Weddle

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. An archaic Scots verb meaning to join two people together in marriage, used in older regional speech
2. A dialect verb from Scotland, now obsolete, that means to take someone as a spouse in marriage
3. Old Scots word for entering into the bond of matrimony, found mainly in historical and regional writing

Etymology: "Weddle" is a Scottish surname, and its story begins with a place rather than a word in general use. It is a habitational name, meaning it was taken from a locality: the place called Wedale in the Scottish Borders. Surnames of this type were common across Scotland, where families often adopted the name of the land they came from, so a person living in or holding land at Wedale would be known by that name. The place-name itself is thought to combine the Old English "wedd", meaning "pledge" or "security", with "dæl", meaning "dale" or "valley". The exact sense of the first element is uncertain, so the meaning of the whole name is best read as a probable rather than a confirmed one. The name thus preserves a trace of Old English settlement in a region of southern Scotland where English speech once spread.