noun

• 1A large wrapped or bound bundle of paper, hay, or cotton.

  ‘the fire destroyed 500 bales of hay’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Firefighters remained at the scene through the night and throughout yesterday tackling small pockets of fire in the bales of paper.’
  • ‘The bales of stamped paper remained unpacked at Castle William; no man being bound to open and distribute them.’
  • ‘Meanwhile, they burned crops, destroyed railroads and factories and reached Savannah with 25,000 bales of captured cotton.’
  • ‘Mr Miller is believed to have gone over to speak to Mr Holt, who was loading 40 bales of compressed cardboard onto a trailer with another worker.’
  • ‘The two pals had been walking to the shop for sweets on Saturday when they were crushed against a wall by a trailer and tractor loaded with bales of hay.’
  • ‘We'd found a crew loading bales of hay onto a trailer, and Jeff got out to shoot them while I went back to get our car.’
  • ‘With each lurch of the truck another flaming bale toppled off, coming to a flaming halt on the road or igniting the grass at its shoulder.’
  • ‘And then, sure enough, he walks right up and throws a big ole bale of straw on my back.’
  • ‘No matter how good your hay is today, between now and feeding time, every rain, every windstorm, is going to steal nutrients from every exposed bale and stack.’
  • ‘Dakota nodded and tossed up another bale, thinking.’
  • ‘Some the size of mountains, some the size of hay bale.’
  • ‘The sheepherder went over to his storage hut and brought out one bale of wool.’
  • ‘Shayne was at the top of the haystack and handed down bale by bale to Blake, who handed it to Patrick, who handed it to me.’
  • ‘This may mean placing each bale 20 feet or more away from the neighboring bales.’
  • ‘With practiced ease, Tundra picked another bale of hay off the pile.’
  • ‘Grabbing a pitch fork she shoved it into one bale breaking off chucks that she spread out between the three ever grateful recipients.’
  • ‘I told her, grasping another bale and heading back to the truck.’
  • ‘‘I'm going to pull a hard right and coast into that hay bale over there,’ Zell explained.’
  • ‘I'd missed the sheep, though the winning decorated hay bale was disguised as such.’
  • ‘Macra has also put together a whole host of novelty competitions and farm skills displays, from sheaf tossing to round bale rolling.’

  Synonyms

  bundle, truss, bunch, pack, package, parcel, load

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1The quantity in a bale as a measure, specifically (in the US) 500 lb of cotton.
     ‘world cotton consumption was a record 86 m bales’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Calculating a ton as 40 bales weighing 50 pounds each, the price per bale would range from $2.25 to $3.80.’
     • ‘Top cotton yields this year reached three bales - or about 1,500 pounds - per acre, Latham said, with 45,000 acres planted.’
     • ‘At the Slaton Co-Op, the 500-pound bales continue to roll out.’
     • ‘A taxi driver and his four passengers escaped being crushed when a straw bale weighing half a ton bounced onto their car.’
     • ‘The cooperative ginned a record supply of cotton, topping 16,000 bales.’
     • ‘Others began doing calculations on how many square bales to the acre.’
     • ‘It's a wee bit more expensive per bale than shavings but it is, according to the bumf, four times more absorbent.’
     • ‘Young firebugs twice set fire to a one tonne bale of hay close to homes in Heysham.’
     • ‘Calculating a ton as 40 bales weighing 50 pounds each, the price per bale would range from $2.25 to $3.80.’
     • ‘The 11.9-micron bale of wool was bought by the HYX Group at auction in Sydney for $675,000.’
     • ‘Middendorf says the wrapped bales contain 600 pounds of dry matter and are worth $25 per bale.’
     • ‘As a result, the price of New York hay has dropped because of its inferior quality and the cost of out-of-state hay has risen by about $4 per bale.’
     • ‘Contractors also find that the smoother bales make for better wrapping, faster baling and lower costs per bale.’
     • ‘However straw and good quality hay are a different story with good hay making up to and over E28 a round bale while square bales of straw are fetching E2.40.’
     • ‘Later wool was packed in small bales of 45 kg and the plane was able to carry four or five per flight.’
     • ‘Calcot, Bakersfield, Calif., has annual sales of 1.4 million bales of cotton.’
     • ‘The year before boll weevils marched into Georgia in 1915, the state produced 2.8 million bales of cotton.’
     • ‘He buys in round bales of straw at £8 delivered per bale for all of his bedding.’
     • ‘About 85 million bales of cotton are produced worldwide each year, including 18 to 20 million in the United States.’
     • ‘He bragged that the company's general store grossed thirty thousand dollars a year and its ginning operation was able to clean and compress three bales of cotton in an hour.’

verb

• Make up into bales.

  ‘the straw is left on the field to be baled later’

  More example sentences

  • ‘He said that ‘an increase of only 25 kg in Dry Matter per bale will pay for 2 extra layers of film due to the reduced number to be baled & wrapped.’’
  • ‘Paper is the major waste material, which is baled and packaged here and sold to recycling companies abroad.’
  • ‘Once back at the depot the foil is sorted and baled by volunteer workers from the Edington Centre, a day centre for adults with special educational needs.’
  • ‘The farm grew so many thistles that it looked like a snowstorm when they baled hay.’
  • ‘They baled hay here until about 10:30 & then went up to Ludvig's.’

noun

• 1archaic Evil considered as a destructive force.

  ‘In earlier days great Carthage suffered bale.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Enough and to spare of bale is in thy speech.’

  1. 1.1Evil suffered; physical or mental torment.
     ‘Let now your bliss be turned into bale.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘I have known too much of bale by this child-bearing.’

verb

proper noun