waulk

1. (transitive, obsolete outside Northern England and Scotland) to make cloth (especially tweed in Scotland) denser and more felt-like by soaking and beating.Examples: "The frame on which the cloth is waulked is a board some twelve to twenty-four feet long and about two feet broad, grooved lengthwise along its surface."; "1992, Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber, Random House Group (Arrow Books), page 590, I hid a smile at the mention of wool waulking. Alone among the Highland farms, I was sure, the women of Lailybroch waulked their wool not only to the old traditional chants but also to the rhythms of Moliére and Piron."; "Here, we compare waulking songs and shanties to see how they operated in bringing women and men, respectively, into a sense of close alignment."Synonyms: full, walktransitive