Other forms: wielded, wielding, wields
To wield is to hold and use something — a weapon, a tool, or power itself. Both hands on it, and using it well.
The physical sense is slightly archaic and mostly literary: wielding an axe, wielding a sword. The living sense is the abstract one, and wielding power, wielding influence and wielding a veto are all common in serious writing. It carries competence with it, since somebody who wields a thing knows how to. Journalism likes the joke of putting the two together, as in a chef wielding a knife.
Wield is about power rather than grip. Old English ġewield meant power, control or dominion, so wielding a sword and wielding influence are one word doing one job.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂welh₁-
Old English
wealdan — to control, rule
Middle English
welden
English, today
wield
From Middle English welden, from the merger of Old English wealdan (“to control, rule”) and Old English wieldan (“to control, subdue”). Both verbs derive from Proto-West Germanic waldan and waldijan, respectively; and are ultimately from Proto-Germanic waldaną (“to rule”). The reason for the merger was that in Middle English the -d in the stem made it hard to distinguish between strong and weak forms in the past tense.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sharper Verbs, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 32 of A Man Called Ove.
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