WIELD

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does wield mean? 

• WIELD (verb)
  The verb WIELD has 2 senses:

1. have and exercise

2. handle effectively

  Familiarity information: WIELD used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WIELD (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they wield    ... he / she / it wields   
Past simple: wielded   
Past participle: wielded   
-ing form: wielding   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Have and exercise

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Synonyms:

exert; maintain; wield

Context example:

wield power and authority

Hypernyms (to "wield" is one way to...):

have; have got; hold (have or possess, either in a concrete or an abstract sense)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Handle effectively

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

handle; manage; wield

Context example:

The young violinist didn't manage her bow very well

Hypernyms (to "wield" is one way to...):

manipulate (hold something in one's hands and move it)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "wield"):

ply (wield vigorously)

pump (operate like a pump; move up and down, like a handle or a pedal)

sweep; swing; swing out (make a big sweeping gesture or movement)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

 Context examples 

Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr. Micawber, wielding the rod of talent and of power in Australia, will be nothing in England?

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Johnson’s breath, suddenly expelled, shot from his mouth and as suddenly checked, with the forced, audible expiration of a man wielding an axe.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And then, suddenly, without warning, uttering a cry that was inarticulate and more like the cry of an animal, John Thornton sprang upon the man who wielded the club.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Grey Beaver looked on stolidly while the white man wielded the whip.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

By our lady! they have shown the French at Courtrai and elsewhere that they are as deft in wielding steel as in welding it.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As I emerged from the hall I was conscious for a moment of a rush of laughing students—down the pavement, and of an arm wielding a heavy umbrella, which rose and fell in the midst of them.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

They hurled stones, wielded sticks and clubs and whips, administered slaps and clouts, and, when they touched him, were cunning to hurt with pinch and twist and wrench.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I entered the office—or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would term it, the Bureau—of the Firm, nominally conducted under the appellation of Wickfield and—HEEP, but in reality, wielded by—HEEP alone.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled—that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed—that my heart is no longer in the right place—and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will not digress. “Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)