon or tool.

  2. To exercise (authority or influence) effectively.

  3. To command, rule over; to possess or own.

    obsolete
  4. To control, to guide or manage.

    obsolete
  5. To carry out, to bring about.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English welden, from the merger of Old English wealdan (“to control, rule”) (strong class 7) and Old English wieldan (“to control, subdue”) (weak). Both verbs derive from Proto-West Germanic *waldan and *waldijan, respectively; and are ultimately from Proto-Germanic *waldaną (“to rule”). The reason for the merger was that in Middle English the -d in the stem made it hard to distinguish between strong and weak forms in the past tense.

noun/wiːld/
  1. Rule, command; power, control, wielding.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English welde, from Old English *wield, ġewield (“power, control, dominion”), from Proto-West Germanic *waldi, from Proto-Germanic *waldiz (“power, might, control”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.