Word of the Day for Thursday December 15, 2005 hale \HAYL\, adjective: Free from disease and weakening conditions; healthy. Uncle Charles was a hale old man with a well tanned skin, rugged features and white side whiskers. --James Joyce, [1]A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man The person whom the traveller had so abruptly encountered was of this kind: bluff, hale, hearty, and in a green old age: at peace with himself, and evidently disposed to be so with all the world. --Charles Dickens, [2]Barnaby Rudge Joseph was an elderly, nay, an old man: very old, perhaps, though hale and [3]sinewy. --Emily Brontë, [4]Wuthering Heights With his florid cheek, his compact figure smartly arrayed in a bright-buttoned blue coat, his brisk and vigorous step, and his hale and hearty aspect, altogether he seemed--not young, indeed--but a kind of new contrivance of Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no business to touch. --Nathanial Hawthorne, [5]The Scarlet Letter Does not everyone, including the hale and hearty, have the right to choose the timing and manner of their own death? --"Let death be my dominion," [6]The Economist, October 14, 1999 _________________________________________________________ Hale comes from Middle English hal, related to [7]whole. The alliterative phrase hale and hearty is often applied to older persons who retain the health and vigor of youth. Synonyms: fit, healthy, robust, sound, well. [8]Find more at Thesaurus.com. References 1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140186832/ref=nosim/lexico 2. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140430903/ref=nosim/lexico 3. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sinewy 4. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140434186/ref=nosim/lexico 5. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140390197/ref=nosim/lexico 6. http://www.economist.com/ 7. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=whole 8. http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=hale Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=hale