Wassail

Wassail

The tradition of wassailing falls into two distinct categories: the house-visiting wassail and the orchard-visiting wassail. The house-visiting wassail, which traditionally occurs on the twelfth day of Christmastide known as Twelfth Night or Epiphany Eve, is the practice of people going door-to-door, singing and offering a drink from the wassail bowl in exchange for gifts; this practice still exists, but has largely been displaced by carol singing. The orchard-visiting wassail is the custom of visiting orchards in cider-producing regions of England and singing to the trees to promote a good harvest for the coming year. Notable traditional wassailing songs include "Here We Come a-Wassailing", "Gloucestershire Wassail", and "Gower Wassail".

WASSAIL

WASSAIL is an open-source software platform for educational assessment, designed primarily for academic libraries. It is used to “systematically track, store and analyze assessment data to measure and improve student learning.” Since its inception in 2003 the software has been adopted by dozens of academic libraries, including those at the Miami University, the University of Kansas, Red Deer College, and Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. The name is an acronym for “Web-based Augustana Student Survey Assessment of Information Literacy,” reflecting its origins and ongoing development at the Augustana Faculty of the University of Alberta.

wassail

Noun

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.

Verb

1. To toast, to drink to the health of another.
2. To drink wassail.