wellside

plural wellsides · alternative well-side

1. The area beside a well.

   1595, George Peele, The Old Wives’ Tale, The Malone Society Reprints, 1908, lines 777-779, Once againe for a husband, & in faith Celanta I have got the start of you; Belike husbands growe by the Well side […]

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   […] I am sure it is not my fault if I do not practise enough; for, of free will, I would do little else, only my father and tutor are angry sometimes, and only Miss Lucy there gives herself airs about my being busy, for all she can sit idle by a well-side the whole day, when she has a handsome young gentleman to prate with.

   1819, Walter Scott, chapter 20, in The Bride of Lammermoor

   1891, W. B. Yeats, Representative Irish Tales, New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Volume I, Dedication, p. iv, A honied ringing! under the new skies They bring you memories of old village faces, Cabins gone now, old well-sides, old dear places, And men who loved the cause that never dies.

   I try to drink as little as possible, to the point even that my mind throws up tantalizing images as I ride: a full cask by the wellside with water splashing from the ladle; clean snow.

   1980, J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians, London: Secker & Warburg, Chapter , p. 81

2. The side of a well.

   Fairway then lit a lantern, tied it to another cord, and began lowering it into the well beside the first. Clym came forward and looked down. Strange humid leaves, which knew nothing of the seasons of the year, and quaint-natured mosses were revealed on the wellside as the lantern descended […]

   1878, Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native, Book Three, Chapter 3

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   1902, F. St. George Mivart, “Report on the General Sanitary Circumstances and Administration of the Stroud Rural and Nailsworth Urban Districts” in Thirteenth Annual Report of the Local Government Board: Supplement containing the Report of the Medical Officer for 1900-01, London, App. A, No. 11, p. 130, Many wells were seen which are evidently liable to pollution from the direct passage into them of filth from the surface of the ground […] in some cases dripping or trickling was noticed at the wellsides, in others the sides were heavily grown with vegetation.