bride-ale

English

Alternative forms

• bridal

Etymology

From Middle English brydale, from Old English brȳdealo (“wedding feast”), equivalent to bride +‎ ale.

Noun

bride-ale (plural bride-ales)

1. (archaic or Northern England) A rustic wedding feast; a bridal.
   • 1633 (first performance), Ben Jonson, “A Tale of a Tub. A Comedy […]”, in The Works of Beniamin Jonson, […] (Third Folio), London: […] Thomas Hodgkin, for H[enry] Herringman, E. Brewster, T. Bassett, R[ichard] Chiswell, M. Wotton, G. Conyers, published 1692, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     here was a bride-ale broke In the nick

2. (Northern England) The warmed, sweetened, and spiced ale presented to a wedding party on its return from church.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “bride-ale”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• barleeid, belaired, rebailed, rideable