hailse, to salute, greet; ‘I haylse or greete’, Palsgrave; ‘Wee hadde haylsed eche other’, Robinson, tr. of Utopia (ed. Arber, p. 30). Icel. heilsa, to salute.
haine, hayne, a miser, a penurious person, a mean wretch. Skelton, Bowge of Courte, 327; Udall, tr. Apoph., Aristippus, § 22, Diogenes, § 106; Levins, Manipulus, 200; hence, haynyarde, a mean wretch, Skelton, Magnyfycence, 1748. ME. heyne, a wretch (Chaucer, C. T. G. 1319).
hair: in phr. against the hair, against the grain, contrary to nature. Middleton, No Wit like a Woman’s, i. 1 (end); Mayor of Queenborough, iii. 2 (1 Lady); Merry Wives, ii. 3. 42.
hala; see [heloe].
hale, hall, a place roofed over, a pavilion, tent, booth; ‘Hall, a long tent in a felde, tente’, Palsgrave; ‘He would set up his hals and tentes’, North, tr. of Plutarch, M. Antonius, § 5 (in Shak. Plut., p. 161, n. 8). ME. hale, ‘papilio’ (Prompt. EETS. 211, see note, no. 961). OF. hale (F. halle), a covered market-place.
hale and ho, pull and cry ho!, a cry of sailors at work. Morte Arthur, leaf 118, back, 13; bk. vii, c. 15. ME. halyn or drawyn, ‘traho’ (Prompt. EETS. 230).
half-acre, a small piece of ground, without reference to the exact size of the field; ‘Tom Tankard’s cow . . . flinging about his halfe-aker’, Gammer Gurton’s Needle, i. 2 (see note on P. Plowman, C. ix. 2, p. 156). At Yarnton, near Oxford, a ‘half-acre’, pronounced habaker, is a term employed for half a lot of an allotment, see EDD. (s.v. Half, 6 (1)).
halfendeale, half, half-part. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 9. 53. A Somerset word (EDD.). ME. halvendel, the half part of a thing (Chaucer, Tr. and Cr. v. 335). OE. healfan dǣl, the half ‘deal’ or part.
half-pace; see [halpace].
halidom: orig. the holy relics upon which oaths were sworn; the ancient formula being ‘as helpe me God and halidome’; altered later to ‘by my halidome’, which was subsequently used by itself as a weak asseveration. Taming Shrew, v. 2. 100; Hen. VIII, v. 1. 117. In old edds. of Shaks. we find holydam(e due to association with dame, the phrase being popularly taken as equivalent to ‘By our Lady’; see NED. OE. hāligdōm, holiness, a holy place, a holy relic.