English▸ noun
1 a continuous vertical brick or stone structure that encloses or divides an area of land:
a garden wall.
▪ an upright side of a building or room:
opulent rooms with tapestries on the walls.
▪ any high vertical surface, especially one that is imposing in scale:
the eastern wall of the valley
flash floods sent a six-foot wall of water through the village figurative.
2 a thing regarded as a protective or restrictive barrier:
police investigating the murders met a wall of silence from witnesses.
▪ Soccer a line of defenders forming a barrier against a free kick taken near the penalty area:
he curled a free kick around the wall for a late equalizer.
3 Anatomy Zoology the membranous outer layer or lining of an organ or cavity:
the wall of the stomach.
▸ verb [with object] enclose (an area) within walls, especially for protection or privacy:
parts of the city's East End had been walled off with concrete barricades.
▪ (wall something up) block or seal a place by building a wall around or across it:
one doorway has been walled up.
▪ (wall someone/something in/up) confine or imprison someone or something in a restricted or sealed place:
the grey tenements walled in the space completely.
– PHRASES
drive someone up the wall informal
make someone very irritated or angry:
make someone very irritated or angry:
it's driving me up the wall trying to find out who did what.
go to the wall informal
1 (of a business) go out of business; fail:
thousands of firms are expected to go to the wall this year.
2 support someone or something, no matter what the cost to oneself:
the tendency for poets to go to the wall for their beliefs.
go up the wall informal
become very angry in reaction to something:
become very angry in reaction to something:
this causes the dog to go up the wall and bark his head off.
hit the wall
(of an athlete) experience a sudden loss of energy in a long race:
(of an athlete) experience a sudden loss of energy in a long race:
marathon runners found they often hit the wall after 17 or 18 miles.
– ORIGIN Old English wall, from Latin vallum ‘rampart’, from vallus ‘stake’.