▪ I. † vele Obs.
Also veale.
[var. of veil n.1, after It. and Sp. velo, L. vēlum.]
A veil or covering.
| α 1580 Spenser Three Proper Lett. i. Wks. (1912) 611 Wote ye why his Moother with a Veale hath coouered his Face? 1591 ― Ruines Rome i, Thrice hauing seene vnder the heauens veale Your toombs deuoted compasse ouer all. 1593 Harvey Pierce's Superer. Wks. (Grosart) II. 161 To examine matters barely, without their veales, or habiliments. |
| β 1582 N. T. (Rhem.) Heb. ix. 3 After the second vele, the tabernacle. Ibid. x. 20 By the vele, that is, his flesh. 1590 Spenser F.Q. i. viii. 19 In his fall his shield, that couered was, Did loose his vele by chaunce, and open flew. Ibid. ii. xii. 77 [Acrasia] was arayd..All in a vele of silke and siluer thin. 1591 Savile Tacitus, Hist. i. lxvi. 37 They..with sacred veles and infules afore them..mollified the soldiers minds. |
▪ II. vele
southern ME. var. feel v., fele a.; obs. f. veal; obs. Sc. f. weel n., well adv.