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• ale
  ale

  noun

  a malt beverage, darker, heavier, and more bitter than beer, containing about 6 percent alcohol by volume.
• A.L.E.
  A.L.E.

  abbreviation

  additional living expense.

ale

¹ American  

[eyl] / eɪl /

noun

ales plural

1. a malt beverage, darker, heavier, and more bitter than beer, containing about 6 percent alcohol by volume.

2. British. beer.

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A.L.E. ² American  

abbreviation

Insurance.

1. additional living expense.

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ale British  

/ eɪl /

noun

1. a beer fermented in an open vessel using yeasts that rise to the top of the brew Compare beer lager 1

2. (formerly) an alcoholic drink made by fermenting a cereal, esp barley, but differing from beer by being unflavoured by hops

3. another word for beer

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• ales
  plural

Etymology

Origin of ale

First recorded before 950; Middle English; Old English (e)alu (genitive ealoth ); cognate with Old Saxon alo-, Middle Dutch ale, ael, Old Norse ǫl; Lithuanian alùs, Old Church Slavonic olŭ; Finnish, Estonian olut

Explanation

Ale is a particular type of beer. Ale would be a good thing to order if you ever visit a pub in Britain. Ale is yeast-fermented beer, brewed with sweet-tasting malted barley, and often with hops, to balance the sweetness with a more bitter flavor. In Britain, ale is considered to be any beer "other than lager, stout, or porter," while in the US ale is distinguished by the style of fermentation. The Old English origin of ale is ealu, "ale or beer." The Proto-Indo-European root has an implied meaning of "sorcery, magic, and intoxication."

Example Sentences

And in 2024, craft ale company Brew York also recalled cans of its Juice Forsyth IPA over concerns they could explode and injure people.

From BBC • Jun. 6, 2026

The son would respond, “a double,” and then take his ginger ale.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 5, 2026

If your people are beer people, think versatile: an amber ale or clean lager, plus a solid N/A counterpart.Athletic makes good ones, though many skew hoppy, so keep your audience in mind.

From Salon • Nov. 25, 2025

Everything made my stomach turn—water, crackers, a hopeful sip of ginger ale; the things you’re supposed to try when you are sick.

From Slate • Sep. 15, 2024

Stirring paddles, buckets, scrapers, spade, more buckets, a barrel The barrel was about the size of a small keg of ale.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

Related Words

• brew
• malt
• suds