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Definition of "wassail" []

  • A salutation or toast given in drinking someone's health or as an expression of goodwill at a festivity. (noun)
  • The drink used in such toasting, commonly ale or wine spiced with roasted apples and sugar. (noun)
  • A festivity characterized by much drinking. (noun)
  • To drink to the health of; toast. (verb-transitive)
  • To engage in or drink a wassail. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "wassail" in a sentence
  • "The word wassail comes from the Anglo-Saxon greeting waes hael, which meant “be well.”"
  • "He was apt to tell me when he had been sitting up all night, whether in study or what he called wassail; but I could always guess the fact from his appearance."
  • "And each meeting meant a drink; and there was much to talk about; and more drinks; and songs to be sung; and pranks and antics to be performed, until the maggots of imagination began to crawl, and it all seemed great and wonderful to me, these lusty hard-bitten sea - rovers, of whom I made one, gathered in wassail on a coral strand."