wassail

Meanings

1. A toast to health, usually on a festive occasion.
2. The beverage served during a wassail, especially one made of ale or wine flavoured with spices, sugar, roasted apples, etc.
3. Revelry.
4. A festive or drinking song or glee.

1. To toast, to drink to the health of another.
2. To drink wassail.
3. To go from house to house at Christmastime, singing carols.

Etymology

From Middle English wassail, from Old Norse ves heill (“be healthy!”), from the imperative of vesa (“to be”) + heill (“healthy”). The earliest documented use of the term is from the first part of the 12th century CE, in Geoffroy of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (see page's citations).