Walsall

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A town in the West Midlands region of central England, historically known for its leather and metal industries
2. A municipality located in the Black Country area of the West Midlands, England, situated between Birmingham and Wolverhampton
3. An English town in the West Midlands notable for its manufacturing heritage and position as a significant urban center in the industrial region

Etymology: Walsall is a town in the West Midlands of England, and its name is an Anglo-Saxon compound that has changed very little in a thousand years. The first element is most likely the Old English personal name "Wealh" or a word for a Briton or foreigner, with "halh" added as the second element, meaning a nook of land or a secluded corner in a river bend. The town's name is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 in a form close to the modern one, so the name is older than the Norman Conquest. Many English place names with "-hall" or "-all" endings derive from "halh," which is why Walsall sounds so much like a building. The spelling has settled over centuries, but the pronunciation stayed close to the original, with the final "-all" still pointing back to that Old English word for a corner of land.