Bale

How to spell bale

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bale

What does bale mean?

1. nounA large, tightly bound bundle of material such as hay, straw, cotton, wool, or recycling.
2. verbTo bind or compress material into large bundles for storage or transport.

Bale in a sentence

• noun

  The farmer stacked each bale of hay under the barn roof.

• verb

  The contractor will bale the straw before the rain arrives.

• noun

  A single bale of cotton can weigh several hundred pounds.

• verb

  Workers bale the scrap paper for shipment to the mill.

Where does bale come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English in the 1400s from the Old French bale, which meant a bundle or a rounded package of goods. That French form was itself borrowed from a Germanic source related to the same root that gives us 'ball', the underlying idea being something rounded and tightly packed. Merchants used the term for the large compressed parcels of wool, cotton and cloth that moved through medieval trade, and the meaning has stayed remarkably stable ever since: a bale is still a big, bound, compact bundle. It is worth keeping distinct from its homophone 'bail' (the money for release, the cricket stumps, or scooping water), because the two are spelled differently despite sounding identical, and the rounded-bundle history is a useful hook for remembering that this one ends in -ale.

How the word is built

• bale (whole root word from Old French bale: a rounded bundle or package)

Words that sound like bale

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• bail: Money lodged with a court to secure the temporary release of an accused person until their trial.