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Title: A select glossary of English words used formerly in senses different from their present

Author: Richard Chenevix Trench

Editor: A. L. Mayhew

Release date: March 5, 2023 [eBook #70210]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co, 1890

Credits: Susan Skinner, Krista Zaleski and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SELECT GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH WORDS USED FORMERLY IN SENSES DIFFERENT FROM THEIR PRESENT ***






  A
  SELECT GLOSSARY




  A

  SELECT GLOSSARY

  OF

  ENGLISH WORDS USED FORMERLY
  IN SENSES DIFFERENT FROM
  THEIR PRESENT


  BY

  RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D.

  ARCHBISHOP


  ‘Res fugiunt, vocabula manent’


  _SEVENTH EDITION_

  _REVISED BY A. L. MAYHEW, M.A._


  LONDON
  KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE
  1890

  (_The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved_)




PREFACE

TO

THE FIRST EDITION.


This volume is intended to be a contribution, though a very slight
one at best, to a special branch of the study of our own language.
It proposes to trace in a popular manner and for general readers the
changes of meaning which so many of its words have undergone; words
which, as current with us as they were with our forefathers, yet meant
something different on their lips from what they mean on ours. Of my
success in carrying out the scheme which I had set before myself,
it does not become me to speak, except to say that I have fallen a
good deal below my hopes, and infinitely below my desires. But of the
scheme itself I have no doubts. I feel sure that, if only adequately
carried out, few works of the same compass could embrace matter of
more manifold instruction, or in a region of knowledge which it would
be more desirable to occupy. In the present condition of education in
England, above all with the pressure upon young men, which is ever
increasing, to complete their educational course at the earliest
possible date, the number of those enjoying the inestimable advantages,
mental and moral, which more than any other languages the Latin and
the Greek supply, must ever be growing smaller. It becomes therefore a
necessity to seek elsewhere the best substitutes within reach for that
discipline of the faculties which these languages would better than any
other have afforded. And I believe, when these two are set aside, our
own language and literature will furnish the best substitutes; such as,
even though they may not satisfy perfectly, are not therefore to be
rejected. I am persuaded that in the _decomposition_, word by word, of
small portions of our best poetry and prose, the compensations which we
look for are most capable of being found; even as I have little doubt
that in many of our higher English schools compensations of the kind
are already oftentimes obtained. _Lycidas_ suggests itself to me, in
the amount of _resistance_ which it would offer, as in verse furnishing
more exactly what I seek than any other poem, perhaps some of Lord
Bacon’s _Essays_ in prose.

In such a decomposition, to be followed by a reconstruction, of some
small portions of a great English Classic, matters almost innumerable,
and pressing on the attention from every side, would claim to be
noticed; but certainly not last nor least the changes in meaning which,
on close examination, would be seen to have passed on many of the words
employed. It is to point out some of these changes; to suggest how many
more there may be, there certainly are, which have not been noticed in
these pages; to show how slight and subtle, while yet most real, how
easily therefore evading detection, unless constant vigilance is used,
these changes often have been; to trace here and there the progressive
steps by which the old meaning has been put off, and the new put on,
the exact road which a word has travelled; this has been my purpose
here; and I have desired by such means to render some small assistance
to those who are disposed to regard this as a serviceable discipline in
the training of their own minds or the minds of others.

The book is, as its name declares, a _Select_ Glossary. There would
have been no difficulty whatever in doubling or trebling the number
of articles admitted into it. But my purpose being rather to arouse
curiosity than fully to gratify it, to lead others themselves to
take note of changes, and to account for them, rather than to take
altogether this pleasant labour out of their hands and to do for them
what they could more profitably do for themselves, I have consciously
left much of the work undone, even as, unconsciously no doubt I have
left a great deal more. At the same time it has not been mere caprice
which has induced the particular selection of words which has been
actually made. Various motives, but in almost every case such as I
could give account of to myself, have ruled this selection. Sometimes
the past use of a word has been noted and compared with the present,
as usefully exercising the mind in the tracing of minute differences
and fine distinctions; or, again, as helpful to the understanding
of our earlier authors, and likely to deliver a reader of them from
misapprehensions into which he might else very easily fall; or, once
more, as opening out a curious chapter in the history of manners;
or as involving some interesting piece of history, or some singular
superstition; or, again, as witnessing for the good or for the evil
which have been unconsciously at work in the minds and hearts of those
who insensibly have modified in part or changed altogether the meaning
of some word; or, lastly and more generally, as illustrating well
under one aspect or another those permanent laws which are everywhere
affecting and modifying human speech.

And as the words brought forward have been selected with some care,
and according to certain rules which have for the most part suggested
their selection, so also has it been with the passages adduced in proof
of the changes of meaning which they have undergone. A principal value
which such a volume as the present can possess, must consist in the
happiness with which these have been chosen. Not every passage, which
really contains evidence of the assertion made, will for all this serve
to be adduced in proof; and this I presently discovered in the many
which for one cause or another it was necessary to set aside. There are
various excellencies which ought to meet in such passages, but which
will not by any means be found in all.

In the first place they ought to be such passages as will tell their
own story, will prove the point which they are cited to prove, quite
independently of the uncited context, to which it will very often
happen that many readers cannot, and of those who can, that the larger
number will not, refer. They should bear too upon their front that
amount of triumphant proof, which will carry conviction not merely to
the student who by a careful observation of many like passages, and
a previous knowledge of what was a word’s prevailing use in the time
of the writer, is prepared to receive this conviction, but to him
also, to whom all this is presented now for the first time, who has no
predisposition to believe, but is disposed rather to be incredulous in
the matter. Then, again, they should, if possible, be passages capable
of being detached from their context without the necessity of drawing a
large amount of this context after them to make them intelligible; like
trees which will endure to be transplanted without carrying with them
a huge and cumbrous bulk of earth, clinging to their roots. Once more,
they should, if possible, be such as have a certain intrinsic worth and
value of their own, independent of their value as illustrative of the
point in language directly to be proved--some weight of thought, or
beauty of expression, merit in short of one kind or other, that so the
reader may be making a second gain by the way. I can by no means claim
this for all, or nearly all, of mine. Indeed, it would have been absurd
to seek it in a book of which the primary aim is quite other than that
of bringing together a collection of striking quotations; any merit of
this kind must continually be subordinated, and, where needful, wholly
sacrificed, to the purposes more immediately in view. Still there will
be many citations found in these pages which, while they fulfil the
primary intention with which they were quoted, are not wanting also in
this secondary worth.

In my citations I have throughout acted on the principle that ‘Enough
is as good as a feast:’ and that this same ‘Enough,’ as the proverb
might well be completed, ‘is better than a surfeit.’ So soon as that
earlier meaning, from which our present is a departure, or which
once subsisted side by side with our present, however it has now
disappeared, has been sufficiently established, I have held my hand,
and not brought further quotations in proof. In most cases indeed it
has seemed desirable to adduce passages from several authors; without
which a suspicion may always remain in the mind, that we are bringing
forward the exceptional peculiarity of a single writer, who even in his
day stood alone. I suspect that in some, though rare, instances I have
adduced exceptional uses of this kind.

One value I may claim for my book, that whatever may be wanting to it,
it is with the very most trifling exceptions an entirely independent
and original collection of passages illustrative of the history of our
language. Of my citations, I believe about a thousand in all, I may
owe some twenty at the most to existing Dictionaries or Glossaries,
to Nares or Johnson or Todd or Richardson. In perhaps some twenty
cases more I have lighted upon and selected a passage by one of them
selected before, and have not thought it desirable, or have not found
it possible, to dismiss this and choose some other in its room. These
excepted, the collection is entirely independent of all those which
have previously been made; and in a multitude of cases notes uses and
meanings of words which have never been noted before.

    WESTMINSTER: _May 25, 1859_.

       *       *       *       *       *

    In the present edition the ‘Select Glossary’ has been carefully
    revised, and a few of the articles have been rewritten. In the
    work of revision special attention has been paid to two points,
    the etymologies and the Middle English quotations. The aim
    of the editor has been to bring this useful and interesting
    little book up to date, by purging it of obsolete or doubtful
    etymologies, and giving those which commend themselves to
    the best modern authorities on the subject. Nearly all the
    quotations from the works of Middle English authors have been
    collated with the best modern editions, and care has been taken
    to make the references in each case as clear and precise as
    possible. It is hoped that the Alphabetical Lists of Authors
    quoted, and of Philological Works referred to, may be found
    useful to the student.

  A. L. MAYHEW.

    WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD: _Oct. 28, 1889_.




_LIST OF AUTHORS QUOTED._

    The references are to the pages of the ‘Select Glossary.’ Two
    dates separated by a hyphen denote the birth and death date of
    the author; a date preceded by an obelisk denotes the death
    date; a single date unmarked denotes the date of the work.


  Adams, Thomas (p. 139): The Devil’s Banquet, 1614.

  Allestree, Richard (p. 23): Sermons, 1619-1681.

  Andrewes, Bp. (p. 154): Sermons, 1555-1626.

  _Articles of the Church_, 1552.

  Ascham, Roger (pp. 13, 290): Toxophilus, 1545; Schoolmaster
  (1570, published posthumously), † 1568.

  A. V., Authorized Version of the Bible, 1611.

  Bacon, Francis (pp. 12, 73, 282), 1561-1626.

  Bale, Bp. (p. 29): Select Works, 1495-1563.

  _Ballad of John de Reeve_ (pp. 135, 162); see Bishop Percy’s
  MS. II. 550, ed. Hales and Furnivall, 1868.

  Barnes, Robert (p. 102): Works, † 1540.

  Barrow, Isaac (pp. 93, 98): Sermons, 1630-1677.

  Bates, William (p. 149): Spiritual Perfection, 1625-1699.

  Baxter, Richard (p. 98), 1615-1691.

  Beaumont and Fletcher (pp. 11, 59); Beaumont, Francis,
  1586-1616; Fletcher, John, 1576-1625.

  Beaumont, Joseph (p. 153): Psyche, 1616-1699.

  Becon, Thomas (pp. 73, 143): Works, 1512-1570.

  Berners, Juliana (p. 228): The Book of St. Albans, 1481.

  Blount, Charles (pp. 70, 141): Philostratus, 1680, 1654-1693.

  Bolton, Edmund (p. 12): Hypercritica, fl. 1620.

  Boorde, Andrew (p. 307): The Boke of the Introduction of
  Knowledge, 1547, E.E.T.S. X.

  Broughton, Hugh (p. 302), 1549-1612.

  Browne, Sir Thomas (p. 8), 1605-1682.

  Burke, Edmund (p. 194), 1729-1797.

  Burton, Robert (pp. 24, 193): Anatomy of Melancholy,
  1576-1640.

  Butler, Samuel (pp. 48, 199): Hudibras, 1612-1680.

  Capgrave, John (p. 232): Chronicle of England, 1460.

  Cavendish, George (p. 24): Life of Cardinal Wolsey, † 1562.

  Caxton, William (p. 5): Legenda Aurea, † 1491.

  Chapman, George (p. 75): translator of Homer, 1557-1634.

  Chaucer, Geoffrey (p. 263): The Astrolabe (p. 52), 1328-1400.

  Cheke, Sir John (p. 47): The Gospel of St. Matthew, 1514-1557.

  Chillingworth, William (pp. 80, 218), 1602-1644.

  Clarendon, Lord (p. 139): History of the Rebellion, 1608-1674.

  Corbet, Richard (p. 195): Iter Boreale, 1582-1635.

  Coryat, Thomas (p. 119): Crudities, 1577-1617.

  Cotgrave, Randle (p. 6): Dictionary, 1611.

  Cotta, John (p. 304): The Trial of Witchcraft, 1616.

  Cotton, Charles (p. 224): Montaigne’s Essays, 1685.

  Coverdale, Miles (pp. 40, 63), 1488-1568.

  Cowell, John (p. 45): The Interpreter, 1554-1611.

  Cowley, Abraham (pp. 33, 140, 220), 1618-1667.

  Cranmer, Thomas (p. 33), 1489-1556.

  Cudworth, Ralph (p. 210): Intellectual System, 1617-1688.

  Daniel, Samuel (p. 198): The Tragedy of Philotas, 1562-1619.

  Davenant, Sir William (p. 251), 1605-1668.

  Davison, Francis (p. 245): Poetical Rhapsody, 1602.

  Denham, Sir John (p. 116), 1615-1668.

  _Dodoens, History of Plants_, see Lyte.

  Donne, John (p. 20), 1573-1631.

  Drayton, Michael (pp. 58, 114, 222), 1563-1631.

  Dryden, John (p. 99), 1631-1701.

  _Eger and Grine_ (p. 135); see Bishop Percy’s Folio MS. I. 341,
  ed. Hales and Furnivall, 1867.

  Ellis, Clement (p. 298): Character of a True Gentleman, 1630-1700.

  Elyot, Sir Thomas (p. 31), † 1546.

  _English Gilds_ (p. 186), E.E.T.S. 40.

  Fairfax, Edward (p. 13): Tasso, 1600.

  Faringdon, Anthony (p. 199): Sermons, 1596-1658.

  Feltham, Owen (p. 116): Resolves, fl. 1650.

  Fletcher, Phineas (pp. 5, 95): Purple Island, 1584-1650.

  Florio, John (pp. 53, 119): Montaigne, 1603; Italian Dictionary,
  1598, † 1625.

  Forby, Robert (p. 132): East Anglia, 1830.

  Foxe, John (p. 28): Book of Martyrs, 1517-1587.

  Frith, John (p. 144), † 1533.

  Fuller, Thomas (pp. 4, 7, 11), 1608-1661.

  Gascoigne, George (pp. 31, 278), † 1577.

  Gauden, John (p. 28): Hieraspistes, 1605-1662.

  _Genesis and Exodus_ (p. 277), E.E.T.S. 7.

  _Geneva Version of the Bible_ (p. 27), 1560.

  Gibbon, Edward (p. 179), 1737-1794.

  Glanville, Joseph (p. 279): Sermons, 1636-1680.

  Golding, Arthur (pp. 50, 108, 156), fl. 1570.

  Gower, John (pp. 40, 233), † 1402.

  Grafton, Richard (pp. 118, 273): Chronicle of King Richard III.,
  fl. 1550.

  Greene, Robert (pp. 227, 271): Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay,
  † 1592.

  Grenewey, Richard (p. 128): Tacitus, 1598.

  Grimeston, Edward (p. 76): History of Lewis XI., 1614.

  Grindal, Edmund (p. 81): Articles of Enquiry, 1519-1583.

  Gurnall, William (p. 37): The Christian in Complete Armour,
  1617-1679.

  Habington, William (p. 70): History of Edward IV., 1605-1645.

  Hacket, John (p. 30): Life of Archbishop Williams, 1592-1670.

  _Hakluyt Society_ (p. 171): Memorials of Japan.

  Hales, John (p. 215): Sermons, 1584-1656.

  Hall, Bp. (p. 19): Satires, 1574-1656.

  Hall, Edward (p. 62): Henry V., † 1547.

  Hamilton, William (p. 40): The Braes of Yarrow, 1704-1754.

  Hammond, Henry (p. 23), 1605-1660.

  Hampole, Richard Rolle de (pp. 27, 130): The Pricke of Conscience
  (Philolog. Soc.); The Psalter (Clar. Press), † 1349.

  Harington, Sir John (p. 49): Orlando Furioso, 1561-1612.

  _Harleian Miscellany_ (p. 41), published 1808-1812.

  Harris, John (p. 120): Voyages, 1702.

  Harrison, William (p. 298): Description of England, 1577.

  Harvey, Gabriel (pp. 87, 177): Pierce’s Supererogation, 1592.

  _Havelok the Dane_ (p. 85), E.E.T.S. IV., ab. 1300.

  Hawes, Stephen (p. 46): Pastime of Pleasure, 1506.

  Hawkins, Sir Richard (p. 4): Observations, 1593.

  Herbert, George (p. 40): The Temple, 1593-1633.

  Herbert, Sir Thomas (p. 189): Travels, 1634.

  Herrick, Robert (p. 11): 1591-1674.

  Heylin, Peter (pp. 39, 41, 102), 1600-1662.

  Heywood, Jasper (p. 85): Seneca’s Hercules Furens, 1561.

  Hobbes, Thomas (p. 78): Thucydides, 1588-1679.

  Hodgson, William (p. 35): Verses on Ben Jonson.

  Holland, Philemon (pp. 7, 8, 13, 28, 58, 70), 1551-1636.

  Holyday, Barten (p. 146): Technogamia, 1593-1661.

  _Homilies_ (p. 6), 1562.

  Hooker, Richard (p. 83), † 1600.

  Hooper, John (p. 18), 1495-1555.

  Howe, John (pp. 39, 93): The Redeemer’s Dominion, 1630-1705.

  Howell, James (pp. 32, 88, 137): Letters, Lexicon, † 1666.

  Hutchinson, Simon (p. 132): Drainage of Land, 1846.

  Isaacson, Henry (p. 217): Life of Lancelot Andrewes, 1650.

  Jackson, Thomas (p. 14): Blasphemous Positions of Jesuits,
  † 1640.

  Jewel, Bp. (p. 13), 1522-1571.

  Johnson, Samuel (p. 194), 1709-1784.

  Jonson, Ben (p. 48), 1574-1637.

  _Joseph of Arimathie_ (p. 40), E.E.T.S. 44.

  King, Bp. (p. 134), 1591-1670.

  Knolles, Richard (p. 285): History of the Turks, † 1610.

  _Kyngdome of Japonia_ (p. 173).

  Latimer, Bp. (p. 4), † 1555.

  Locke, John (p. 149), 1632-1704.

  Lydgate, John (p. 107): fl. 1400.

  Lyly, John (p. 120): Euphues, 1579.

  Lyndesay, Sir David (p. 122): The Monarchie, 1553.

  Lyte, Henry, translator of Dodoens’ History of Plants (p. 307),
  1578.

  Machyn, Henry (p. 133): Diary, 1550, Camden Soc.

  Malory, Sir Thomas (p. 169): Morte d’Arthur, 1469.

  Mandeville, Sir John (pp. 52, 229): Travels, 1350.

  Marlowe, Christopher (pp. 22, 50), 1564-1593.

  Massinger, Philip (pp. 24, 114), 1584-1640.

  Mede, Joseph (p. 302): Sermons, 1586-1638.

  Middleton, Thomas (p. 88), † 1627.

  Milton, John (pp. 2, 5), 1608-1674.

  Monro, Robert (p. 230): His Expedition, 1657.

  More, Henry (p. 56): Immortality of the Soul, 1662.

  More, Sir Thomas (pp. 18, 96), 1480-1535.

  _Morte Arthure_ (p. 130), E.E.T.S. 8.

  Murray, Lady (p. 166): Life of George Baillie, 1822.

  Nashe, Thomas (p. 70): Christ’s Tears over Jerusalem, 1593.

  Nelson, Robert (p. 28): Address to Persons of Quality, 1715.

  Nicolson, Bp. (p. 183): Exposition of the Catechism, 1671.

  North, Thomas (pp. 10, 26, 38): Plutarch’s Lives, fl. 1600.

  Oldham, John (p. 184), 1653-1683.

  Oley, Barnabas (p. 265), fl. 1650.

  Overbury, Sir Thomas (p. 142), 1581-1613.

  Palsgrave, John (p. 265): French Grammar, † 1564.

  Pecock, Bp. (p. 136): Repressor, 1449, Rolls Series.

  Phillips, Edward (p. 280): New World of Words, 1630-1680.

  _Piers Plowman_ (p. 40): Clar. Press, ed. Skeat.

  Pilkington, Bp. (pp. 18, 82), 1520-1575.

  Pinkerton, John (p. 34): Select Scottish Ballads, 1783.

  Pope, Alexander (p. 3), 1688-1744.

  Preston, John (p. 51): Of Spiritual Death and Life, 1587-1628.

  _Promptorium Parvulorum_ (pp. 40, 54), 1440, Camden Soc.

  Prynne, William (p. 242), 1600-1699.

  Purvey, John (p. 158), fl. 1380.

  Puttenham, George (pp. 136, 150): Art of English Poesy, 1589.

  Quarles, Francis (p. 246): Emblems, 1592-1644.

  Raleigh, Sir Walter (p. 83): History of the World, 1552-1618.

  Randolph, Thomas (p. 136), 1605-1634.

  Rawley, William (p. 207): Life of Bacon, 1588-1667.

  Reynolds, John (p. 31): God’s Revenge against Murder, 1621.

  _Rheims Version of the New Testament_, 1582.

  _Richeome’s Pilgrim of Loretto_ (p. 61), 1630.

  Rogers, Daniel (p. 25): Naaman the Syrian; Matrimonial
  Honour, 1642.

  _Romaunt of the Rose_ (p. 66), ab. 1400.

  R. V., Revised Version of the Bible, 1885.

  Rycaut, Sir Paul (pp. 48, 289), † 1700.

  Sancroft, William (p. 237): Variorum Shakespeare, 1616-1693.

  Sanderson, Bp. (pp. 68, 104), 1587-1663.

  _Scoticisms_ (p. 47), 1787.

  Selden, John (p. 125), 1584-1654.

  _Seven Champions, The_ (p. 19).

  Shaftesbury, Lord (p. 138), 1671-1713.

  Shakespeare, William (pp. 2, 185), 1564-1616.

  Shirley, James (p. 152), † 1666.

  _Short Catechism, A_ (p. 20), 1553.

  Sidney, Sir Philip (p. 16), 1564-1586.

  Skelton, John (p. 277): Manerly Margery, † 1529.

  Skinner, Stephen (pp. 48, 165): Etymologicon, 1671.

  Smollett, Tobias (p. 57), 1721-1771.

  _Somers’ Tracts_ (p. 277).

  South, Robert (p. 15), 1633-1716.

  Southwell, Robert (p. 193): Lewd Love is Loss, 1560-1595.

  _Spectator, The_, 1711-1714.

  Spenser, Edmund (pp. 11, 162), † 1599.

  Stanyhurst, Richard (p. 283), † 1618.

  _State Papers_ (p. 52).

  Sterling, Lord (p. 59): Darius, 1603.

  Stow, John (p. 143): Annals, 1525-1605.

  Strong, William (p. 222): Of the Two Covenants, 1678.

  Strype, John (pp. 34, 124), 1643-1737.

  Stubbes, Philip (pp. 30, 278): Anatomy of Abuses, 1583.

  Surrey, Earl of (p. 165), † 1547.

  _Swedish Intelligencer_ (p. 174), 1632-1635.

  Swift, Jonathan (p. 264), 1667-1745.

  Sydenham, Humphrey (p. 97): The Athenian Babbler, 1627,
  † 1650.

  Sylvester, Joshua (p. 29), 1563-1618.

  Taylor, Bp. (pp. 4, 7, 12), 1613-1667.

  Temple, Sir William (p. 7), 1628-1698.

  Teonge, Henry (p. 238): Diary, 1675.

  _Townley Mysteries_ (p. 189), Surtees Soc.

  _Trevelyan Papers_ (p. 86), Camden Soc.

  Trevisa (p. 258), Rolls Series, 41.

  _Turkish Spy_ (p. 273).

  Tusser, Thomas (pp. 31, 208): Points of Good Husbandry,
  1516-1580.

  Tyndale, William (pp. 49, 54, 65), † 1536.

  Waller, Edmund (p. 14), 1605-1687.

  Walpole, Horace (p. 256), 1717-1797.

  Webster, John (p. 11): Duchess of Malfi, printed 1619

  Weever, John (p. 133), 1576-1632.

  Whitlock, Richard (p. 8): Zootomia, 1654.

  Wiclif, John (pp. 9, 158), † 1384.

  _William of Palerne_ (p. 153), E.E.T.S. I.

  Wood, Antony à (pp. 87, 188), 1632-1695.

  Worthington, William (p. 287): Life of Joseph Mede, 1703-1778.




_PHILOLOGICAL WORKS REFERRED TO._


  Davies, Supplementary English Glossary, 1881.

  Grimm, J. and W., Deutsches Wörterbuch, 1854 ff.

  Halliwell, Dict. of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1874.

  Kluge, Etym. Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 1888.

  Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, 1861.

  Mätzner, Altenglisches Wörterbuch (A-I), 1878 ff.

  Mayhew-Skeat, Concise Dict. of Middle English, 1888.

  N.E.D., New English Dict., ed. Murray, 1884 ff.

  Oliphant, The New English, 1886.

  Skeat, Etym. Dict. of Eng. Lang., 1884.

  Trench: Study of Words, 1888; English Past and Present,
  1889; Synonyms of the New Test., 1886.

  Wright-Wülcker: Old English Vocabularies, 1884.




A

SELECT GLOSSARY

ETC.


[=ABANDON.= Now only used in the sense of to give up absolutely, to
forsake, or desert; but in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
often found in the sense of to put to the ban, to proscribe, to
cast out, reject. O. Fr. _abandoner_, to give up into the power of
another, is due to the phrase _mettre à bandon_, to put under anyone’s
jurisdiction; O. Fr. _bandon_ (Low Lat. _bandonem_) is a derivative of
Low Lat. _bandum_ for older _bannum_; O. H. G. _ban_, an order, decree,
proclamation. For O. Fr. _bandon_, used in the sense of free disposal,
unfettered authority, compare _Chanson de Roland_, 2703: ‘All Spain
will be to-day _en lur bandun_,’ i.e. in their power. The Germanic word
_bann_, an open proclamation, survives in our ‘_banns_ of marriage.’
The word _bandit_, It. _bandito_, means properly a proclaimed,
proscribed man.]

    Blessed shall ye be when men shall hate you, and _abandon_
    your name as evil [et _ejecerint_ nomen vestrum tanquam malum,
    Vulg.] for the Son of man’s sake.--_Luke_ vi. 22. Rheims.

  _Beggar._ Madame wife, they say that I have dreamed
  And slept above some fifteen years or more.

  _Lady._ Aye, and the time seems thirty unto me,
  Being all this time _abandoned_ from thy bed.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Taming of the Shrew_, act i. sc. 1.


=ACHIEVEMENT.= Of ‘achievement’ and ‘hatchment’ it need hardly be said
that the latter is a contracted and corrupted manner of pronouncing
the former. This ‘achievement’ or ‘hatchment’ is an escutcheon or coat
of arms erected when a person of distinction has died; originally
so called from its being granted in memory of some ‘achievement’ or
distinguished feat. In the Heralds’ College there are ‘achievements’
still, as there were for Milton two centuries ago; but in our common
language we call them ‘hatchments,’ and have let any such employment of
‘achievement’ go.

    As if a herald in the _achievement_ of a king should commit the
    indecorum to set his helmet sideways and close; not full-faced
    and open, as the posture of direction and command.--MILTON,
    _Tetrachordon_.


=ACT.= The verb ‘to actuate’ seems of comparatively late introduction
into the language. The first example of it which our Dictionaries give
is drawn from the works of the Latinist, Sir Thomas Browne, of Norwich.
I have also met it in Jeremy Taylor.[1] But even for some time after
‘actuate’ was introduced--as late, we see, as Pope,--‘act’ did often
the work which ‘actuate’ alone does now.

    Within, perhaps, they are as proud as Lucifer, as covetous
    as Demas, as false as Judas, and in the whole course of
    their conversation act and are _acted_, not by devotion, but
    design.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1737, vol. ii. p. 391.

    Many offer at the effects of friendship; but they do not last.
    They are promising at the beginning, but they fail and jade
    and tire in the prosecution. For most people in the world are
    _acted_ by levity and humour, and by strange and irrational
    changes.--Id. _Ib._, vol. ii. p. 73.

  Self-love, the spring of motion, _acts_ the soul.

          POPE, _Essay on Man_, ep 2.


=ADAMANT.= It is difficult to trace the exact motives which induced the
transferring of this name to the lodestone; but it is common enough in
our best English writers, thus in Chaucer, Bacon, and Shakespeare; as
is ‘aimant’ in French, and ‘iman’ in Spanish. See ‘Diamond,’ and the
art. ‘Adamant’ in _Appendix_ A to the _Dictionary of the Bible_.

  Right as an _adamaund_, iwys,
  Can drawen to hym sotylly
  The yren, that is leid therby,
  So drawith folkes hertis, ywis,
  Silver and gold that yeven is.

          _Romaunt of the Rose_, 1182 (ed. Morris).

  _Demetrius._ Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.

  _Helena._ You draw me, you hard-hearted _adamant_;
  And yet you draw not iron, for my heart
  Is true as steel.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act ii. sc. 1.

    If you will have a young man to put his travel in little room,
    when he stayeth in one city or town, let him change his lodging
    from one end and part of the town to another; which is a great
    _adamant_ of acquaintance.--BACON, _Essays_, 18.


=ADMIRAL.= This was a title often given in the seventeenth century to
the principal and leading vessel in a fleet; the ‘admiral-galley’ North
(_Plutarch’s Lives_) calls it.

    _Falstaff_ (to Bardolph).--Thou art our _admiral_; thou bearest
    the lantern in the poop--but ’tis the nose of thee; thou art
    the Knight of the Burning Lamp.--SHAKESPEARE, _1 Henry IV._,
    act iii. sc. 3.

    Lincoln spake what was fit for comfort, and did what he was
    able for redress. He looked like the lanthorn in the _admiral_,
    by which the rest of the fleet did steer their course.--HACKET,
    _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p. 143.

  His spear--to equal which the tallest pine
  Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
  Of some great _ammiral_, were but a wand--
  He walked with, to support uneasy steps
  Over the burning marle.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, i. 292.

    The _admiral_ of the Spanish Armada was a Flemish
    ship.--HAWKINS, _Observations_, &c., 1622, p. 9.


  =ADMIRE=,   }
  ADMIRABLE,  }
  ADMIRATION. }

It now always implies to wonder _with approval_; but was by no means
restrained to this wonder _in bonam partem_ of old.

    Neither is it to be _admired_ that Henry [the Fourth], who was
    a wise as well as a valiant prince, should be pleased to have
    the greatest wit of those times in his interests, and to be the
    trumpet of his praises.--DRYDEN, _Preface to the Fables_.

                            Let none _admire_
  That riches grow in hell; that soil may best
  Deserve the precious bane.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, i. 690.

    It may justly seem _admirable_ how that senseless religion
    [Mahometanism] should gain so much on Christianity.--FULLER,
    _Holy War_, part i. c. 6.

    In man there is nothing _admirable_ but his ignorance and
    weakness.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Dissuasive from Popery_, part ii. b.
    i. § 7.

    I understand that you be in great _admirations_ of me, and take
    very grievously my manner of writing to you.--LATIMER, _Sermons
    and Remains_, vol. ii. p. 419.

    And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints ...
    and when I saw her I wondered with great _admiration_.--_Rev._
    xvii. 6. (A.V.)


=ALCHYMY.= By this we always understand now the pretended art of
transmuting other metals into gold; but it was often used to express
itself a certain mixed metal, which, having the appearance of gold, was
yet mainly composed of brass. Thus the notion of falseness, of show and
semblance not borne out by reality, frequently underlay the earlier
uses of the word. Compare the second quotation under ‘Bullion.’

    As for those gildings and paintings that were in the palace of
    Alcyna, though the show of it were glorious, the substance of
    it was dross, and nothing but _alchymy_ and cosenage.--Sir J.
    HARINGTON, _A brief Allegory of Orlando Furioso_.

    Whereupon out of most deep divinity it was concluded, that
    they should not celebrate the sacrament in glass, for the
    brittleness of it; nor in wood, for the sponginess of it, which
    would suck up the blood; nor in _alchymy_, because it was
    subject to rusting; nor in copper, because that would provoke
    vomiting; but in chalices of latten, which belike was a metal
    without exception.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. iii. c. 13.

  Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim
  Put to their mouths the sounding _alchymy_.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, ii. 516.

    Such were his arms, false gold, true _alchemy_.--P. FLETCHER,
    _Purple Island_, vii. 39.


  =ALLOW=,   }
  ALLOWANCE, }
  ALLOWABLE. }

‘To allow,’ from the French ‘allouer,’ and through it from the Latin
‘allaudare,’--and not to be confounded with another ‘allow,’ derived
from another ‘allouer,’ the Latin ‘allocare,’--had once a sense very
often of praise or approval, which may now be said to have departed
from it altogether. Thus in Cotgrave’s _French and English Dictionary_,
an invaluable witness of the force and meanings which words had two
centuries ago, ‘allow’ is rendered by ‘allouer,’ ‘gréer,’ ‘approuver,’
‘accepter,’ and ‘allowable’ by ‘louable.’

    Mine enemy, say they, is not worthy to have gentle words or
    deeds, being so full of malice or frowardness. The less he
    is worthy, the more art thou therefore _allowed_ of God, and
    the more art thou commended of Christ.--_Homilies_; _Against
    Contention_.

    The hospitality and alms of abbeys is not altogether to be
    _allowed_, or dispraised.--PILKINGTON, _The Burning of Paul’s_,
    § 12.

    Truly ye bear witness that ye _allow_ [συνευδοκεῖτε] the deeds
    of your fathers.--_Luke_ xi. 48. (A. V.)

  A stirring dwarf we do _allowance_ give
  Before a sleeping giant.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Troilus and Cressida_, act ii. sc. 3.

    Though I deplore your schism from the Catholic Church, yet I
    should bear false witness if I did not confess your decency,
    which I discerned at the holy duty, was very _allowable_ in
    the consecrators and receivers.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop
    Williams_, part ii. p. 211.


=AMIABLE.= This and ‘lovely’ have been so far differentiated that
‘amiable’ never expresses now any other than _moral_ loveliness; which
in ‘lovely’ is seldom or never implied. There was a time when ‘amiable’
had no such restricted use, when it and ‘lovely’ were absolutely
synonymous, as, etymologically, they might claim still to be.

  Come sit thee down upon this flow’ry bed,
  While I thy _amiable_ cheeks do coy.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act iv. sc. 1.

    How _amiable_ are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts.--_Ps._
    lxxxiv. 1. (A.V.)

  Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,
  Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,
  Hung _amiable_.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, iv. 248.


  =AMUSE=,   }
  AMUSEMENT. }

The notion of diversion, entertainment, is comparatively of recent
introduction into the word. ‘To amuse’ was to cause to muse, to occupy
or engage, and in this sense indeed to _divert_, the thoughts and
attention. The quotation from Phillips shows the word in transition
to its present meaning. [O. Fr. _amuser_ is a compound of _muser_, to
muse, study, linger about a matter, to sniff as a hound, from *_muse_,
a muzzle, nose of an animal (whence Mod. Fr. _museau_). Compare
Florio’s Italian Dictionary: ‘_Musare_, to muse, to muzzle, to gape, to
hold one’s _muzle_ or snout in the air.’ The O. Fr. *_muse_ is the same
word as the Lat. _morsus_, see Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of Middle English_.]

    Camillus set upon the Gauls, when they were _amused_ in
    receiving their gold.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 223.

    Being _amused_ with grief, fear, and fright, he could not find
    a house in London (otherwise well known to him), whither he
    intended to go.--FULLER, _Church History of Britain_, b. ix. §
    44.

    A siege of Maestricht or Wesel (so garrisoned and resolutely
    defended), might not only have _amused_, but endangered the
    French armies.--Sir W. TEMPLE, _Observations on the United
    Provinces_, c. 8.

    To _amuse_, to stop or stay one with a trifling story, to make
    him lose his time, to feed with vain expectations, to hold in
    play.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.

    In a just way it is lawful to deceive the unjust enemy, but
    not to lie; that is, by stratagems and semblances of motions,
    by _amusements_ and intrigues of actions, by ambushes and
    wit, by simulation and dissimulation.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Ductor
    Dubitantium_, b. iii. c. 2.


=ANATOMY.= Now the act of dissection, but it was often used by our
elder writers for the thing or object dissected, and then, as this was
stripped of its flesh, for what we now call a skeleton. ‘Skeleton,’
which see, had then another meaning.

    Here will be some need of assistants in this live, and to the
    quick, dissection, to deliver me from the violence of the
    _anatomy_.--WHITLOCK, _Zootomia_, p. 249.

    Antiquity held too light thoughts from objects of mortality,
    while some drew provocatives of mirth from _anatomies_,
    and jugglers showed tricks with skeletons.--Sir T. BROWNE,
    _Hydriotaphia_.

              A hungry lean-faced villain,
  A mere _anatomy_, a mountebank,
  A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
  A living deadman.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Comedy of Errors_, act v. sc. 1.


=ANIMOSITY.= While ‘animosus’ belongs to the best period of Latin
literature, ‘animositas’ is of quite the later silver age. It was
used in two senses; in that, first, of spiritedness or courage (‘equi
_animositas_,’ the courage of a horse), and then, secondly, as this
spiritedness in one particular direction, in that, namely, of a
vigorous and active enmity or hatred (_Heb._ xi. 27, Vulg.) Of these
two meanings the latter is the only one which our ‘animosity’ has
retained; yet there was a time when it had the other as well.

    When her [the crocodile’s] young be newly hatched, such as give
    some proof of _animosity_, audacity, and execution, those she
    loveth, those she cherisheth.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p.
    977.

    Doubtless such as are of a high-flown _animosity_ affect
    _fortunas laviniosas_, as one calls it, a fortune that sits not
    strait and close to the body, but like a loose and a flowing
    garment.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 30.

    In these cases consent were conspiracy; and open
    contestation is not faction or schism, but due Christian
    _animosity_.--HALES, _Tract concerning Schism_.

    Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of the
    night in reading the Immortality of Plato, thereby confirming
    his wavering hand unto the _animosity_ of that attempt.--Sir T.
    BROWNE, _Hydriotaphia_.


  =ANNOY=,   }
  ANNOYANCE. }

Now rather to vex and disquiet than seriously to hurt and harm. But
until comparatively a late day, it admitted no such mitigation of
meaning. [The subst. _annoy_ is the O. Fr. _anoi_ (Mod. Fr. _ennui_),
Sp. _enojo_, O. It. _inodio_, from Lat. _in odio_, lit. in hatred, used
in the phrase _in odio habui_, I had in hatred, _i.e_. I was sick and
tired of.]

    For the Lord Almygti _anoyede_ [_nocuit_, Vulg.] hym, and
    bitook him into the hondes of a womman.--_Judith_ xvi. 7.
    WICLIF.

    Thanne cometh malignité, thurgh which a man _annoieth_ his
    neighebor, as for to brenne his hous prively, or empoysone him,
    or sleen his bestis, and semblable thinges.--CHAUCER, _The
    Persones Tale_ (Morris, p. 306).

  Against the Capitol I met a lion,
  Which glared upon me, and went surly by,
  Without _annoying_ me.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Julius Cæsar_, act i. sc. 3.

                        Look after her,
  Remove from her the means of all _annoyance_,
  And still keep eyes upon her.

          Id. _Macbeth_, act v. sc. 1.


=ANTICS.= Strange gestures now, but the makers of these strange
gestures once.

  Behold, destruction, fury, and amazement,
  Like witless _antics_, one another meet.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Troilus and Cressida_, act v. sc. 4.

  Have they not sword-players, and every sort
  Of gymnic artists, wrestlers, riders, runners,
  Jugglers and dancers, _antics_, mummers, mimics?

          MILTON, _Samson Agonistes_, 1323.


  =APPARENT=, }
  APPARENTLY. }

With the exception of the one phrase ‘heir _apparent_,’ meaning heir
evident, manifest, undoubted, we do not any longer employ ‘apparent’
for that which appears, because it _is_, but always either for that
which appears and is not, or for that which appears, leaving in doubt
whether it is or no.

  It is _apparent_ foul play; and ’tis shame
  That greatness should so grossly offer it.

          SHAKESPEARE, _King John_, act iv. sc. 2.

    At that time Cicero had vehement suspicions of Cæsar, but no
    _apparent_ proof to convince him.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_,
    p. 718.

    The laws of God cannot without breach of Christian liberty,
    and the _apparent_ injury of God’s servants, be hid from
    them in a strange language, so depriving them of their best
    defence against Satan’s temptations.--FULLER, _Twelve Sermons
    concerning Christ’s Temptations_, p. 59.

  Love was not in their looks, either to God
  Or to each other, but _apparent_ guilt,
  And shame and perturbation and despair.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, x. 111.

    At that time [at the resurrection of the last day], as the
    Scripture doth most _apparently_ testify, the dead shall be
    restored to their own bodies, flesh and bones.--_Articles of
    the Church_ (1552).


=APPREHENSIVE.= As there is nothing which persons lay hold of more
readily than that aspect of a subject in which it presents matter for
fear, ‘to apprehend’ has acquired the sense of to regard with fear;
yet not so as that this use has excluded its earlier; but it _has_ done
so in respect of ‘apprehensive,’ which has now no other meaning than
that of fearful, a meaning once quite foreign to it.

                  See their odds in death:
  Appius died like a Roman gentleman,
  And a man both ways knowing; but this slave
  Is only sensible of vicious living,
  Not _apprehensive_ of a noble death.

          WEBSTER, _Appius and Virginius_, act v. sc. 3.

    She, being an handsome, witty, and bold maid, was both
    _apprehensive_ of the plot, and very active to prosecute
    it.--FULLER, _The Profane State_, b. v. c. 5.

            My father would oft speak
  Your worth and virtue; and as I did grow
  More and more _apprehensive_, I did thirst
  To see the man so praised.

          BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, _Philaster_, act v. sc. 1.


=ARK.= The ark of Noah, and ark of the covenant, were not the only
‘arks’ of which our ancestors spoke. Indeed, in Lancashire at this day
a press to keep clothes in is an ‘ark,’ a large bin for holding meal a
‘meal-ark.’

  Then first of all came forth Sir Satyrane,
  Bearing that precious relicke in an _arke_
  Of gold.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, iv. 4, 15.

  In the riche _arke_ Dan Homers rimes he placed.

          EARL OF SURREY, _Poems_, p. 35 (ed. 1717).

  You have beheld how they
    With wicker _arks_ did come,
  To kiss and bear away
    The richer cowslips home.

          HERRICK, _Hesperides_.



  =ARTIFICIAL=, }
  ARTIFICIALLY. }

That was ‘artificial’ once which wrought, or which was wrought,
according to the true principles of art. The word has descended into
quite a lower sphere of meaning; such, indeed, as the quotation from
Bacon shows, it could occupy formerly, though not then exactly the same
which it occupies now.

    Queen Elizabeth’s verses, some extant in the elegant, witty,
    and _artificial_ book of _The Art of English Poetry_, are
    princely as her prose.--BOLTON, _Hypercritica_.

  We, Hermia, like two _artificial_ gods,[2]
  Have with our neelds created both one flower.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act iii. sc. 2.

    This is a demonstration that we are not in the right way, that
    we do not enquire wisely, that our method is not _artificial_.
    If men did fall upon the right way, it were impossible that
    so many learned men should be engaged in contrary parties
    and opinions.--Bishop TAYLOR, _A Sermon preached before the
    University of Dublin_.

    This he did the rather, because having at his coming out
    of Britain given _artificially_, for serving his own turn,
    some hopes in case he obtained the kingdom, to marry Anne,
    inheritress to the duchy of Britany.--BACON, _History of Henry
    VII._


=ARTILLERY.= Leaving the perplexed question of the derivation of this
word,[3] it will be sufficient to observe, that while it is now only
applied to the heavy ordnance of modern warfare, in earlier use any
engines for the projecting of missiles, even to the bow and arrows,
would have been included under this term.

    The Parthians, having all their hope in _artillery_, overcame
    the Romans ofter than the Romans them.--ASCHAM, _Toxophilus_,
    p. 106 (ed. 1761).

    So the Philistines, the better to keep the Jews thrall and
    in subjection, utterly bereaved them of all manner of weapon
    and _artillery_, and left them naked.--JEWEL, _Reply to Mr.
    Harding_, article xv.

  The Gods forbid, quoth he, one shaft of thine
  Should be discharged ’gainst that discourteous knight;
  His heart unworthy is, shootress divine,
  Of thine _artillery_ to feel the might.

          FAIRFAX, _Tasso_, b. 17, s. 49.

    And Jonathan gave his _artillery_ (weapons, R.V.) unto his lad,
    and said unto him, Go, carry them to the city.--_1 Sam._ xx.
    40. (A.V.)


  =ARTISAN=, }
  ARTIST,    }
  ARTFUL.    }

‘Artisan’ is no longer either in English or in French used of him who
cultivates one of the _fine_ arts, but only those of common life.
The fine arts, losing this word, have now claimed ‘artist’ for their
exclusive property; which yet was far from belonging to them always.
An ‘artist’ in its earlier acceptation was one who cultivated, not the
_fine_, but the _liberal_ arts. The classical scholar was eminently the
‘artist.’ ‘Artful’ did not any more than ‘cunning,’ which see, imply
art which had degenerated into artifice or trick.

    He was mightily abashed, and like an honest-minded man yielded
    the victory unto his adversary, saying withal, Zeuxis hath
    beguiled poor birds, but Parrhasius hath deceived Zeuxis, a
    professed _artisan_.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. ii. p. 535.

  Rare _artisan_, whose pencil moves
  Not our delights alone, but loves!

          WALLER, _Lines to Van Dyck_.

                For then the bold and coward,
  The wise and fool, the _artist_ and _unread_,
  The hard and soft, seem all affined and kin.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Troilus and Cressida_, act i. sc. 3.

    Nor would I dissuade any _artist_ well grounded in Aristotle
    from perusing the most learned works any Romanist hath written
    in this argument. In other controversies between them and us it
    is dangerous, I must confess, even for well-grounded _artists_
    to begin with their writings, not so in this.--JACKSON,
    _Blasphemous Positions of Jesuits_, Preface.

    Some will make me the pattern of ignorance for making this
    Scaliger [Julius] the pattern of the general _artist_,
    whose own son Joseph might have been his father in many
    _arts_.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. ii. c. 8.

  Stupendous pile! not reared by mortal hands;
  Whate’er proud Rome or _artful_ Greece beheld,
  Or elder Babylon its fame excelled.

          POPE, _Temple of Fame_.


=ASCERTAIN.= Now to acquire a certain knowledge of a thing, but
once to render the thing itself certain. Thus, when Swift wrote a
pamphlet having this title, ‘A Proposal for correcting, improving, and
_ascertaining_ the English Tongue,’ he did not propose to obtain a
subjective certainty of what the English language was, but to give to
the language itself an objective certainty and fixedness.

    Sometimes an evil or an obnoxious person hath so secured
    and _ascertained_ a mischief to himself, that he that
    stays in his company or his traffic must also share in his
    punishment.--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Return of Prayers_.

    Success is intended him [the wicked man] only as a
    curse, as the very greatest of curses, and the readiest
    way, by hardening him in his sin, to _ascertain_ his
    destruction.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, vol. v. p. 286.


=ASPERSION.= Now only used figuratively, and in an evil sense; being
that which one _sprinkles_ on another to spot, stain, or hurt him: but
subject to none of these limitations of old.

    The book of Job, and many places of the prophets, have great
    _aspersion_ of natural philosophy.--BACON, _Fiium Labyrinthi_.

  No sweet _aspersion_ shall the heavens let fall
  To make this contract grow.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Tempest_, act iv. sc. 1.


  =ASSASSIN=,    }
  ASSASSINATE.   }

It is difficult to say at what date the name of ‘assassin,’ given first
to the emissaries of the ‘Old Man of the Mountain,’ who were sent
forth on his errands of blood, and who bore this name because maddened
with ‘haschisch,’ a drink drawn from hemp, was transferred to other
secret slayers. The word does not occur in Shakespeare (‘assassination’
once), and only once in Milton’s verse. Neither is it found in our
English Bible; although it may be a question whether ‘assassins’
would not be an apter, as it would certainly be a closer, rendering
of σικάριοι, on the one occasion of this word’s appearing (Acts xxi.
38), than the ‘murderers’ which we have actually adopted.[4] The verb
‘to assassinate,’ as used by Milton, obtained a meaning which still
survives in the French ‘assassiner’ and the Italian ‘assassinare,’ and
signifies, as these often do, treacherously to assault, extremely to
maltreat, without suggesting the actual taking away of life, which ‘to
assassinate’ now always implies for us. Doubtless it was the Italian
use of the word which influenced him.

    These _assassins_ were a precise sect of Mahometans, and had in
    them the very spirits of that poisonous superstition.--FULLER,
    _Holy War_, b. ii. c. 34.

    As for the custom that some parents and guardians have of
    forcing marriages, it will be better to say nothing of such a
    savage inhumanity, but only thus, that the law which gives not
    all freedom of divorce to any creature endued with reason, so
    _assassinated_, is next in cruelty.--MILTON, _The Doctrine and
    Discipline of Divorce_, b. i. c. 12.

  Such usage as your honourable lords
  Afford me, _assassinated_ and betrayed.

          MILTON, _Samson Agonistes_, 1108.


  =ASSURE=,    }
  ASSURANCE.   }

Used often in our elder writers in the sense of ‘to betroth,’ or ‘to
affiance.’ See ‘Ensure,’ ‘Sure.’

  _King Philip._ Young princes, close your hands.

  _Austria._ And your lips too; for I am well assured
  That I did so, when I was first _assured_.

          SHAKESPEARE, _King John_, act ii. sc. 2.

    I myself have seen Lollia Paulina, only when she was to go unto
    a wedding supper, or rather to a feast when the _assurance_
    was made, so beset and bedeckt all over with emeralds and
    pearls.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 256.

    But though few days were before the day of _assurance_
    appointed, yet Love, that saw he had a great journey to make
    in a short time, hasted so himself, that before her word could
    tie her to Demagoras, her heart hath vowed her to Argalus.--Sir
    PHILIP SIDNEY, _Arcadia_, p. 17.


=ASTONISH.= ‘To astonish’ has now loosened itself altogether from
its etymology. The man ‘astonished’ can now be hardly said to be
‘thunderstruck,’ either in a literal or a figurative sense. But
continually in our early literature we shall quite fall below the
writer’s intention unless we read this meaning into the word.[5]

  Stone-still, _astonished_ with this deadly deed,
  Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Lucrece_.

    The knaves that lay in wait behind rose up and rolled down two
    huge stones, whereof the one smote the king upon the head, the
    other _astonished_ his shoulder.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1124.

    The cramp-fish [the torpedo] knoweth her own force and
    power, and being herself not benumbed, is able to _astonish_
    others.--Id. _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 261.

    In matters of religion, blind, astonished, and struck with
    superstition as with a planet; in one word, monks.--MILTON,
    _History of England_, b. ii.


  =ASTROLOGY=, }
  ASTROLOGER.  }

As ‘chemist’ only little by little disengaged itself from ‘alchemist,’
and that, whether we have respect to the thing itself, or the name
of the thing, so ‘astronomer’ from ‘astrologer,’ ‘astronomy’ from
‘astrology.’ It was long before the broad distinction between the lying
art and the true science was recognized and fixed in words.

    If any enchantress should come unto her, and make promise to
    draw down the moon from heaven, she would mock these women and
    laugh at their gross ignorance, who suffer themselves to be
    persuaded for to believe the same, as having learned somewhat
    in _astrology_.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 324.

    The _astrologer_ is he that knoweth the course and motion
    of the heavens, and teacheth the same; which is a virtue
    if it pass not his bounds, and become of an _astrologer_
    an _astronomer_, who taketh upon him to give judgment and
    censure of these motions and courses of the heavens, what they
    prognosticate and destiny unto the creature.--HOOPER, _Early
    Writings_, Parker Society’s Edition, p. 731.


  =ASTRONOMY=,  }
  ASTRONOMER.   }

See ‘Astrology.’

  Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,
  And yet, methinks, I have _astronomy_,
  But not to tell of good or evil luck,
  Of plagues, of dearths, of seasons’ quality.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Sonnets_, 14.

    Bowe ye not to _astronomyers_, neither axe ye onything of fals
    dyvynours.--_Levit._ xix. 31. WICLIF.

    If _astronomers_ say true, every man at his birth by his
    constellation hath divers things and desires appointed
    him.--PILKINGTON, _Exposition upon the Prophet Aggeus_, c. i.


  =ATONE=,     }
  ATONEMENT.   }

The notion of _satisfaction_ lies now in these words rather than that
of _reconciliation_. An ‘atonement’ is the _satisfaction_ of a wrong
which one party has committed against another, not the _reconciliation_
of two estranged parties. This last, however, was its earlier meaning;
and is in harmony with its etymology; for which see the quotation from
Bishop Hall.

  He and Aufidius can no more _atone_
  Than violentest contrarieties.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Coriolanus_, act iv. sc. 6.

    His first essay succeeded so well, Moses would adventure on a
    second design, to _atone_ two Israelites at variance.--FULLER,
    _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, vol. ii. p. 92.

    Having more regard to their old variance than their new
    _atonement_.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King Richard III._

  Ye witless gallants I beshrew your hearts,
  That set such discord twixt agreeing parts
  Which never can be set _at onement_ more.

          Bishop HALL, _Sat._ 3. 7.

    If Sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you,
    I am of the Church, and will be glad to do my benevolence, to
    make _atonements_ and compromises between you.--SHAKESPEARE,
    _Merry Wives of Windsor_, act i. sc. 1.


=ATTIRE.= In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries specially
head-dress, head-gear. ‘Attired with stars’ in Milton’s beautiful lines
_On Time_ is not, _clothed_ with stars, but, _crowned_ with them;
compare Rev. xii. 1: ‘upon her head a crown of twelve stars.’

    She tore her _attire_ from her head, and rent her golden
    hair.--_The Seven Champions_, b. ii. c. 13.

    With the linen mitre shall he be _attired_.--_Lev._ xvi. 4. (A.
    V.)

    Girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed
    _attire_ upon their heads.--_Ezek._ xxiii. 15 (A. V.)

    The heralds call the Horns of a Stag or Buck his
    _Attire_.--BRADLEY, _Fam. Dict._ s. v.


=ATTORNEY.= Seldom used now except of the attorney _at law_; being one,
according to Blackstone’s definition, ‘who is put in the place, stead,
or _turn_ of another to manage his matters of law;’ and even in this
sense it is going out of honour, and giving way to ‘solicitor.’ But
formerly any who in any cause acted in the room, behalf, or turn of
another would be called his ‘attorney;’ thus Phillips (_New World of
Words_) defines attorney, ‘one appointed by another man to do anything
in his stead, or to take upon him the charge of his business in his
absence;’ and in proof of what high use the word might have, I need
but refer to the quotation which immediately follows:

    Our everlasting and only High Bishop; our only _attorney_,
    our mediator, only peacemaker between God and men.--_A Short
    Catechism_, 1553.

                    _Attorneys_ are denied me,
  And therefore _personally_ I lay my claim
  To my inheritance of free descent.

          SHAKESPEARE, _King Richard II._ act ii. sc. 3.

    Tertullian seems to understand this baptism for the dead
    [1 Cor. xv. 29] de vicario baptismate, of baptism by an
    _attorney_, by a proxy, which should be baptized for me when I
    am dead.--DONNE, _Sermons_, 1640, p. 794.


=AUTHENTIC.= A distinction drawn by Bishop Watson between ‘genuine’
and ‘authentic’ has been often quoted: ‘A _genuine_ book is that which
was written by the person whose name it bears as the author of it.
An _authentic_ book is that which relates matters of fact as they
really happened.’ Of ‘authentic’ he has certainly not seized the true
force, neither do the uses of it by good writers bear him out. The
true opposite to αὐθεντικός in Greek is ἀδέσποτος, and ‘authentic’
is properly original, independent, and thus coming with authority,
authoritative.[6] Thus, an ‘authentic’ document is, in its first
meaning, a document written by the proper hand of him from whom it
professes to proceed. In all the passages which follow it will be
observed that the word might be exchanged for ‘authoritative.’

  As doubted tenures, which long pleadings try,
  _Authentic_ grow by being much withstood.

          DAVENANT, _Gondibert_, b. ii.

    Should men be admitted to read Galen or Hippocrates, and
    yet the monopoly of medicines permitted to some one empiric
    or apothecary, not liable to any account, there might be a
    greater danger of poisoning than if these grand physicians
    had never written; for that might be prescribed them by such
    an _authentic_ mountebank as a cordial, which the other
    had detected for poison.--JACKSON, _The Eternal Truth of
    Scriptures_, b. ii. c. 23.

    Which letter _in the copy_ his lordship read over, and carried
    the _authentic_ with him.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop
    Williams_, part ii. p. 24.

    It were extreme partiality and injustice, the flat denial
    and overthrow of herself [i.e. of Justice], to put her own
    _authentic_ sword into the hand of an unjust and wicked
    man.--MILTON, Εἰκονοκλάστης. c. 28.

    [A father] to instil the rudiments of vice into the unwary
    flexible years of his poor children, poisoning their tender
    minds with the irresistible _authentic_ venom of his base
    example!--SOUTH, _Sermons_, vol. ii. p. 190; cf. vol. viii. p.
    171.

    Men ought to fly all pedantisms, and not rashly to use all
    words that are met with in every English writer, whether
    _authentic_ or not.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_, Preface.


  =AWFUL=,     }
  AWFULNESS.   }

This used once to be often employed of that which _felt_ awe; it is
only employed now of that which _inspires_ it.

  The kings sat still with _awful_ eye,
  As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

          MILTON, _On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity_.

    The highest flames are the most tremulous, and so are the most
    holy and eminent religious persons more full of _awfulness_,
    of fear and modesty and humility.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Life of
    Christ_, part i. § 5.


=AWKWARD.= In its present signification, unhandy, ungainly, maladroit;
but formerly[7] untoward, and that, whether morally or physically,
perverse, contrary, sinister, unlucky.

  With _awkward_ wind and with sore tempest driven
  To fall on shore.

          MARLOWE, _Edward II._ act iv. sc. 7.

  The beast long struggled, as being like to prove
  An _awkward_ sacrifice,[8] but by the horns
  The quick priest pulled him on his knees and slew him.

          MARLOWE, _The First Book of Lucan_.

  Was I for this nigh wrecked upon the sea,
  And twice by _awkward_ wind from England’s bank
  Drove back again unto my native clime?

          SHAKESPEARE, _1 Henry VI._ act iii. sc. 2.

  But time hath rooted out my parentage,
  And to the world and _awkward_ casualties
  Bound me in servitude.

          Id., _Pericles, Prince of Tyre_, act v. sc. 1.


  =BABE=, }
  BABY.   }

‘Doll’ is of late introduction into the English language, is certainly
later than Dryden. ‘Babe,’ ‘baby,’ or puppet supplied its place.

    True religion standeth not in making, setting up, painting,
    gilding, clothing, and decking of dumb and dead images, which
    be but great puppets and _babies_ for old fools, in dotage and
    wicked idolatry, to dally and play with.--_Homilies; Against
    Peril of Idolatry._

    _Babes_ of clouts are good enough to keep children from
    crying.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. iv. c. 17.

  But all as a poore pedler he did wend,
  Bearing a trusse of tryfles at hys backe,
  As bells, and _babes_, and glasses in hys packe.

          SPENSER, _The Shepherd’s Calendar, May_.

    Think you that the child hath any notion of the strong
    contents of riper age? or can he possibly imagine there are
    any such delights as those his _babies_ and rattles afford
    him?--ALLESTREE, _Sermons_, part ii. p. 148.


=BACCHANAL.= Used now generally of a drunken reveller or votary of
Bacchus; but it was once more accurately applied to the ‘bacchanalia,’
or orgies celebrated in his honour.

    Do not ye, like those heathen in their _bacchanals_, inflame
    yourselves with wine.--HAMMOND, _Paraphrase on the N. T._,
    Ephes. v. 18.

    So _bacchanals_ of drunken riot were kept too much in London
    and Westminster, which offended many, that the thanks due
    only to God should be paid to the devil.--HACKET, _Life of
    Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 165.

  Well, I could wish that still in lordly domes
  Some beasts were killed, though not whole hecatombs;
  That both extremes were banished from their walls,
  Carthusian fasts, and fulsome _bacchanals_.

          POPE, _Satires of Dr. Donne_.


=BAFFLE.= Now to counterwork and to defeat; but once not this so
much as to mock and put to shame, and, in the technical language of
chivalry, it expressed a ceremony of open scorn with which a recreant
or perjured knight was visited. [See quotation from Hall, _Chron._ in
N.E.D.]

  First he his beard did shave and foully shent,
  Then from him reft his shield, and it renverst,
  And blotted out his armes with falshood blent,
  And himselfe _baffuld_, and his armes unherst,
  And broke his sword in twaine, and all his armour sperst.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, v. 3, 37.

    He that suffers himself to be ridden, or through pusillanimity
    or sottishness will let every man _baffle_ him, shall be
    a common laughing-stock to flout at.--BURTON, _Anatomy of
    Melancholy_, part ii. § 3.

  Alas, poor fool, how have they _baffled_ thee!

          SHAKESPEARE, _Twelfth Night_, act v. sc. 1.


=BANQUET.= At present the entire course of any solemn or sumptuous
entertainment; but ‘banquet’ (O. Fr. _banquet_, cp. It. ‘banchetto,’
a small bench or table) used generally to be restrained to a slighter
repast, to the lighter and ornamental dessert or refection, or the
‘banquet of wine’ (Esth. vii. 2), which followed and crowned the more
substantial repast.

    I durst not venture to sit _at supper_ with you; should
    I have received you then, coming as you did with armed
    men to _banquet_ with me? [_Convivam_ me tibi committere
    ausus non sum; _comissatorem_ te cum armatis venientem
    recipiam?]--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1066.

    Then was the banqueting-chamber in the tilt-yard at Greenwich
    furnished for the entertainment of these strangers, where they
    did both sup and banquet.--CAVENDISH, _Life of Cardinal Wolsey_.

  We’ll _dine_ in the great room; but let the music
  And _banquet_ be prepared here.

          MASSINGER, _The Unnatural Combat_, act iii. sc. 1.


  =BASE=,     }
  BASENESS.   }

The aristocratic tendencies of speech (tendencies illustrated by the
word ‘aristocracy’ itself), which reappear in a thousand shapes, on the
one side in such words, and their usages, as καλοκἀγαθός, ἐπιεικής,
‘noble,’ on the other in such as ‘villain,’ ‘boor,’ ‘knave,’ ‘churl,’
and in this ‘base,’ are well worthy of accurate observation. Thus
‘base’ always now implies moral unworthiness; but did not so once.
‘Base’ men were no more than men of humble birth and low degree.

  But vertuous women wisely understand
  That they were borne to _base_ humilitie,
  Unlesse the heavens them lift to lawful soveraintie.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, v. 5, 25.

    He that is ashamed of _base_ and simple attire, will be proud
    of gorgeous apparel, if he may get it.--_Homilies; Against
    Excess of Apparel._

    By this means we imitate the Lord Himself, who hath abased
    Himself to the lowest degree of _baseness_ in this kind,
    emptying Himself (Phil. ii. 8), that he might be equal to them
    of greatest _baseness_.--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 461.


=BATTLE.= Used, not as now, of the hostile shock of armies; but often
of the army itself; or sometimes in a more special sense, of the main
body of the army, as distinguished from the van and rear.

  Each _battle_ sees the other’s umbered face.

          SHAKESPEARE, _King Henry V._ act iv. Chorus.

    Richard led the vanguard of English; Duke Odo commanded in the
    main _battle_ over his French; James of Auvergne brought on the
    Flemings and Brabanters in the rear.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b.
    iii. c. 11.

    Where divine blessing leads up the van, and man’s valour
    brings up the _battle_, must not victory needs follow in the
    rear?--Id., _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, vol. i. p. 174.


=BAWD.= Not confined once to one sex only, but could have been applied
to pandar and pandaress alike.

  He was if I schal yive him his laude,
  A theef, a sompnour and eek a _baude_.

          CHAUCER, _The Freres Tale_.

    One Lamb, a notorious impostor, a fortune-teller, and an
    employed _bawd_.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part
    ii. p. 81.

  A carrion crow he [the flatterer] is, a gaping grave,
  The rich coat’s moth, the court’s bane, trencher’s slave,
  Sin’s and hell’s winning _bawd_, the devil’s factoring knave.

          P. FLETCHER, _The Purple Island_, c. viii.


  =BEASTLY=,     }
  BEASTLINESS.   }

We translate σῶμα ψυχικόν (1 Cor. xv. 44) ‘a _natural_ body;’ some have
regretted that it was not rendered ‘an _animal_ body;’ [so R.V. margin,
Jude 19.] This is exactly what Wiclif meant when he translated the
‘corpus animale’ which he found in his Vulgate, ‘a _beastly_ body.’ The
word had then no ethical tinge; nor, when it first acquired such, had
it exactly that which it now possesses; in it was rather implied the
absence of reason, the prerogative distinguishing man from beast.

    It is sowun a _beestli_ bodi; it schal rise a spiritual
    bodi.--_1 Cor._ xv. 44. WICLIF.

    These ben, whiche departen hemsilf, _beestli_ men, not havynge
    spirit.--_Jude_ 19. WICLIF.

    Where they should have made head with the whole army upon the
    Parthians, they sent him aid by small companies; and when
    they were slain, they sent him others also. So that by their
    _beastliness_ and lack of consideration they had like to have
    made all the army fly.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 769.


=BEDLAM.= An old pronunciation of Bethlehem. The Priory known by this
name was in 1546 converted into a hospital for lunatics. But it was not
the place only, but the unhappy occupants of it, to whom this name used
often to be applied. Such a use has now quite died out.

  Ha, art thou _bedlam_? dost thou thirst, base Trojan,
  To have me fold up Parca’s fatal web?

          SHAKESPEARE, _Henry V._ act v. sc. 1.

  Is not all for thy good, if thou be not a _bedlam_?
          ROGERS, _Naamam the Syrian_, p. 30.


  =BENEFICE=,   }
  BENEFICIAL.   }

[In Middle English _benefice_ often occurs in the senses of kindness,
favour, benefit, a gift, gratuity.] Persons are not now ‘beneficial,’
which word is reserved for things, but ‘beneficent.’

  The _benefices_ that God did tham here
  Sal tham accuse on sere manere.

          RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 5582.

    Nowe thanne, Lord, Thou art God, and hast spoke to thy servant
    so grete _benefices_.--_1 Chron._ xvii. 26. WICLIF.

    The proper nature of God is always to be helpful and
    _beneficial_.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 600.

                                I wonder
  That such a keech can with his very bulk
  Take up the rays of the _beneficial_ sun,
  And keep it from the earth.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Henry VIII._ act i. sc. 1.

    Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name; then
    shall the righteous come about me when Thou art _beneficial_
    unto me.--_Ps._ cxlii. 7. Geneva.


=BLACKGUARD.= The scullions and other meaner retainers in a great
household, who, when progress was made from one residence to another,
accompanied and protected the pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils,
riding among them and being smutted by them, were contemptuously styled
the ‘black guard.’ It is easy to trace the subsequent history of the
word. With a slight forgetfulness of its origin, he is now called a
‘blackguard,’ who would have been once said to belong to the ‘black
guard.’

    Close unto the front of the chariot marcheth all the sort of
    weavers and embroderers; next unto whom goeth the _black guard_
    and kitchenry.--HOLLAND, _Ammianus_, p. 12.

    A lousy slave, that within this twenty years rode with the
    _black guard_ in the Duke’s carriage, ’mongst spits and
    dripping-pans!--WEBSTER, _The White Devil_.

    Thieves and murderers took upon them the cross to escape
    the gallows; adulterers did penance in their armour. A
    lamentable case that the devil’s _black guard_ should be God’s
    soldiers!--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. i. c. 12.

    Where the apologist meets with this _black guard_, these
    factors for error and sin, these agitators for the Prince
    of darkness, God forbid he should give place to them, or
    not charge them home, and resist them to the face.--GAUDEN,
    _Hieraspistes_, To the Reader.

    Dukes, earls, and lords, great commanders in war, common
    soldiers and kitchen boys were glad to trudge it on foot in the
    mire hand in hand, a duke or earl not disdaining to support or
    help up one of the _black guard_ ready to fall, lest he himself
    might fall into the mire, and have none to help him.--JACKSON,
    _A Treatise of the Divine Essence and Attributes_, b. vi. c. 28.

    We have neither school nor hospital for the distressed
    children, called the _black guard_.--NELSON, _Address to
    Persons of Quality_, p. 214.


=BLEAK.= This, a northern form, the equivalent of O.E. _blāc_ (cp. O.N.
_bleikr_, Mod. German _bleich_, pale, colourless), comes out clearly in
its original relationship with ‘bleach’ in the following quotations.

    When she came out, she looked as pale and as _bleak_ as one
    that were laid out dead.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs_; _The Escape
    of Agnes Wardall_.

    And as I looked forth, I beheld a pale horse, whom I took for
    the universal synagogue of hypocrites, pale as men without
    health, and _bleak_ as men without that fresh spirit of life
    which is in Christ Jesus.--BALE, _The Image of Both Churches_,
    P. S. p. 321.


=BLUNDERBUSS.= In the 17th and 18th centuries a man who blunders in
his work, does it in a boisterous violent way; transferred from the
name given to a short, wide-mouthed, noisy gun. [This word for a gun is
due to the Dutch _donderbus_, i.e. thunder-gun, perverted in form from
sense association with _blunder_, perhaps with allusion to its random,
casual firing.]

    We could now wish we had a discreet and intelligent adversary,
    and not such a hare-brained _blunderbuss_ as you, to deal
    with.--MILTON, _A Defence of the People of England_, Preface.

  Jacob, the scourge of grammar, mark with awe,
  Nor less revere him, _blunderbuss_ of law.

          POPE, _Dunciad_, b. iii. 150.


  =BOISTOUS=,   }
  BOISTEROUS.   }

The sense of noisy, turbulent, blustering, is a later superaddition on
‘boisterous,’ or ‘boistous,’ as was its earlier form. Of old it meant
no more than rude, rough, strong, uncompliant; thus the ‘boisterous
wind’ of Matt. xiv. 30, is simply a violent wind, ἄνεμος ἰσχυρός in the
original.

    No man putteth a clout of _buystous_ clothe [panni rudis,
    Vulg.] into an elde clothing.--_Matt._ ix. 16. WICLIF.

  O Clifford, _boisterous_[9] Clifford, thou hast slain
  The flower of Europe for his chivalry.

          SHAKESPEARE, _3 Henry VI._ act ii. sc. 1.

  His _boistrous_ body shines in burnished steel.

          SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas’ Weeks, The Magnificence_, p. 460.

    The greatest danger indeed is from those that are _stolide
    feroces_, full of those _boisterous_, rude, and brutish
    passions, which grow as bristles upon hogs’ backs, from
    ignorance, pride, rusticity, and prejudice.--GAUDEN,
    _Hieraspistes_. To the Reader.

  The leathern outside, _boisterous_ as it was,
  Gave way, and bent beneath her strict embrace.

          DRYDEN, _Sigismunda and Guiscardo_, 159, 160.

    The other thing in debate seemed very hard and _boisterous_ to
    his Majesty, that sundry leaders in the House of Commons would
    provoke him to proclaim open war with Spain.--HACKET, _Life of
    Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 79.


=BOMBAST.= Now inflated diction, words which, sounding lofty and big,
have no real substance about them. This, which is now the sole meaning,
was once only the secondary and the figurative, ‘bombast’ being
literally the cotton wadding with which garments are stuffed out and
lined, and often so used by our writers of the Elizabethan period, and
then by a vigorous image transferred to what now it exclusively means.

    Certain I am there was never any kind of apparel ever invented,
    that could more disproportion the body of man than these
    doublets, stuffed with four, five, or six pound of _bombast_ at
    the least.--STUBBES, _Anatomy of Abuses_, p. 23.

  We have received your letters full of love!
  Your favours, the ambassadors of love;
  And, in our maiden council, rated them
  At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,
  As _bombast_, and as lining to the time.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, act v. sc. 2.

    _Bombast_, the cotton-plant growing in Asia.--PHILLIPS, _New
    World of Words_.


=BOOT.= Not the luggage, but the attendants, used once to ride in
the ‘boot,’ or rather the boots, of a carriage, for there were two.
Projecting from the sides of the carriage and open to the air, they
derived, no doubt, their name from their shape.

    His coach being come, he causeth him to be laid in softly, and
    so he in one _boot_, and the two chirurgeons in the other, they
    drive away to the very next country house.--REYNOLDS, _God’s
    Revenge against Murder_, b. i. hist.

    He [James the First] received his son into the coach, and found
    a slight errand to leave Buckingham behind, as he was putting
    his foot in the _boot_.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_,
    part i. p. 196.


=BOUNTY.= The tendency to accept freedom of giving in lieu of all other
virtues, or at least to regard it as the chiefest of all, the same
which has brought ‘charity’ to be for many identical with almsgiving,
displays itself in our present use of ‘bounty,’ which, like the French
‘bonté,’ meant goodness once.

  For God it woot that childer ofte been
  Unlik her worthy eldris hem bifore;
  _Bounté_ cometh al of God, nought of the streen,
  Of which thay ben engendrid and i-bore.

          CHAUCER, _Clerkes Tale_ (Morris, p. 283).

    Nourishing meats and drinks in a sick body do lose their
    _bounty_, and augmenteth malady.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_,
    b. ii. c. 7.


=BRAT.= This word is now used always in contempt, but was not so once.

  O Israel, O household of the Lord,
  O Abraham’s _brats_, O brood of blessed seed,
  O chosen sheep that loved the Lord indeed.

          GASCOIGNE, _De Profundis_.

  Take heed how thou layest the bane for the rats,
  For poisoning thy servant, thyself, and thy _brats_.

          TUSSER, _Points of Good Husbandry_.



  =BRAVE=,   }
  BRAVERY.   }

The ultimate derivation of ‘brave’ is altogether uncertain (see
N.E.D.); we obtained it in the fifteenth century, the Germans in the
seventeenth, (Grimm [_s. v._ ‘brav’] says during the Thirty Years’
War,) from one or other of the Romance languages, probably from the
It. _bravo_. I do not very clearly trace by what steps it obtained the
meaning of showy, gaudy, rich, which once it so frequently had, in
addition to that meaning which it still retains.

    The habit also and attire of his body, manly and soldier-like,
    not _brave_ nor tricked up daintily and delicately, much
    adorned and set him out.--PLUTARCH, _Lives_, 695.

    His clothes [St. Augustine’s] were neither _brave_, nor base,
    but comely.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. iv. c. 10.

    If he [the good yeoman] chance to appear in clothes above his
    rank, it is to grace some great man with his service, and then
    he blusheth at his own _bravery_.--Id. _ib._ b. ii. c. 18.

    Traffic encreaseth wonderfully here, with all kind of _bravery_
    and building.--HOWELL, _Letters_, i. 6, 36.

    Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the
    grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre,
    not omitting ceremonies of _bravery_ in the infamy of his
    nature.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Hydriotaphia_.

    There is a great festival now drawing on, a festival designed
    chiefly for the acts of a joyful piety, but generally made only
    an occasion of _bravery_.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, vol. ii. p. 285.


  =BRIBE=,   }
  BRIBERY.   }

‘To bribe’ was to rob, a ‘bribour’ a robber, and ‘bribery’ robbery,
once. For an ingenious history of the steps by which the words left
their former meaning, and acquired their present, see Marsh, _Lectures
on the English Language_, 1st Series, p. 249.

    They that delight in superfluity of gorgeous apparel and dainty
    fare, commonly do deceive the needy, _bribe_, and pill from
    them.--CRANMER, _Instruction of Prayer_.

    Woe be to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, for ye
    make clean the utter side of the cup and of the platter; but
    within they are full of _bribery_ [ἁρπαγῆς, and in the E. V.
    ‘extortion’] and excess.--_Matt._ xxiii. 25. Geneva Version.


  =BRITAIN=, }
  BRITANY.   }

The distinction between these is perfectly established now: by the
first we always intend _Great_ Britain; by the second, the French
duchy, corresponding to the ancient Armorica. But it was long before
this usage was accurately settled and accepted by all. By ‘Britany’
Great Britain was frequently intended, and _vice versâ_. Thus, in each
of the passages which follow, the other word than that which actually
is used would be now employed.

    He [Henry VII.] was not so averse from a war, but that he
    was resolved to choose it, rather than to have _Britain_
    carried by France, being so great and opulent a duchy, and
    situate so opportunely to annoy England, either for coast or
    trade.--BACON, _History of King Henry VII._

    The letter of Quintus Cicero, which he wrote in answer to
    that of his brother Marcus, desiring of him an account of
    _Britany_.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Musæum Clausum_.

  And is it this, alas! which we
  (O irony of words!) do call _Great Britany_?

          COWLEY, _The Extasy_.


=BROOK.= This, the O.E. _brūcan_ (cp. German _brauchen_), has now
obtained a special limitation, meaning not so much, as once it did, to
use, as to endure to use.

  But none of all those curses overtooke
  The warlike Maide, th’ ensample of that might;
  But fairely well she thryvd, and well did _brooke_
  Her noble deeds, ne her right course for ought forsooke.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, iii. 4, 44.

    Forasmuch as many _brooked_ divers and many laudable ceremonies
    and rites heretofore used and accustomed in the Church of
    England, not yet abrogated by the king’s authority, his Majesty
    charged and commanded all his subjects to observe and keep
    them.--STRYPE, _Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer_, vol. i. p.
    412.

    And, as a German writer well observes, the French kings might
    well brook that title of _Christianissimi_ from that admirable
    exploit of Carolus Martellus, the next means under God’s
    providence that other parts of Europe had not Saracen tyrants
    instead of Christian princes.--JACKSON, _The Eternal Truth of
    Scriptures_, b. i. c. 26.

  Let us _bruik_ the present hour,
  Let us pou’ the fleeting flouir,
  Youthheid is love’s holiday,
  Let us use it, when we may.

          PINKERTON, _Scotch Comic Ballads_, p. 149.


[=BULLION.= This word is now generally used in the sense of metal,
specially precious metal in the mass: ‘gold or silver in the lump,
as distinguished from coin or manufactured articles, also applied to
coined or manufactured gold or silver when considered simply with
reference to its value as raw material,’ N.E.D. The word was once
frequently used of gold or silver below the standard purity. _Bullion_
has no connexion etymologically either with Fr. _billon_ or with Lat.
_bulla_; it appears to be identical with Fr. _bouillon_, Late Lat.
_bullionem_, a boiling, hence, a melting, a melted mass of metal. The
Fr. _billon_, debased metal, meant originally mass, having the same
stem as _billet_ (of wood). No doubt the word _billon_ has influenced
the sense of the English _bullion_.]

  Base _bullion_ for the stamp’s sake we allow.

          MARLOWE, _Hero and Leander_. _First Sestyad._

  For alchymy, though’t make a glorious gloss,
  Compared with gold is _bullion_ or base dross.

          WILLIAM HODGSON, _Verses on Ben Jonson_.

                  Words, whilom flourishing,
  Pass now no more, but, banished from the court,
  Dwell with disgrace among the vulgar sort;
  And those which eld’s strict doom did disallow,
  And damn for _bullion_, go for current now.

          SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas’ Weeks, Babylon_.

  Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared,
  That underneath had veins of liquid fire
  Sluiced from the lake, a second multitude
  With wondrous art founded the massy ore,
  Severing each kind, and scummed the _bullion_ dross.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, i. 699.


=BURIAL.= This designates now the act, but formerly the place, of
interment, being the O.E. _byrgels_, a tomb, see N.E.D. (s. v.
_buriels_).

    And the kyng seide, What is this _biriel_ which Y se? And the
    citeseyns of that citee answerèd ento him, It is the sepulcre
    of the man of God that cam fro Juda.--_2 Kin._ xxiii. 17.
    WICLIF.

    And _birielis_ weren openyd, and many bodies of seyntis
    that hadden slepte rysen up, and thei yeden out of her
    _birielis_.--_Matt._ xxvii. 51, 52. WICLIF.

    It happed after that upon the _buryels_ grewe a right fayr
    flourdelis.--CAXTON, _Legenda Aurea_, 151. 2.


=BUTCHERY.= Now a massacre where there is little or no resistance on
the part of those who are its victims. It was used once as the place
where animals were slaughtered. [But see N.E.D. for modern quotations
of the word in this latter sense.]

    Al thing that is seld in the _bocherie_ ete ye, axynge nothing
    for conscience.--_1 Cor._ x. 25. WICLIF.

    Whence came it that they call the shambles or _butcherie_ at
    Rome where flesh is to be sold, macellum?--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s
    Morals_, p. 869.


=BUXOM.= The modern spelling of ‘buxom’ (it was somewhat, though
not much better, when it was spelt ‘bucksome’) has quite hidden its
identity with the German ‘biegsam,’ ‘beugsam,’ bendable, pliable, and
so obedient. Ignorant of the history of the word, and trusting to the
feeling and impression which it conveyed to their minds, men spoke
of ‘_buxom_ health’ and the like, meaning by this, having a cheerful
comeliness. The epithet in this application is Gray’s, and Johnson
justly finds fault with it. [See N.E.D. for the two quotations.]
Milton, when he joins ‘buxom’ with ‘blithe and debonair,’ and Crashaw,
in his otherwise beautiful line,

                      ‘I am born
  Again a fresh child of the _buxom_ morn,’

show that already for them the true meaning of the word, common enough
in our earlier writers, was passing away; yet Milton still uses it in
its proper sense in _Paradise Lost_,--‘winnowing the _buxom_ air,’ that
is, the _yielding_ air.

    I submit myself unto this holy Church of Christ, to be ever
    _buxom_ and obedient to the ordinance of it, after my knowledge
    and power, by the help of God.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs;
    Examination of William Thorpe_.

    _Buxom_, kind, tractable, and pliable one to the
    other.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, 316.

  [Love] tyrannizeth in the bitter smarts
  Of them that to him _buxome_ are and prone.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, iii. 2, 23.




=BY.= The first clause in the quotation which follows from the
Authorized Version of the Bible must often either fail to convey any
meaning, or must convey a wrong meaning, to the English reader of the
present day. The ‘nil conscire sibi’ is what the Apostle would claim
for himself; and the other passages quoted show that this idiomatic
use of ‘by,’ as equivalent to ‘concerning’ (it is probably related to
ἀμφὶ), but with also a suggestion of ‘against,’ was not peculiar to our
Translators.

    I think S. Paul spake these words [‘who mind earthly things’]
    _by_ the clergymen that will take upon them the spiritual
    office of preaching, and yet meddle in worldly matters too,
    contrary to their calling.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, p. 529.

      Thou hast spoken evil words _by_ the Queen.
  No man living upon earth can prove any such things _by_ me.

          FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of Elizabeth
                Young by Martin Hussie_.

    This angry prior told the archbishop to his face, in a good
    audience, concerning what he had preached of the bishop of
    Rome’s vices, that he knew no vices _by_ none of the bishops of
    Rome.--STRYPE, _Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer_, b. i. c. 8.

  For all the wealth that ever I did see,
  I would not have him know so much _by_ me.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, act iv. sc. 3.

    I know nothing _by_ myself [οὐδὲν ἐμαυτῷ σύνοιδα]; yet am I not
    hereby justified; but He that judgeth me is the Lord.--_1 Cor._
    iv. 4 (A. V.) R. V. has here ‘_against_ myself.’

    God is said to be greater than our hearts, and knoweth all
    things. He knows more _by_ us than we _by_ ourselves.--GURNALL,
    _The Christian in Complete Armour_, iii. 2, 8.


=BY AND BY.= Now a future more or less remote; but when our Version
of the Bible was made, the nearest possible future. The inveterate
procrastination of men has put ‘by and by’ farther and farther off.
Already in Barrow’s time it had acquired its present meaning.

    And some counselled the archbishop to burn me _by and by_,
    and some other counselled him to drown me in the sea, for it
    is near hand there.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of
    William Thorpe_.

    Give me _by and by_ [ἐξαυτῆς] in a charger the head of John the
    Baptist.--_Mark_ vi. 25 (A.V.) [R. V. has _forthwith_.]

    These things must first come to pass; but the end is not
    _by and by_ [εὐθέως].--_Luke_ xxi. 9 (A.V.) [R. V. has
    _immediately_.]

    When Demophantus fell to the ground, his soldiers fled _by and
    by_ [εὐθὺς ἔφυγον] upon it.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 308.


[=CAITIFF.= According to present usage the word expresses contempt,
often involving strong moral disapprobation. It means a base, mean,
despicable wretch, a contemptible villain. In the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries the word has often a tinge of pity, meaning a
wretched, miserable person. Originally _caitiff_ meant a captive,
a prisoner, being in fact the same word as _captive_, the latter
being derived directly from the Latin _captivus_, while _caitiff_
is its Anglo-Norman form _caitif_, used in the sense of captive,
weak, miserable; cp. It. _cattivo_, captive, lewd, bad, and Mod. Fr.
_chétif_, of little value, wretched, miserable.]

    Aristark, myne evene _caytyf_ [concaptivus meus, Vulg.],
    greetith you wel.--_Col._ iv. 10. WICLIF (earlier version).

  The riche Cresus, _caytif_ in servage.

          CHAUCER, _The Knightes Tale_.

    Avarice doth tyrannize over her _caitiff_ and slave, not
    suffering him to use what she commanded him to win.--HOLLAND,
    _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 208.

  Alas, poore _Caitiffe_.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Othello_, act iv. sc. 1.


=CAPITULATE.= There is no reason why the reducing of any agreement to
certain heads or ‘capitula’ should not be called to ‘capitulate,’ the
victor thus ‘capitulating’ as well as the vanquished; and the present
limitation of the word’s use, by which it means to surrender on certain
specified terms, is quite of modern introduction.

    Gelon the tyrant, after he had defeated the Carthaginians
    near to the city Himera, when he made peace with them,
    _capitulated_, among other articles of treaty, that they should
    no more sacrifice any infants to Saturn.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s
    Morals_, p. 405.

    He [the Emperor Charles V.] makes a voyage into England,
    and there _capitulates_ with the King, among other things,
    to take to wife his daughter Mary.--HEYLIN, _History of the
    Reformation_.

    Wonder He will condescend to it! To _capitulate_ with dust and
    ashes! To article with his own creature, with whom He may do
    what He will!--HOWE, _The Redeemer’s Dominion_, &c.


=CAPTIVATE.= This is not used any longer in a literal, but always in a
more or less allegorical sense.

    They that are wise had rather have their judgments at liberty
    in differences of readings, than to be _captivated_ to the one
    when it may be the other.--_The Translators [of the Authorized
    Version] to the Reader._

  How ill beseeming is it in thy sex
  To triumph, like an Amazonian trull,
  Upon their woes whom Fortune _captivates_.

          SHAKESPEARE, _3 Henry VI._ act i. sc. 4.

  O tame my heart:
  It is thy highest art
  To _captivate_ strongholds to Thee.

          HERBERT, _The Temple_.


  =CAREFUL=,     }
  CAREFULNESS.   }

Now, full of diligence and attention; but once of anxiety.

    The stretes of Sion mourn; her priests make lamentacions,
    her maydens are _carefull_, and she herself is in great
    hevynesse.--_Lament._ i. 4. COVERDALE.

    He shall be as a tree planted by the waters, ... and shall not
    be _careful_ in the year of drought.--_Jer._ xvii. 8. (A.V.)

  Pale as he is, here lay him down,
  Oh, lay his cold head on my pillow;
  Take off, take off, these bridal weeds,
  And crown my _careful_ head with willow.

          HAMILTON, _The Braes of Yarrow_.

    This petition is a remedy against this wicked _carefulness_ of
    men when they seek how to get their livings, in such wise like
    as if there was no God at all.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, p. 400.


=CARP.= The _Promptorium_ gives ‘fabulor,’ ‘confabulor,’ ‘garrulo’ as
Latin equivalents; nor do we anywhere before the sixteenth century
find the subaudition of fault-finding or detraction, which now is ever
implied in the word.

  Ac to _carpe_ moore of Cryst, and how He come to that name
  Faithly for to speke, his firste name of Iesus.

          _Piers Plowman_, B Passus, xix. 65 (Skeat).

    Now we leven the kyng, and of Joseph _carpen_.--_Joseph of
    Arimathie_, 212.

  So gone thei forthe, _carpende_ fast
  On this, on that.

          GOWER, _Confessio Amantis_, 1.




=CARPET.= The covering of floors only at present, but once of tables as
well. It was in this sense that a matter was ‘on the carpet’ (i.e. of
the council-table). For the etymology see N.E.D.

    In the fray one of their spurs engaged into a _carpet_ upon
    which stood a very fair looking-glass and two noble pieces of
    porcelain, drew all to the ground, broke the glass.--_Harleian
    Miscellany_, vol. x. p. 189.

    Private men’s halls were hung with altar-cloths; their
    _tables_ and beds covered with copes, instead of _carpets_ and
    coverlets.--FULLER, _Church History of Britain_, b. vii. § 2, 1.

    And might not these [copes] be handsomely converted into
    private uses, to serve as _carpets_ for their tables, coverlids
    to their beds, or cushions to their chairs or windows?--HEYLIN,
    _History of the Reformation_, To the Reader.


=CARRIAGE.= Now, that which carries, or the act of carrying; but once,
that which was carried, and thus baggage. From ignorance of this, the
Authorized Translation, at Acts xxi. 15, has been often found fault
with, but unjustly.

    Spartacus charged his [Lentulus’] lieutenants that led the
    army, gave them battle, overthrew them, and took all their
    _carriage_ [τὴν ἀποσκευὴν ἅπασαν, LXX.].--NORTH, _Plutarch’s
    Lives_, p. 470.

    And David left his _carriage_ [τὰ σκεύη αὐτοῦ, LXX.] in the
    hand of the keeper of the _carriage_.--_1 Sam._ xvii. 22 (A.V.)

    An index is a necessary implement, and no impediment of a
    book, except in the same sense in which the _carriages_ of an
    army are termed _impedimenta_.--FULLER, _Worthies of England:
    Norfolk_.


[=CATTLE.= This and ‘chattel’ are only different forms of the same
word. In Middle English as in Old French the forms _catel_ and _chatel_
are dialectal variants of the same Late Latin original _capitale_, the
word in all its forms meaning simply capital, principal, property,
substance, wealth. In the time of Chaucer and Wiclif _catel_ was still
used in the sense of wealth, substance generally, whereas now its
equivalent _cattle_ is only used to express property in living animals,
the form _chattel_ being reserved for non-living personal property. It
may be here noted that we have in the word _fee_ another interesting
instance of the intimate connexion between the ideas of property
generally and of cattle (live stock). The word _fee_ means now a reward
or payment in money, in Middle English it meant property in general,
including money and live stock; the Old English _feoh_, the phonetic
equivalent of the Latin _pecus_, meant originally cattle, live stock;
see Kluge, s. v. _vieh_.]

    Though a man give al the _catel_ of his hous [omnem
    _substantiam_, domûs suæ, Vulg.] for love, he schal despise
    that _catel_ as nought.--_Cant._ viii. 7. WICLIF.

    A womman that hadde a flux of blood twelve yeer, and hadde
    spendid all hir _catel_ [omnem _substantiam_ suam, Vulg.] in
    leechis.--_Luke_ viii. 43, 44. WICLIF.

    The avarous man hath more hope in his _catel_ than in Jhesu
    Crist.--CHAUCER, _The Persones Tale_ (Morris, p. 330).


=CENSURE.= It speaks ill for the charity of men’s judgments, that
‘censure,’ which designated once favourable and unfavourable judgments
alike, is now restricted to unfavourable; for it must be that the
latter, being by far the most frequent, have in this way appropriated
the word exclusively to themselves.

  Take each man’s _censure_, but reserve thy judgment.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 3.

    His [Richard, Earl of Cornwall’s] voyage was variously
    _censured_; the Templars, who consented not to the peace,
    flouted thereat, as if all this while he had laboured about a
    difficult nothing; others thought he had abundantly satisfied
    any rational expectation.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. iv. c. 8.

    Which could not be past over without this _censure_; for it is
    an ill thrift to be parsimonious in the praise of that which is
    very good.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p.
    13.


=CHAFFER.= Once, simply to buy, to make a bargain, now to higgle or
dispute about the making of a bargain.

    That no man overgo, nethir disseyve his brothir in _chaffaring_
    [in negotio, Vulg.].--_1 Thess._ iv. 6. WICLIF.

    He comaundide his servauntis to be clepid, to whiche he
    hadde yive monei; to wite hou myche ech hadde wonne bi
    _chaffaryng_.--_Luke_ xix. 15. WICLIF.

  Where is the fayre flocke thou was wont to leade?
  Or bene they _chaffred_, or at mischiefe dead?

          SPENSER, _Shepherd’s Calendar_, September.


=CHAOS.= The earliest meaning of χάος in Greek, of ‘chaos’ in Latin,
was empty infinite space, the _yawning_ kingdom of darkness; only a
secondary, that which we have now adopted, namely, the rude, confused,
indigested, unorganized matter out of which the universe according to
the heathen cosmogony was formed. But the primary use of ‘chaos’ was
not strange to the scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

    Beside all these things, between us and you there is fixed a
    great _chaos_, that they which will pass from hence to you may
    not.--_Luke_ xvi. 26. RHEIMS.

    And look what other thing soever besides cometh within the
    _chaos_ of this monster’s mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone,
    down it goeth incontinently that foul great swallow of
    his.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 975.

                  To the brow of heaven
  Pursuing, drive them out from God and bliss
  Into their place of punishment, the gulf
  Of Tartarus, which ready opens wide
  His fiery _chaos_ to receive their fall.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, vi. 51.


  =CHEAT=,   }
  CHEATER.   }

The steps by which ‘escheat’ has yielded ‘cheat,’ and ‘escheatour’
‘cheater,’ are interesting to trace. The ‘escheatour’ was an officer in
each county who took notice of fines and forfeitures technically called
‘escheats’ on the royal manors, which had _fallen in_ to the Crown, and
certified these to the Exchequer. But he had commonly such a reputation
for fraud and extortion in the execution of his office, that by an only
too natural transition the ‘escheatour’ passed into the ‘cheater,’
and ‘escheat’ into ‘cheat.’ The quotation from Gurnall is curious as
marking the word in the very act of this transition.

    And yet the taking off these vessels was not the best and
    goodliest _cheat_ of their victory; but this passed all, that
    with one light skirmish they became lords of all the sea along
    those coasts.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 444.

    This man who otherwise beforetime was but poor and needy,
    by these windfalls and unexpected _cheats_ became very
    wealthy.--Id. _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 1237.

    _Falstaff._ Here’s another letter to her. She bears the purse
    too; she is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will
    be _cheaters_ to them both, and they shall be exchequers to
    me.--SHAKESPEARE, _Merry Wives of Windsor_, act i. sc. 2.

    By this impudence they may abuse credulous souls into a
    belief of what they say, as a _cheater_ may pick the purses
    of innocent people, by showing them something like the King’s
    broad seal, which was indeed his own forgery.--GURNALL, _The
    Christian in Complete Armour_, 1639, vol. ii. p. 201.


=CHEER.= Cicero, who loves to bring out superiorities, where he can
find them, of the Latin language over the Greek, urges this as one,
that the Greek has no equivalent to the Latin ‘vultus’ (_Leg._ i. 9,
27); the countenance, that is, ethically regarded, as the ever-varying
index and exponent of the sentiments and emotions of the soul (‘imago
animi vultus est,’ _De Orat._ iii. 59, 221). Perhaps it may be charged
on the English, that it too is now without such a word. But ‘cheer,’ in
its earlier uses, of which vestiges still survive, was exactly such.

    In swoot of thi _cheer_ thou schalt ete thi breed, till thou
    turne ayen in to the erthe of which thou art takun.--_Gen._
    iii. 19. WICLIF.

    And Cayn was wrooth greetli, and his _cheer_ felde
    doun.--_Gen._ iv. 5. WICLIF.

  Each froward threatening _cheer_ of fortune makes us plain;
  And every pleasant show revives our woful hearts again.

          SURREY, _Ecclesiastes_, c. 3.


  =CHEMIST=,   }
  CHEMISTRY.   }

The distinction between the alchemist and the ‘chemist,’ that the first
is the fond searcher after the philosopher’s stone or the elixir vitæ,
the other the follower of a true and scientific method in a particular
region of nature, is of comparatively recent introduction into the
language. ‘Chemist’ is = ‘alchemist’ in the quotations which follow.

    Five sorts of persones he [Sir Edward Coke] used to
    foredesign to misery and poverty; _chemists_, monopolizers,
    concealers,[10] promoters, and rythming poets.--FULLER,
    _Worthies of England: Norfolk_.

    I have observed generally of _chymists_ and theosophists, as
    of several other men more palpably mad, that their thoughts
    are carried much to astrology.--H. MORE, _A Brief Discourse of
    Enthusiasm_, sect. 45.

  Visions and inspirations some expect,
  Their course here to direct;
  Like senseless _chemists_ their own wealth destroy,
  Imaginary wealth to enjoy.

          COWLEY, _Use of Reason in Divine Matters_.

  Hence the fool’s paradise, the statesman’s scheme,
  The air-built castle, and the golden dream,
  The maid’s romantic wish, the _chemist’s_ flame,
  The poet’s vision of eternal fame.

          POPE, _The Dunciad_, b. iii. 9-12.

    He that follows _chemistry_ must have riches to throw away upon
    the study of it; whatever he gets by it, those furnaces must be
    fed with gold.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1644, vol. ix. p. 277.


=CHEST.= I am not aware that ‘cista’ was ever used in the sense of
a coffin, but ‘chest’ is continually so used in our early English;
and ‘to chest,’ for to place in a coffin, occurs in the heading of
a chapter in our Bibles, _Gen._ l. 26: ‘He [Joseph] dieth, and is
_chested_.’

  He is now deed and nayled in his _chest_.

          CHAUCER, _The Clerkes Prologue_.

        Your body is now wrapt in _chest_,
  I pray to God to give your soul good rest.

          HAWES, _Pastime of Pleasure_, cap. 14.


=CHIMNEY.= This, which means now the gorge or vent of a furnace or
fire, was once in frequent use for the furnace itself: in this more
true to its origin; being derived from the Greek κάμινος, a furnace, as
it passed into the Latin ‘caminus,’ whence the Late Latin _caminata_,
a room with a stove, the French ‘cheminée.’ The fact that it is the
‘chimney,’ in the modern use of the word, which, creating a draught,
alone gives activity or fierceness to the flame, probably explains the
present limitation of the meaning of the word. In Scotland ‘chimney’
still is, or lately was, ‘the grate, or iron frame that holds the fire’
(_Scoticisms_, Edinburgh, 1787).

    And hise feet [were] lijk to latoun as in a brennynge
    _chymney_.--_Rev._ i. 15. WICLIF.

    The Son of Man shall send his angels, and shall gather
    all hindrances out of his kingdom and all that worketh
    unlawfulness, and shall cast them into the _chimney_ of
    fire.--_Matt._ xiii. 50. Sir JOHN CHEKE.


=CHIVALRY.= It is a striking evidence of the extent to which in the
feudal times the men-at-arms, the mounted knights, were esteemed
as the army, while the footmen were regarded as little better than
a supernumerary rabble,--another record of this contempt probably
surviving at the other end in the word ‘infantry,’--that ‘chivalry,’
which of course is but a doublet of ‘cavalry,’ could once be used as
convertible with army. It needed more than one Agincourt to teach that
this was so no longer. ‘Knighthood’ in like manner is continually used
by Wiclif as a rendering of ‘exercitus;’ thus Gen. xxi. 33.

    Abymalach forsothe aroos, and Phicol, the prince of his
    _chyvalrye_ [princeps _exercitûs_ ejus, Vulg.], and turneden
    ayen into the loond of Palestynes.--_Gen._ xxi. 33. WICLIF.

    Sobach, the prynce of _chyvalrye_ [principem _militiæ_].--_2
    Kings_ x. 18. WICLIF.


=CHOUSE.= The history of the introduction of this word into the
popular, or at all events the schoolboy, language of England, and
the quarter from whence derived, are now sufficiently well known. A
‘chiaus,’ or interpreter, attached to the Turkish Embassy, in 1609
succeeded in defrauding the Turkish and Persian merchants resident
in England of 4,000_l._ From the vast dimensions of the fraud, vast,
that is, as men counted fraudulent vastness then, and the notoriety
it acquired, a ‘chiaus’ (presently spelt ‘chouse’ to look more
English) became equivalent to a swindler, and somewhat later to the
act of swindling.[11] It is curious that a correspondent of Skinner
(_Etymologicon_, 1671), though quite ignorant of this story, suggests a
connexion between ‘chouse’ and the Turkish ‘chiaus.’ The quotation from
Ben Jonson gives us the word in its passage from the old meaning to the
new; while the ‘errant chouse’ in Butler’s _Hudibras_, iii. 1, 1249, is
rather the cheated than the cheater.

    About this time the Turks proposed at the instigation of the
    French ambassador to send a _chiaus_ into France, England, and
    Holland, to acquaint those princes with the advancement of
    Sultan Solyman to the throne.--RYCAUT, _History of the Turks_,
    vol. iii. p. 261.

    _Dapper._ What do you think of me,
  That I am a _chiaus_?

    _Face._ What’s that?

    _Dapper._ The Turk was here;
  As one would say, do you think I am a Turk?

          BEN JONSON, _The Alchemist_, act i. sc. 1.


  =CHRISTEN=,    }
  CHRISTENDOM.   }

By ‘Christendom’ we now understand that portion of the world which
makes profession of the faith of Christ, as contradistinguished from
all heathen and Mahomedan lands. But it was often used by our early
writers as itself the profession of Christ’s faith, or sometimes
for baptism, inasmuch as in that this profession was made; which
is also the explanation of the use of ‘christen’ as equivalent to
‘christianize’ below. In Shakespeare our present use of ‘Christendom’
very much predominates, but once or twice he uses it in its earlier
sense, as do authors much later than he.

    Most part of England in the reigne of King Ethelbert was
    _christened_, Kent onely except, which remayned long after in
    mysbeliefe and _unchristened_.--E. K., _Glossary to Spenser’s
    Shepherd’s Calendar, September_.[12]

    Sothli we ben togidere biried with him bi _christendom_ [per
    baptismum, Vulg.] in to death.--_Rom._ vi. 4. WICLIF (earlier
    version).

    He that might have his body wrapped in one of their old
    coats at the houre of death, it were as good to him as his
    _christendom_.--TYNDALE, _Exposition upon Matthew VI._

  They all do come to him with friendly face,
  When of his _christendom_ they understand.

          Sir J. HARINGTON, _Orlando Furioso_, b. xliii. c. 189.

    The draughts of intemperance would wash off the water of my
    _christendom_; every unclean lust does as it were bemire and
    wipe out my contract with my Lord.--ALLESTREE, _Sermons_, vol.
    ii. p. 161.


=CHURCH.= Our Translators are often taxed with an oversight in that
they have allowed ‘robbers of _churches_’ to remain at _Acts_ xix.
37, as the rendering of ἱεροσύλους, sounding, as this does, like
an anachronism on the lips of the town-clerk of Ephesus. Doubtless
‘spoilers of _temples_,’ or some such phrase, would have been
preferable; yet was there not any oversight here. The title of
‘church,’ which we with a fit reverence restrain to a Christian place
of worship, was in earlier English not refused to the Jewish, or, as in
that place, even to a heathen, temple as well.

    And, lo, the veil of the _church_ was torn in two parts from
    the top downwards.--_Matt._ xxvii. 51. Sir JOHN CHEKE.

  To all the gods devoutly she did offer frankincense,
  But most above them all the _church_ of Juno she did cense.

          GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. xi.

  These troops should soon pull down the _church_ of Jove.

          MARLOWE, _First Book of Lucan_.


  =CIVIL=,    }
  CIVILITY,   }
  CIVILIAN.   }

The tendency which there is in the meaning of words to run to the
surface, till they lose and leave behind all their deeper significance,
is well exemplified in ‘civil’ and ‘civility’--words of how deep an
import once, how slight and shallow now. A _civil_ man now is one
observant of slight external courtesies in the intercourse of society;
a _civil_ man once was one who fulfilled all the duties and obligations
flowing from his position as a ‘civis,’ and his relations to the other
members of that ‘civitas’ to which he belonged, and ‘civility’ the
condition in which those were recognized and observed. The gradual
departure of all deeper significance from ‘civility’ has obliged the
creation of another word, ‘civilization,’ which only came up toward
the conclusion of the last century. Johnson does not know it in his
Dictionary, except as a technical legal term to express the turning
of a criminal process into a civil one; and, according to Boswell,
altogether disallowed it in the sense which it has now acquired.
A ‘civilian’ in the language of the Puritan divines was one who,
despising the righteousness of Christ, did yet follow after a certain
civil righteousness, a ‘justitia civilis’ of his own.

    That wise and _civil_ Roman, Julius Agricola, preferred the
    natural wits of Britain before the laboured studies of the
    French.--MILTON, _Areopagitica_.

    As for the Scythian wandering Nomades, temples sorted
    not with their condition, as wanting both _civility_ and
    settledness.--FULLER, _The Holy State_, b. iii. c. 24.

    Then were the Roman fashions imitated and the gown; after a
    while the incitements also and materials of vice and voluptuous
    life, proud buildings, baths, and the elegance of banquetings;
    which the foolisher sort called _civility_, but was indeed a
    secret art to prepare them for bondage.--MILTON, _History of
    England_, b. ii.

    Let us remember also that _civility_ and fair customs were but
    in a narrow circle till the Greeks and Romans beat the world
    into better manners.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Ductor Dubitantium_, b.
    ii. c. 1, § 19.

    The last step in this [spiritual] death is the death of
    _civility_. _Civil_ men come nearer the saints of God than
    others, they come within a step or two of heaven, and yet are
    shut out.--PRESTON, _Of Spiritual Death and Life_, 1636, p. 59.

    I proceed to the second, that is to the mere naturalist or
    _civilian_; by whom I mean such an one as lives upon dregs, the
    very reliques and ruins of the image of God decayed.--ROGERS,
    _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 104.


=CLERGY.= [The use of _clergy_ in the abstract for learning is quite
obsolete. Strictly speaking, it is not the same word as _clergy_,
the collective name for the ministers of God. _Clergy_ (learning)
represents Old French _clergie_, whereas _clergy_ (ministers) is due to
Old French _clergié_ (now _clergé_) = Late Latin _clericatum_.]

  Ne alle the clerkes that ever had witte
  Sen the world bigan, ne that lyfes yit,
  Couth never telle bi _clergy_ ne arte
  Of these payns of helle the thousand parte.

          RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 4832.

  Was not Aristotle, for all his _clergy_,
  For a woman wrapt in love so marvellously
  That all his cunning he had soon forgotten?

          HAWES, _Pastime of Pleasure_.

    Also that every of the said landlords put their second sons
    to learn some _clergy_, or some craft, whereby they may live
    honestly.--_State Papers, State of Ireland_, 1515, vol. ii. p.
    30.


=CLIMATE.= At present the temperature of a region, but once the
region itself, the region, however, contemplated in its _slope_ or
_inclination_ from the equator toward the pole, and therefore, by
involved consequence, in respect of its temperature; which circumstance
is the point of contact between the present meaning of ‘climate’ and
the past. We have derived the word from the mathematical geographers
of antiquity. They were wont to run imaginary parallel lines, or such
at least as they intended should be parallel, to the equator; and
the successive ‘climates’ (κλίματα) of the earth were the spaces and
regions between these lines. See Holland’s _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 150.

    The superficialtee of the erthe is departed in 7
    parties for the 7 planetes, and tho parties ben clept
    _clymates_.--MANDEVILLE, p. 186.

    The longitude of a _clymat_ ys a lyne ymagined fro est to west,
    illike distant by-twene them alle.--CHAUCER, _Treatise on the
    Astrolabe_, 2, 39, 17 (Skeat, _E.E.T.S._ xvi).

  Almost five _climates_ henceward to the south,
  Between the mainland and the ocean’s mouth
  Two islands lie.

          _The Funerals of King Edward VI._

              When these prodigies
  Do so conjointly meet, let not men say,
  ‘These are their causes--they are natural;’
  For, I believe, they are portentous things
  Unto the _climate_ that they point upon.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Julius Cæsar_, act i. sc. 3.

    This _climate_ of Gaul [hanc Galliarum _plagam_] is enclosed
    on every side with fences that environ it naturally.--HOLLAND,
    _Ammianus_, p. 47.

    _Climate_, a portion of the earth contained between two circles
    parallel to the equator.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.


=CLUMSY.= Although of no very frequent use in our early literature
(it does not once occur in Shakespeare), this word cannot be said to
be very rare; and where it occurs, it is in a sense going before its
present, namely, in that of stiff, rigid, contracted with cold. It
is familiar to all how ‘clumsy,’ in our modern use of the word, the
fingers are when in this condition, and thus it is easy to trace the
growing of the modern meaning out of the old. On its probable etymology
see Mätzner’s Dictionary (s. v. _clumsen_).

    Rigido: Starke, stiffe, or num through cold,
    _clumzie_.--FLORIO, _New World of Words_ (A.D. 1611).

    Havi de froid: Stiffe, _clumpse_, benummed.--COTGRAVE, _A
    French and English Dictionary_.

    The Carthaginians followed the enemies in chase as far as
    Trebia, and there gave over; and returned into the camp so
    _clumsy_ and frozen [ita _torpentes gelu_] as scarcely they
    felt the joy of their victory.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 425.

    This bloome of budding beauty loves not to be handled by such
    nummed and so _clomsie_ hands.--FLORIO, _Montaigne’s Essays_,
    b. iii. c. 5, p. 536 (ed. 1603).


=COFFIN.= The Greek κόφινος, the Latin ‘cophinus,’ is not in our early
English, exclusively a funeral chest for the dead, but as often used of
any basket or maund.

    And that that lefte to hem of brokun metis was takun up, twelve
    _cofyns_.--_Luke_ ix. 17. WICLIF.

    Tibin, a baskette or _coffyn_ made of wyckers or bull-rushes,
    or barke of a tree; such oone was Moyses put in to by
    the daughter of Pharao.--Sir T. ELYOT, quoted in Way’s
    _Promptorium_, p. 85.


  =COMFORT=,     }
  COMFORTABLE.   }

The verb ‘comfortare,’ not found in classical Latin, but so frequent
in the Vulgate, is first, as is plain from the ‘fortis’ which it
embodies, to make strong, to corroborate, and only in a secondary
sense, to console. We often find it in our early literature employed
in that its proper sense. In the truce between England and Scotland,
in the reign of Richard III., it is provided that neither of the kings
shall maintain, favour, aid, or _comfort_ any rebel or traitor (Hall,
_Richard III._).

    And the child wexide, and was _coumfortid_ [confortabatur
    Vulg.] in spirit.--_Luke_ i. 80. WICLIF.

    And there appered an angell unto Hym from heven, _confortynge_
    Hym [ἐνισχύων αὐτόν].--_Luke_ xxii. 43. TYNDALE.

    O _comfortable_ friar! where is my lord?--SHAKESPEARE, _Romeo_,
    act v. sc. 3.


=COMMON SENSE.= The manner is very curious in which the logical,
metaphysical, and theological speculations, to which the busy world
is indifferent, or from which it is entirely averse, do yet in their
results descend to it, and are adopted by it; while it remains quite
unconscious of the source from which they spring, and counts that it
has created them for itself and out of its own resources. Thus, many
would wonder if asked the parentage of this phrase ‘common sense,’
would count it the most natural thing in the world that such a phrase
should have been formed, that it demanded no ingenuity to form it,
that the uses to which it is now put are the same which it has served
from the first. Indeed, neither Reid, Beattie, nor Stewart seems to
have assumed anything else. But in truth this phrase, ‘common sense,’
meant once something very different from that plain wisdom, the common
heritage of men, which now we call by this name; having been bequeathed
to us by a very complex theory of the senses, and of a _sense_ which
was the _common_ bond of them all, and which passed its verdicts on the
reports which they severally made to it. This theory of κοινὸς νοῦς,
familiar to the Greek metaphysicians (see Cicero, _Tusc. Quæst._ i.
20), is sufficiently explained by the interesting quotations from Henry
More and Burton. In Hawes’ _Pastime of Pleasure_ (cap. 24) the relation
between the ‘common wit’ and the ‘five wits’ is at large set forth.
For an interesting history of the phrase, see Sir William Hamilton’s
edition of Reid’s _Works_, appendix A, especially pp. 757, &c.; and
for some classical uses of it Horace, _Sat._ i. 3. 65; Juvenal, 8. 73;
Seneca, _Ep._ 5. 3; 105. 4; _De Benef._ i. 12. 3; Quintilian, i. 2. 20.

    The senses receive indifferently, without discretion and
    judgement, white and black, sweet and sour, soft and hard;
    for their office is only to admit their several objects,
    and to carry and refer the judgement thereof to the _common
    sense_.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 732.

    But for fear to exceed the commission of an historian (who
    with the outward senses may only bring in the species, and
    barely relate facts, not with the _common sense_ pass verdict
    or censure on them), I would say they had better have built
    in some other place, especially having room enough besides,
    and left this floor, where the Temple stood, alone in her
    desolations.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. i. c. 4.

    That there is some particular or restrained seat of the _common
    sense_ is an opinion that even all philosophers and physicians
    are agreed upon. And it is an ordinary comparison amongst them,
    that the external senses and the _common sense_ considered
    together are like a circle with five lines drawn from the
    circumference to the centre. Wherefore, as it has been obvious
    for them to find out particular organs for the external senses,
    so they have also attempted to assign some distinct part of the
    body to be an organ of the _common sense_; that is to say, as
    they discovered sight to be seated in the eye, hearing in the
    ear, smelling in the nose, &c., so they conceived that there is
    some part of the body wherein seeing, hearing, and all other
    perceptions meet together, as the lines of a circle in the
    centre, and that there the soul does also judge and discern of
    the difference of the objects of the outward senses.--H. MORE,
    _Immortality of the Soul_, b. iii. c. 13.

    Inner senses are three in number, so called because they be
    within the brain-pan, as _common sense_, phantasy, memory.
    Their objects are not only things present, but they perceive
    the sensible species of things to come, past, absent, such as
    were before in the sense. This _common sense_ is the judge
    or moderator of the rest, by whom we discern all differences
    of objects; for by mine eye I do not know that I see, or by
    mine ear that I hear, but by my _common sense_, who judgeth
    of sounds and colours; they are but the organs to bring the
    species to be censured; so that all their objects are his, and
    all the offices are his. The fore part of the brain is his
    organ or seat.--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part i. sect.
    2.


=COMPANION.= This had once the same contemptuous use which its synonym
‘fellow’ still retains (for a curious use of this see _2 Pet._ ii. 14,
Geneva Version), and which ‘gadeling,’ a word of the same meaning,
had, so long as it survived in the language. Clarendon speaks of the
Privy Council as at one time composed of upstarts, factious, indigent
_companions_ (b. iv.). The notion originally involved in companionship,
or accompaniment, would appear to have been rather that of inferiority
than of equality. A companion was an attendant.

  What should the wars do with these jigging fools?
  _Companion_, hence.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Julius Cæsar_, act iv. sc. 3

    As that empty barren _companion_ in St. James who bids the
    poor be warm and fed and clothed (as if he were all made of
    mercy), yet neither clothes, feeds, nor warms his back, belly,
    or flesh, so fares it with these lovers.--ROGERS, _Naaman the
    Syrian_, p. 391.

    The young ladies, who thought themselves too much concerned
    to contain themselves any longer, set up their throats all
    together against my protector. ‘Scurvy _companion_! saucy
    tarpaulin! rude, impertinent fellow! did he think to prescribe
    to grandpapa!’--SMOLLETT, _Roderick Random_, vol. i. c. 3.


  =CONCEITED=,   }
  CONCEITEDLY.   }

‘Conceit’ is so entirely and irrecoverably lost to the language of
philosophy, that it would be well if ‘concept,’ used often by our
earlier philosophical writers, were revived.[13] Yet ‘conceit’ has
not so totally forsaken all its former meanings (for there are still
‘_happy_ conceits’ in poetry), as have ‘conceited,’ which once meant
well conceived, and ‘conceitedly.’

  Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyn
  Which had on it _conceited_ characters.

          SHAKESPEARE, _A Lover’s Complaint_.

  Triumphal arches the glad town doth raise,
  And tilts and tourneys are performed at court,
  _Conceited_ masques, rich banquets, witty plays.

          DRAYTON, _The Miseries of Queen Margaret_.

    The edge or hem of a garment is distinguished from the rest
    most commonly by some _conceited_ or costly work.--COWELL, _The
    Interpreter_, s. v. Broderess.

    Cicero most pleasantly and _conceitedly_.--HOLLAND,
    _Suetonius_, p. 21.


=CONCUBINE.= Our Dictionaries do not notice that the male paramour
no less than the female was sometimes called by this name; on the
contrary, their definitions exclude this.

    The Lady Anne did falsely and traiterously procure divers of
    the King’s daily and familiar servants to be her adulterers and
    _concubines_.--_Indictment of Anne Boleyn._


=CONJURE.= The quotation from Foxe shows that this use of ‘to conjure’
as to conspire is not, as one might at first suspect, one of Milton’s
Latinisms, and as such peculiar to him.

    Divers, as well horsemen as footmen, had _conjured_ among
    themselves and conspired against the Englishmen, selling their
    horses and arms aforehand.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs_, 1641, vol.
    i. p. 441.

  Art thou that traitor angel? art thou he
  That first broke peace in heaven, and faith till then
  Unbroken, and, in proud rebellious arms,
  Drew after him the third part of Heaven’s sons,
  _Conjured_ against the Highest?

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, ii. 689.


=CONTEMPTIBLE.= ‘Adjectives in “able” and “ible,” both positive and
negative ones, are frequently used by old writers in an active sense’
(S. Walker, _Criticisms on Shakespeare_, vol. i. p. 183: whom see).
‘Contemptible’ where we should now use ‘contemptuous’ is one of these;
‘intenible’ (_All’s Well that Ends Well_, act i. sc. 3) another;
‘discernible’ a third.

    Darius wrote to Alexander in a proud and _contemptible_
    manner.--Lord STERLING, _Darius_, 1603 (in the argument
    prefixed to the Play).

    If she should make tender of her love, ’tis very possible he’ll
    scorn it, for the man, as you know all, hath a _contemptible_
    spirit.--SHAKESPEARE, _Much Ado about Nothing_, act ii. sc. 3.

  I do not mock, nor lives there such a villain,
  That can do anything _contemptible_
  To you; but I do kneel, because it is
  An action very fit and reverent
  In presence of so pure a creäture.

          BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, _The Coxcomb_, act v. sc. 2.


=CONVINCE.= This and ‘convict’ have been usefully desynonymized. One
is ‘convinced’ of a sin, but ‘convicted’ of a crime; the former word
moving always in the sphere of moral or intellectual things, but the
latter often in that of things merely external.

    Your Italy contains none so accomplished a courtier to
    _convince_ the honour of my mistress.--SHAKESPEARE,
    _Cymbeline_, act i. sc. 4.

  Keep off that great concourse, whose violent hands
  Would ruin this stone-building and drag hence
  This impious judge, piecemeal to tear his limbs,
  Before the law _convince_ him.

          WEBSTER, _Appius and Virginia_, act v. sc. 5.

    There was none of you that _convinced_ Job, or that answered
    his words.--_Job_ xxxii. 12. (A. V.)


=COPY.= A more Latin use of ‘copy,’ as ‘copia’ or abundance, was at one
time frequent in English. It is easy to trace the steps by which the
word attained its present significance. The only way to obtain ‘copy’
(in this Latin sense) or abundance of any document, would be by taking
‘copies’ (in our present sense) of it. Then, too, it often meant the
exemplar, and is so used in the quotations from Shakespeare and Jeremy
Taylor.

    We cannot follow a better pattern for elocution than God
    Himself. Therefore He using divers words in his Holy Writ, and
    indifferently for one thing in nature, we may use the same
    liberty in our English versions out of Hebrew or Greek, for
    that _copy_ or store that He hath given us.--_The Translators
    [of the Bible, 1611] to the Reader._

  Be _copy_ now to men of grosser blood,
  And teach them how to war.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Henry V._ act iii. sc. 1.

    Drayton’s Heroical Epistles are well worth the reading also,
    for the purpose of our subject, which is to furnish an
    English historian with choice and _copy_ of tongue.--BOLTON,
    _Hypercritica_, p. 235.

    The sun, the prince of all the bodies of light, is the
    principal, the rule and the _copy_, which they in their
    proportions imitate and transcribe.--Bishop TAYLOR,
    _Exhortation to the Imitation of Christ_.


=COQUET.= At present all our ‘coquets’ are female. But, as in the case
with so many other words instanced in this volume, what once belonged
to both sexes is now restricted to one.

    _Cocquet_; a beau, a gallant, a general lover; also a wanton
    girl that speaks fair to several lovers at once.--PHILLIPS,
    _New World of Words_.


=CORPSE.= Now only used for the body abandoned by the spirit of life,
but once for the body of the living equally as of the dead; now
only = ‘cadaver,’ but once ‘corpus’ as well. It will follow that ‘dead
corpses’ (_2 Kings_ xix. 35 and often) is not a tautology.

  A valiant _corpse_, where force and beauty met.

          SURREY, _On the Death of Sir T. Wyatt_.

  Night is the sabbath of mankind,
  To rest the body and the mind:
  Which now thou art denied to keep,
  And cure thy laboured _corpse_ with sleep.

          BUTLER, _Hudibras_, iii. 1. 1349.

    Women and maids shall particularly examine themselves about
    the variety of their apparell, their too much care of their
    _corps_.--_Richeome’s Pilgrim of Loretto, by G. W._

  Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of trades
  Could not relieve your _corps_ with so much linen
  Would make you tinder, but to see a fire.

          BEN JONSON, _The Alchemist_, act i. sc. 1.


=COUNTERFEIT.= Now, to imitate with the purpose of passing off the
imitation as the original; but no such dishonest intention was formerly
implied in the word.

  I wol noon of thapostles _counterfete_:
  I wol have money, wolle, chese and whete,
  Al were it yeven of the prestes page,
  Or of the porest wydow in a village.

          CHAUCER, _The Pardoner’s Prologue_ (Morris, p. 90).

    Christ prayseth not the unrighteous stuard, neither setteth him
    forth to us to _counterfeit_, because of his unrighteousness,
    but because of his wisdom only, in that he with unright so
    wisely provided for himself.--TYNDALE, _The Parable of the
    Wicked Mammon_.

    But for the Greek tongue they do note in some of his epistles
    that he [Brutus] _counterfeited_ that brief compendious manner
    of speech of the Lacedæmonians.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p.
    818.


=COURTESAN.= The Low Latin ‘cortesanus’ was once one haunting the
court, a courtier, ‘aulicus,’ though already in Shakespeare we often
meet the word in its present use.

    By the wolf, no doubt, was meant the Pope, but the fox was
    resembled to the prelates, _courtesans_, priests, and the rest
    of the spirituality.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs_, ed. 1641, vol.
    i. p. 511.


=COURTSHIP.= We now assign to this and to ‘courtesy’ their own several
domains of meanings; but they were once promiscuously used. See
for another example of the same the quotation from Fuller, _s. v._
‘Defalcation.’

    As he [Charles I.], to acquit himself, hath not spared
    his adversaries, to load them with all sorts of blame and
    accusation, so to him, as in his book alive, there will be used
    no more _courtship_ than he uses.--MILTON, _Iconoclastes_, The
    Preface.


  =CUMBER=,   }
  CUMBROUS.   }

This word, the Old French _combrer_, has lost much of the force which
it once possessed; it means now little more than passively to burden.
It was once actively to annoy, disquiet, or mischief. It was as
possessing this force that our Translators rendered ἵνα τί καὶ τὴν γῆν
καταργεῖ; ‘why _cumbereth_ it the ground?’ (_Luke_ xiii. 7.)

    The archers in the forefront so wounded the footmen, so galled
    the horses, and so _combred_ the men of arms that the footmen
    durst not go forward.--HALL, _Henry V._ fol. 17, 6.

    We have herde that certayne of oures are departed, and have
    troubled you and have _combred_ [ἀνασκευάζοντες] your myndes,
    sayenge, Ye must be circumcised and must keep the law.--_Acts_
    xv. 24. COVERDALE.

    But Martha was _cumbered_ [περιεσπᾶτο, cf. ver. 41: μεριμνᾷs
    καὶ τυρβάζῃ] about much serving.--_Luke_ x. 40. (A.V.)

  A cloud of _combrous_ gnats do him molest,
  All striving to infix their feeble stings.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, i. 1. 23.


=CUNNING.= The fact that so many words implying knowledge, art, skill,
obtain in course of time a secondary meaning of crooked knowledge, art
that has degenerated into artifice, skill used only to circumvent,
which meanings partially or altogether put out of use their primary,
is a mournful witness to the way in which intellectual gifts are too
commonly misapplied. Thus there was a time when the Latin ‘dolus’
required the epithet ‘malus,’ as often as it signified a treacherous
or fraudful device; but it was soon able to drop this as superfluous,
and to stand by itself. Other words which have gone the same downward
course are the following: τέχνη, ‘astutia,’ ‘calliditas,’ ‘List,’
‘Kunst,’ and our English ‘craft’ and ‘cunning,’--the last, indeed, as
early as Lord Bacon, who says, ‘We take _cunning_ for a sinister or
crooked wisdom,’ had acquired what is now its only acceptation; but not
then, nor till long after, to the exclusion of its more honourable use.
How honourable that use sometimes was, my first quotation will testify.

    I believe that all these three Persons [in the Godhead] are
    even in power and in _cunning_ and in might, full of grace and of
    all goodness.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of William
    Thorpe_.

    So the number of them, with their brethren, that were
    instructed in the songs of the Lord, even all that were
    _cunning_, was two hundred fourscore and eight.--_1 Chron._
    xxv. 7. (A.V.)


=CURATE.= Rector, vicar, every one having _cure_ of souls in a parish,
was a ‘curate’ once. Thus ‘bishops and _curates_’ in the Liturgy.

    They [the begging friars] letten _curats_ to know Gods law by
    holding bookes fro them, and withdrawing of their vantages, by
    which they shulden have books and lerne.--WICLIF, _Treatise
    against the Friars_, p. 56.

    If there be any man wicked because his _curate_ teacheth
    him not, his blood shall be required at the _curate’s_
    hands.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, p. 525.

    Henry the Second of England commanded all prelates and
    _curates_ to reside upon their dioceses and charges.--Bishop
    TAYLOR, _Ductor Dubitantium_, b. iii. c. 1.

    _Curate_, a parson or vicar, one that serves a cure, or has the
    charge of souls in a parish.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.


=CUSTOMER.= One sitting officially at the receipt of customs, that is,
of dues customably paid, and receiving these, and not one repairing
customably to a shop to purchase there, was a ‘customer’ two and three
centuries ago.

    He healeth the man of the palsye, calleth Levi the _customer_,
    eateth with open synners, and excuseth his disciples.--_What S.
    Marke conteyneth._ COVERDALE.

    The extreme and horrible covetousness of the farmers,
    _customers_, and Roman usurers devoured it [Asia].--NORTH,
    _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 432.

    We hardly can abide publicans, _customers_, and toll-gatherers,
    when they keep a ferreting and searching for such things as be
    hidden.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 138.


  =DANGER=,    }
  DANGEROUS.   }

A feudal term, beset with many difficulties when we seek to follow
it as it passes to its present use; but very well worth some study
bestowed upon it. Ducange has written on the subject, and Diez, and
Littré (_Hist. de la Langue Franç._ vol. i. p. 49). [The Old French
_dangier_, _dongier_, power, lordship, refusal, danger, is of Late
Latin origin, representing a form _dominiarium_ (from Latin _dominium_)
which signified properly the strict right of the suzerain in regard to
the fief of the vassal]; thus, ‘fief de _danger_,’ a fief held under a
lord on strict conditions, and therefore in peril of being forfeited
(juri stricto atque adeo confiscationi obnoxium; Ducange). There is
no difficulty here; but there is another early use of ‘danger’ and
‘dangerous’ which is not thus explained, nor yet the connexion between
it and the modern meaning of the words. I refer to that of ‘danger’
in the sense of ‘coyness,’ ‘sparingness,’ ‘niggardliness,’ and of
‘dangerous’ in the sense of haughty, difficult to please.

  And if thi voice is faire and clere,
  Thou shalt maken no grete _daungere_,
  Whanne to synge they goodly preye;
  It is thi worship for tobeye.

          _Romaunt of the Rose_, 2317.

    We ourselves also were in times past unwise,
    disobedient, deceived, in _danger_ to lusts [δουλεύοντες
    ἐπιθυμίαις].--_Tit._ iii. TYNDALE.

  Come not within his _danger_ by thy will.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Venus and Adonis_.

  My wages ben full streyt and eek ful smale;
  My lord to me is hard and _daungerous_.

          CHAUCER, _The Freres Tale_ (Morris, p. 250).

  But nathelesse, for hys beauté
  So fyers and _daungerous_ was he,
  That he nolde graunte hir askyng,
  For weepyng, ne for faire praiyng.

          _Romaunt of the Rose_, 1480.


=DEADLY.= This and ‘mortal’ (which see) are sometimes synonyms now;
thus, ‘a _deadly_ wound’ or ‘a _mortal_ wound;’ but they are not
invariably so; ‘deadly’ being always active, while ‘mortal’ is far
oftenest passive, signifying not that which inflicts death, but that
which suffers death; thus, ‘a _mortal_ body,’ or body subject to death,
but not now ‘a _deadly_ body.’ It was otherwise once. ‘Deadly’ is
the constant word in Wiclif’s Bible, wherever in the later Versions
‘mortal’ occurs.

    Elye was a _deedli_ man lijk us, and in preier he preiede that
    it schulde not reyne on the erthe, and it reynede not three
    yeeris and sixe monethis.--_Jam._ v. 17. WICLIF.

    Many holy prophets that were _deadly_ men were martyred
    violently in the Old Law.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination
    of William Thorpe_.


  =DEBATE=,  }
  DEBATER.   }

This word was only true to its etymology (débattre) so long as an
element of strife, of war waged by the tongue or by the sword, was
included in it. Thus, in some memorable lines attributed to Queen
Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots is described as ‘_the daughter of
debate_.’ It has now a far more harmless meaning, the element of strife
having quite gone out of the word.

    It is not the possession of a man’s own, but the usurping of
    another man’s right that hath brought injustice, _debate_, and
    trouble into the world.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 680.

    Prevy bacbiteris, detractouris, hateful to God, _debateris_
    [contumeliosi, Vulg.], proude.--_Rom._ i. 30. WICLIF.


  =DECEIVABLE=,     }
  DECEIVABLENESS.   }

So far as we use ‘deceivable’ at all now, we use it in the passive
sense, as liable to be, or capable of being, deceived. It was active
when counted exchangeable with ‘deceitful’ as at _2 Pet._ i. 16, where
the ‘deceivable’ of Tyndale appears as the ‘deceitful’ of Cranmer’s
Bible. It has fared in like manner with ‘discernible,’ ‘contemptible,’
which see, and with other words which, active once, are passive now.

  This world is fikel and _desayvable_,
  And fals and unsiker, and unstable.

          RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 1088.

    The most uncertain and _deceivable_ proof of the people’s good
    will and cities’ toward kings and princes are the immeasurable
    and extreme honours they do unto them.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s
    Lives_, p. 743.

    For we folowed not _decevable_ fables, when we openned unto you
    the power and commynge of our Lorde Jesus Christ.--_2 Pet._ i.
    16. Geneva Version.

    Whose coming is after the working of Satan with all
    _deceivableness_ of unrighteousness in them that perish.--_2
    Thess._ 9, 10. (A.V.)


=DEFALCATION.= A word at present of very slovenly and inaccurate use.
We read in the newspapers of a ‘defalcation’ of the revenue, not
meaning thereby an active _lopping off_ (‘defalcatio’) of certain taxes
with their proceeds, which would be the only correct use, but a passive
falling short in its returns from what they previously were. Can it
be that some confusion of ‘defalcation’ with ‘default,’ or at least a
seeing of ‘fault’ and not ‘falx’ in its second syllable (there was
once a verb ‘to defalk’), has led to this?

    My first crude meditations, being always hastily put together,
    could never please me so well at a second and more leisurable
    review, as to pass without some additions, _defalcations_, and
    other alterations, more or less.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671,
    Preface.

    As for their conjecture that Zorobabel, at the building of
    this temple purposely abated of those dimensions assigned by
    Cyrus, as too great for him to compass, in such _defalcation_
    of measures by Cyrus allowed, he showed little courtship to
    his master the emperor, and less religion to the Lord his
    God.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, b. iii. c. 2.


  =DEFEND=,  }
  DEFENCE.   }

Now, to protect, but once to protect by prohibiting or fencing round,
to forbid, as ‘défendre’ is still in French.

    Now wol I you _defenden_ hasardrye.--CHAUCER, _The Pardoneres
    Tale_. (Clar. Press.)

  Whan sawe ye in eny maner age
  That highe God _defendide_ mariage
  By expres word?

          Id., _The Wife of Bath’s Tale_.

    And oure Lord _defended_ hem that thei scholde not tell that
    avisioun till that He were rysen.--Sir JOHN MANDEVILLE, _Voiage
    and Travaile_, p. 114.

  O sons, like one of us man is become,
  To know both good and evil, since his taste
  Of that _defended fruit_.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, xi. 84.

  Adam afterward ayeines his _defence_,
  Frette of that fruit.

          _Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus xviii. 193.


  =DEFY=,   }
  DEFIANCE. }

This means now to dare to the uttermost hostility, and so, as a
consequence which will often follow upon this, to challenge. But in
earlier use ‘to defy’ is, according to its etymology, to pronounce
all bonds of _faith_ and fellowship which existed previously between
the defier and the defied to be wholly dissolved, so that nothing of
treaty or even of the natural faith of man to man shall henceforth
hinder extremest hostility between them. But still, when we read of one
potentate sending ‘defiance’ to another, the challenge to conflict did
not lie necessarily in the word, however such a message might provoke
and would often be the prelude to this: it meant but the releasing of
himself from all which hitherto had mutually obliged; and thus it came
often to mean simply to disclaim, or renounce.

    No man speaking in the Spirit of God _defieth_ Jesus [λέγει
    ἀνάθεμα Ἰησοῦν].--_1 Cor._ xii. 3. TYNDALE.

    Despise not an hungry soul, and _defy_ not the poor in his
    necessity.--_Ecclus._ iv. 2. COVERDALE.

  All studies here I solemnly _defy_,
  Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke.

          SHAKESPEARE, _1 Henry IV._ act i. sc. 8.

    There is a double people-pleasing. One sordid and servile, made
    of falsehood and flattery, which I _defy_ and detest.--FULLER,
    _Appeal of Injured Innocence_, p. 38.

    Now although I instanced in a question which by good fortune
    never came to open _defiance_, yet there have been sects formed
    upon lighter grounds.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Liberty of Prophesying_,
    § 3, 5.


=DELAY.= Like the French ‘délayer,’ used often in old time where we
should now employ ‘allay.’ Out of an ignorance of this, and assuming
it a misprint, some modern editors of our earlier authors have not
scrupled to change ‘delay’ into ‘allay.’ This is quite a different word
from _delay_, to put off.

    Wine _delayed_ with water.--HOLLAND’S _Camden_, p. 20.

  The watery showers _delay_ the raging wind.

          EARL OF SURREY, _The Faithful Lover_, p. 34 (ed. 1717).

    Even so fathers ought to _delay_ their eager reprehensions
    and cutting rebukes with kindness and clemency.--HOLLAND,
    _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 16.

    Cup-bearers know well enough, and in that regard can discern
    and distinguish, when they are to use more or less water to the
    _delaying_ of wines.--Id., _Ib._ p. 652.


  =DELICACY=, }
  DELICATE,   }
  DELICATELY, }
  DELICIOUS,  }
  DELICIOUSLY.}

In the same way as self-indulgence creeps over us by unmarked degrees,
so there creeps over the words that designate it a subtle change; they
come to contain less and less of rebuke and blame; the thing itself
being tolerated, nay allowed, it must needs be that the words which
express it should be received into favour too. It has been thus, as I
shall have occasion to note, with ‘luxury;’ it has been thus also with
this whole group of words. See the quotation from Sir W. Raleigh, _s.
v._ ‘Feminine.’

    Thus much of _delicacy_ in general; now more particularly
    of his first branch, gluttony.--NASH, _Christ’s Tear’s over
    Jerusalem_, p. 140.

    Cephisodorus, the disciple of Isocrates, charged him
    with _delicacy_, intemperance, and gluttony.--BLOUNT,
    _Philostratus_, p. 229.

    The most _delicate_ and voluptuous princes have ever been
    the heaviest oppressors of the people, riot being a far
    more lavish spender of the common treasure than war or
    magnificence.--HABINGTON, _History of King Edward IV._, p. 196.

  And drynk nat ouer _delicatliche_, ne to depe neither.

          _Piers Plowman_, C-text, Passus vii. 166 (Skeat).

    She that liveth _delicately_ [σπαταλῶσα] is dead while she
    liveth.--_1 Tim._ v. 6. A.V. (margin).

    Yea, soberest men it [idleness] makes _delicious_.--SYLVESTER,
    _Du Bartas, Second Week, Eden_.

    How much she hath glorified herself and lived _deliciously_
    [ἐστρηνίασε], so much torment and sorrow give her.--_Rev._
    xviii. 7. (A.V.)


=DEMERIT.= It was plainly a squandering of the wealth of the language,
that ‘merit’ and ‘demerit’ should mean one and the same thing; however
this might be justified by the fact that ‘mereor’ and ‘demereor,’
from which they were severally derived, were scarcely discriminated
in meaning. It has thus come to pass, according to the desynonymizing
processes ever at work in a language, that ‘demerit’ has ended in being
employed only of _ill_ desert, while ‘merit’ is left free to good or
ill, having predominantly the sense of the former.

                  I fetch my life and being
  From men of royal siege; and my _demerits_
  May speak, unbonneted, to as proud a fortune
  As this that I have reached.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Othello_, act i. sc. 2.

    By our profane and unkind civil wars the world is grown to this
    pass, that it is reputed a singular _demerit_ and gracious act,
    not to kill a citizen of Rome, but to let him live.--HOLLAND,
    _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 456.

    But the Rhodians, contrariwise, in a proud humour of theirs,
    reckoned up a beadroll of their _demerits_ toward the people of
    Rome.--Id., _Livy_, p. 1179.


  =DEMURE=,   }
  DEMURENESS. }

Used by our earlier writers without the insinuation, which is now
always latent in it, that the external shows of modesty and sobriety
rest upon no corresponding realities. On the contrary the ‘demure’ was
the truly modest and virtuous and good. It is one of the many words
to which the suspicious nature of man, with the warrants to a certain
extent which these suspicions find, has given a turn for the worse.

    These and other suchlike irreligious pranks did this Dionysius
    play, who notwithstanding fared no worse than the most _demure_
    and innocent, dying no other death than what usually other
    mortals do.--H. MORE, _Antidote against Atheism_, b. iii. c. 1.

    Which advantages God propounds to all the hearers of the
    Gospel, without any respect of works or former _demureness_ of
    life, if so be they will but now come in and close with this
    high and rich dispensation.--Id., _Grand Mystery of Godliness_,
    b. viii. c. 5.

  She is so nice and so _demure_,
  So sober, courteous, modest, and precise.

          _True History of King Leir_, 1605.

    In like manner women also in comely attire; with _demureness_
    [cum verecundiâ, Vulg.] and sobriety adorning themselves.--_1
    Tim._ ii. 9. Rheims.

  His carriage was full comely and upright,
  His countenance _demure_ and temperate.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 1, 6.


=DEPART.= Once used as equivalent with ‘to separate’ (divido, partior,
_Promptorium Parvulorum_)--a fact already forgotten, when, at the last
revision of the Prayer-Book in 1662, the Puritan divines objected to
the form as it then stood in the Marriage Service, ‘till death us
_depart_;’ in condescension to whose objection the words, as we now
have them, ‘till death us _do part_,’ were introduced.

    And he schal _departe_ hem atwynne, as a scheepherde
    _departith_ scheep fro kidis.--_Matt._ xxv. 32. WICLIF.

    And whanne he hadde seid this thing, dissencioun was maad
    bitwixe the Fariseis and the Saduceis, and the multitude was
    _departid_.--_Acts_ xxiii. 7. Id.

    If my neighbour neede and I geve him not, neyther _depart_
    liberally with him of that which I have, than withholde I from
    him unrighteously that which is hys owne.--TYNDALE, _Parable of
    the Wicked Mammon_.

    Neither did the apostles put away their wives, after they were
    called unto the ministry; but they continued with their wives
    lovingly and faithfully, till death _departed_ them.--BECON,
    _An Humble Supplication unto God_ (1554).


=DEPLORED.= It is well known that ‘deploratus’ obtained in later Latin,
through a putting of effect for cause, the sense of desperate or past
all hope, and was technically applied to the sick man given over by his
physicians, ‘deploratus a medicis.’

    The physicians do make a kind of scruple and religion to stay
    with the patient after the disease is _deplored_; whereas, in
    my judgement, they ought both to inquire the skill, and to give
    the attendances, for the facilitating and assuaging of the
    pains and agonies of death.--BACON, _Advancement of Learning_,
    ii. 10. 5.

    If a man hath the mind to get the start of other sinners, and
    desires to be in hell before them, he need do no more but open
    his sails to the wind of heretical doctrine, and he is like
    to make a short voyage to hell; for these bring upon their
    maintainers a swift destruction. Nay, the Spirit of God the
    more to aggravate their _deplored_ state, brings on three most
    dreadful instances of divine justice that ever were executed
    upon any sinners.--GURNALL, _The Christian in Complete Armour_,
    pt. ii. p. 317.


=DEPRAVE.= As ‘pravus’ is literally crooked, we may say that ‘to
deprave’ was formerly ‘untruly _to present_ as crooked,’ to defame;
while it is now ‘wickedly _to make_ crooked.’ See the quotation from
Bacon, _s. v._ ‘Disable.’

    Their intent was none other than to get him [Cardinal Wolsey]
    from the king out of the realm; then might they sufficiently
    adventure, by the help of their chief mistress, to _deprave_
    him with the king’s highness, and so in his absence to bring
    him in displeasure with the king.--CAVENDISH, _Life of Cardinal
    Wolsey_.

  That lie, and cog, and flout, _deprave_, and slander.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Much Ado about Nothing_, act v. sc. 1.

    I am _depraved_ unjustly; who never deprived the Church of her
    authority.--FULLER, _Appeal of Injured Innocence_, pt. i. p. 45.

  Unjustly thou _depravest_ it with the name
  Of servitude, to serve whom God ordains,
  Or nature.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, vi. 174.


=DERIVE.= Tropical uses of the verb ‘to derive’ have quite superseded
the literal, so that we now ‘derive’ anything rather than waters from a
river.

    An infinite deal of labour there is to lade out the water
    that riseth upon the workmen, for fear it choke up the pits;
    for to prevent which inconvenience they _derive_ it by other
    drains.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_.

    Nor may the industry of the citizens of Salisbury be forgotten,
    who have _derived_ the river into every street therein, so
    that Salisbury is a heap of islets thrown together.--FULLER,
    _Worthies of England: Wiltshire_.


=DESCRY.= This verb had a technical meaning in the seventeenth century,
which it afterwards lost; its loss leading to the introduction of
the French verb ‘to reconnoitre,’ ridiculed as an outlandish term
by Addison (1711), and more than half a century later not admitted
by Johnson into his _Dictionary_. It was exactly this which ‘to
descry,’ as used by Shakespeare and by Milton, meant. [The verb is
the equivalent of the Old French _descrire_, _descrivre_, Latin
_describere_, to describe.]

  Who hath _descried_ the number of the foe?

          SHAKESPEARE, _Richard III._ act v. sc. 3.

    The house of Israel sent to _descry_ (to spy out, R.V.)
    Bethel.--_Judg._ i. 23. (A.V.)

      Scouts each coast light-armed scour,
  Each quarter to _descry_ the distant foe,
  Where lodged or whither fled; or, if for fight,
  In motion or in halt.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, vi. 530.


=DESIRE.= ‘To desire’ is only to look _forward_ with longing now; the
word has lost the sense of regret or looking _back_ upon the lost but
still loved. This it once possessed in common with ‘desiderium’ and
‘desiderare,’ from which more remotely, and ‘désirer,’ from which more
immediately, we derive it.

    He [Jehoram] reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed
    without being desired.--_2 Chron._ xxi. 20. (A.V.)

    She that hath a wise husband must entice him to an eternal
    dearness by the veil of modesty and the grave robes of
    chastity, and she shall be pleasant while she lives, and
    _desired_ when she dies.--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Marriage Ring_,
    Sermon 18.

  So unremovéd stood these steeds, their heads to earth let fall,
  And warm tears gushing from their eyes, with passionate _desire_
  Of their kind manager.

          CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, xvii. 379.


=DETEST.= For the writers of the seventeenth century ‘to detest’ still
retained often the sense of its original ‘detestari,’ openly to witness
against, and not merely to entertain an inward abhorrence of, a thing;
as in ‘attest’ and ‘protest’ the etymological meaning still survives.
It is not easy to adduce passages which absolutely prove this against
one who should be disposed to deny it. There can, however, be no doubt
whatever of the fact. In Du Bartas’ _Weeks_, 1621, p. 106, an invective
against avarice is called in the margin ‘_Detestation_ of Avarice, for
her execrable and cruel effects.’

    Wherefore God hath _detested_ them with his own mouth, and
    clean given them over unto their own filthy lusts.--BALE, _The
    Image of both Churches_, c. 11.

    She cast herself upon him [her dead husband], and with
    fearful cries _detested_ the governor’s inhuman and cruel
    deceit.--GRIMESTON, _History of Lewis XI._, 1614, p. 228.

    Satyrs were certain poems, _detesting_ and reproving the
    misdemeanours of people and their vices.--HOLLAND, _Explanation
    of certain obscure words_.

                              E’en to vice
  They [women] are not constant, but are changing still
  One vice but of a minute old, for one
  Not half so old as that. I’ll write against them,
  _Detest_ them, curse them.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Cymbeline_, act ii. sc. 5.


=DIAMOND.= This, or ‘diamant’ as it used to be spelt, is a popular form
of ‘adamant.’ The Greek ἀδάμας, originally used of the hardest steel,
was, about the time of Theophrastus, and, so far as we know, first in
his writings, transferred to the diamond, as itself also of a hardness
not to be subdued; the cutting or polishing of this stone being quite a
modern invention; and the Latin ‘adamas’ continued through the Middle
Ages to bear this double meaning. But if ‘adamant’ meant diamond,
then ‘diamond,’ by a reactive process frequent in language, would be
employed for adamant as well. So far as I know, Milton is the last
writer who so uses it.

  Have harte as hard as _diamaunt_,
  Stedfast, and nauht pliaunt.

          _Romaunt of the Rose._

    This little care and regard did at length melt and break
    asunder those strong _diamond_ chains with which Dionysius the
    elder made his boast that he left his tyranny chained to his
    son.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, 1656, p. 800.

  But wordes and lookes and sighes she did abhore,
  As rock of _diamond_ stedfast evermore.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, i. 6. 4.

  Prince Arthur gave a boxe of _diamond_ sure.

          SPENSER, ib. i. 9. 19.

    Zeal, whose substance is ethereal, arming in complete
    _diamond_, ascends his fiery chariot drawn with two blazing
    meteors, figured like beasts, but of a higher breed than any
    the zodiack yields, resembling two of those four, which Ezekiel
    and St. John saw, the one visaged like a lion to express power,
    high authority, and indignation; the other of countenance like
    a man to cast derision and scorn upon perverse and fraudulent
    seducers; with these the invincible warrior Zeal shaking
    loosely the slack reins drives over the heads of scarlet
    prelates, and such as are insolent to maintain traditions,
    bruising their stiff necks under his flaming wheels.--MILTON,
    _Defence of Smectymnuus_.

                      On each wing
  Uriel and Raphaël his vaunting foe,
  Though huge and in a rock of _diamond_ armed,
  Vanquished, Adramelech and Asmodai.

          Id., _Paradise Lost_, vi. 363.


  =DIFFIDENCE=, }
  DIFFIDENTLY.  }

‘Diffidence’ expresses now a not unbecoming distrust of one’s own self,
with only a slight intimation, such as ‘verecundia’ obtained in the
silver age of Latin literature, that perhaps this distrust is carried
too far; but it was once used for distrust of others, and sometimes
for distrust pushed so far as to amount to an entire withholding of
all faith from them, being nearly allied to despair; as indeed in _The
Pilgrim’s Progress_ Mistress Diffidence is Giant Despair’s wife.

    Of the impediments which have been in the affections, the
    principal whereof hath been despair or _diffidence_, and
    the strong apprehension of the difficulty, obscurity,
    and infiniteness, which belongeth to the invention of
    knowledge.--BACON, _Of the Interpretation of Nature_, c. 19.

    Every sin smiles in the first address, and carries light in the
    face, and honey in the lip; but when we have well drunk, then
    comes that which is worse, a whip with ten strings, fears and
    terrors of conscience, and shame and displeasure, and a caitiff
    disposition, and _diffidence_ in the day of death.--Bishop
    TAYLOR, _Life of Christ_.

    That affliction grew heavy upon me, and weighed me down even to
    a _diffidence_ of God’s mercy.--DONNE, _Sermons_, 1640, vol. i.
    p. 311.

    Mediators were not wanting that endeavoured a renewing of
    friendship between these two prelates, which the haughtiness,
    or perhaps the _diffidence_ of Bishop Laud would not accept; a
    symptom of policy more than of grace, not to trust a reconciled
    enemy.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, pt. ii. p. 86.

    It was far the best course to stand _diffidently_ against
    each other, with their thoughts in battle array.--HOBBES,
    _Thucydides_, b. iii. c. 83.


=DIGEST.= Scholars of the seventeenth century often employ a word of
their own language in the same latitude which its equivalent possessed
in the Greek or the Latin; as though it entered into all the rights
of its equivalent, and corresponded with it on all points, because it
corresponded in one. Thus ‘coctus’ meaning ‘digested,’ why should not
‘digested’ mean all which ‘coctus’ meant? but one of the meanings of
‘coctus’ is ‘ripened;’ ‘digested’ therefore might be employed in the
same sense.

    Repentance is like the sun; it produces rich spices in Arabia,
    it _digests_ the American gold, and melts the snows from the
    Riphæan mountains.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Doctrine and Practice of
    Repentance_, ch. 10, § 8.

    Splendid fires, aromatic spices, rich wines, and
    well-_digested_ fruits.--Id., _Discourse of Friendship_.


=DISABLE.= Our ancestors felt that to injure the character of another
was the most effectual way of disabling him; and out of a sense of this
they often used ‘to disable’ in the sense of to disparage, to speak
slightingly of.

    Farewell, mounsieur traveller. Look, you lisp, and wear
    strange suits: _disable_ all the benefits of your own
    country.--SHAKESPEARE, _As You Like It_, act. iv. sc. 1.

    If affection lead a man to favour the less worthy in desert,
    let him do it without depraving or _disabling_ the better
    deserver.--BACON, _Essays_, 49.


=DISCOURSE.= It is very characteristic of the slight acquaintance
with our elder literature--the most obvious source for elucidating
Shakespeare’s text--which was possessed by many of his commentators
down to a late day, that the phrase ‘discourse of reason,’ which he
puts into Hamlet’s mouth, should have perplexed them so greatly.
Gifford, a pitiless animadverter on the real or imaginary mistakes
of others, and who tramples upon Warburton for attempting to explain
this phrase as though Shakespeare could have ever written it, declares
‘“discourse _of_ reason” is so poor and perplexed a phrase that
I should dismiss it at once for what I believe to be his genuine
language;’ and then proceeds to suggest the obvious but erroneous
correction ‘discourse _and_ reason’ (see his _Massinger_, vol. i. p.
148); while yet, if there be a phrase of continual recurrence among
the writers of our Elizabethan age and down to Milton, it is this. I
have little doubt that it occurs fifty times in Holland’s translation
of Plutarch’s _Moralia_. What our fathers intended by ‘discourse’ and
‘discourse of reason,’ the following passages will abundantly declare.

    There is not so great difference and distance between beast and
    beast, as there is odds in the matter of wisdom, _discourse_
    of reason, and use of memory between man and man.--HOLLAND,
    _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 570; cf. pp. 313, 566, 570, 752, 955,
    966, 977, 980.

    If you mean, by _discourse_, right reason, grounded on Divine
    Revelation and common notions, written by God in the hearts of
    all men, and deducing, according to the never-failing rules of
    logic, consequent deductions from them; if this be it which
    you mean by _discourse_, it is very meet and reasonable and
    necessary that men, as in all their actions, so especially
    in that of greatest importance, the choice of their way to
    happiness, should be left unto it.--CHILLINGWORTH, _The
    Religion of Protestants_, Preface.

    As the intuitive knowledge is more perfect than that which
    insinuates itself into the soul gradually by _discourse_, so
    more beautiful the prospect of that building which is all
    visible at one view than what discovers itself to the sight by
    parcels and degrees.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Canterbury_.

                        Whence the soul
  Reason receives, and reason is her being,
  Discursive or intuitive; _discourse_
  Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, v. 486.

    You, being by nature given to melancholic _discoursing_, do
    easilier yield to such imaginations.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s
    Lives_, p. 830.

  The other gods, and knights-at-arms, all slept, but only Jove
  Sweet slumber seized not; he _discoursed_ how best he might approve
  His vow made for Achilles’ grace.

          CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, b. ii.




=DISCOVER.= This word has lost the sense of uncover, which once it had,
and in which it occurs several times in our Bible.

    Whether any man hath pulled down or _discovered_ any church,
    chancel or chapel, or any part of them.--Archbishop GRINDAL,
    _Articles of Enquiry_, 1576.

    The voice of the Lord _discovereth_ the forests.--_Ps._ xxix.
    9. A.V. and P.B.V.


=DISEASE.= Our present limitation of ‘disease’ is a very natural one,
seeing that nothing so effectually wars against ease as a sick and
suffering condition of body. Still the limitation is modern, and by
‘disease’ was once meant any distress or discomfort whatever, and the
verb had a corresponding meaning.

    Wo to hem that ben with child, and norishen in tho daies, for a
    greet _diseese_ [pressura magna, Vulg.] schal be on the erthe
    and wraththe to this puple.--_Luke_ xxi. 23. WICLIF.

    Thy doughter is deed; why _diseasest_ thou the master eny
    further?--_Mark_ v. 35. TYNDALE.

    This is now the fourteenth day they [the Cardinals] have been
    in the Conclave, with such pain and _disease_ that your grace
    would marvel that such men as they would suffer it.--_State
    Papers_ (_Letter to Wolsey from his Agent at Rome_), vol. vi.
    p. 182.

  His double burden did him sore _disease_.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 2, 12.


=DISMAL.= Minsheu’s derivation of ‘dismal,’ that it is ‘dies malus,’
the unlucky, ill-omened day, is exactly one of those plausible
etymologies which one learns after a while to reject with contempt. Yet
there can be no doubt that our fathers so understood the word, and that
this assumed etymology often overrules their usage of it.

    Why should we then be bold to call them evil, infortunate,
    and _dismal_ days? If God rule our doings continually,
    why shall they not prosper on those days as well as on
    other?--PILKINGTON, _Exposition on Aggeus_, c. 1.

    Then began they to reason and debate about the _dismal_ days
    [tum de diebus _religiosis_ agitari cœptum]. And the fifteenth
    day before the Kalends of August, so notorious for a twofold
    loss and overthrow, they set this unlucky mark upon it, that it
    should be reputed unmeet and unconvenient for any business, as
    well public as private.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 217.

    The particular calendars, wherein their [the Jews’] good or
    _dismal_ days are distinguished, according to the diversity of
    their ways, we find, Leviticus 26.--JACKSON, _The Eternal Truth
    of Scriptures_, b. i. c. 22.


=DISOBLIGE.= Release from obligation lies at the root of all uses,
present and past, of this word; but it was formerly more the release
from an oath or a duty, and now rather from the slighter debts of
social life, to which kindness and courtesy on the part of another
would have held us bound or ‘obliged;’ while the contraries to these
are ‘disobliging.’

    He did not think that Act of Uniformity could _disoblige_
    them [the Non-Conformists] from the exercise of their
    office.--BATES, _Mr. Richard Baxter’s Funeral Sermon_.

    Many that are imprisoned for debt, think themselves
    _disobliged_ from payment.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Holy Dying_, c. 5,
    § 3.

    He hath a very great obligation to do that and more; and he
    can noways be _disobliged_, but by the care of his natural
    relations.--Id., _Measures and Offices of Friendship_.


=DITTY.= By the ‘ditty’ were once understood the words of a song as
distinguished from the musical accompaniment.

    They fell to challenge and defy one another, whereupon he
    commanded the musician Eraton to sing unto the harp, who began
    his song on this wise out of the works of Hesiodus:--

  Of quarrel and contention
  There were as then more sorts than one;

    for which I commended him in that he knew how to apply the
    _ditty_ of his song so well unto the present time.--HOLLAND,
    _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 786.

    So that, although we lay altogether aside the consideration of
    _ditty_ or matter, the very harmony of sounds being framed in
    due sort, and carried by the ear to the spiritual faculties
    of the soul, is by a native puissance and efficacy greatly
    available to bring to a perfect temper whatsoever is there
    troubled.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. v. c. 38.


=DOCUMENT.= Now used only of the _material_, and not, as once, of the
_moral_ proof, evidence, or means of instruction.

    They were forthwith stoned to death, as a _document_ unto
    others.--Sir W. RALEIGH, _History of the World_, b. v. c. 2, §
    3.

    This strange dejection of these three great apostles at so
    mild and gentle a voice [Matt. xvii. 6], gives us a remarkable
    _document_ or grounded observation of the truth of that saying
    of St. Paul, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
    God.--JACKSON, _Of the Primeval State of Man_, b. ii. c. 12.

    It was a rare _document_ of divine justice to ordain, and of
    divine wisdom so to contrive, that the dogs should lap King
    Ahab’s blood in the same place where they had lapped the blood
    of Naboth.--Id., _Of the Divine Essence and Attributes_, b. vi.
    ch. iii. 3.


=DOLE.= This and ‘deal’ are one and the same word, and answer to
the German ‘Theil,’ a part or portion.[14] It has now always the
subaudition of a _scanty_ portion, as ‘to dole’ is to deal scantily and
reluctantly forth (‘pittance’ has acquired the same); but Sanderson’s
use of ‘dole’ is instructive, as showing that ‘distribution or
division’ is all which once lay in the word.

    There are certain common graces of illumination, and those
    indeed are given by _dole_, knowledge to one, to another
    tongues, to another healings; but it is nothing so with the
    special graces of sanctification. There is no distribution or
    division here; either all or none.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671,
    vol. ii. p. 247.


=DRAUGHT.= Many ‘draughts’ we still acknowledge, but not the ‘draught’
or drawing of a bow.

  A large _draught_ up to his eare
  He drew, and with an arrow ground
  Sharpe and new, the queene a wound
  He gave.

          CHAUCER, _Dreame_, 788.

  Then spake another proud one, Would to heaven
  I might at will get gold till he hath given
  That bow his _draught_.

          CHAPMAN, _The Odysseis of Homer_, xxi. 533.


    =DREADFUL.= Now that which _causes_ dread, but once that which
    _felt_ it. See ‘Frightful,’ ‘Hateful.’

    Forsothe the Lord shall gyve to thee there a _dreedful_ herte
    and faylinge eyen.--_Deut._ xxviii. 65. WICLIF.

  And to a grove faste ther beside
  With _dredful_ foot than stalketh Palamon.

          CHAUCER, _The Knightes Tale_.

  All mankind lo! that _dreadful_ is to die,
  Thou dost constrain long death to learn by thee.

          HEYWOOD, _Translation of Seneca’s Hercules Furens_.

  Thou art so set, as thou hast no cause to be
  Jealous, or _dreadful_ of disloyalty.

          DANIEL, _Panegyric to the King_.


  =DREARY=,   }
  DREARINESS. }

This word has slightly shifted its meaning. In our earlier English it
was used exactly as its German cognate ‘traurig’ is now, to designate
the heaviness at once of countenance and of heart; very much the
σκυθρωπός of the Greeks, though not admitting the subaudition of anger,
which in that word is often contained. [Its Old English form was
_dréorig_.]

    And the king seide to me, Whi is thi chere _dreri_, sithen I
    see thee not sick?--_2 Esdras_ ii. 2. WICLIF.

  All _drery_ was his chere and his loking.

          CHAUCER, _The Clerkes Tale_, pt. 3.

    Bowe down to the pore thin ere withoute _dreryness_ [sine
    tristitiâ, Vulg.]--_Ecclus._ iv. 8. WICLIF.

  Now es a man light, now es he hevy,
  Now es he blithe, now es he _drery_.

          RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 1454.


=DRENCH.= As ‘to _fell_’ is to make to _fall_, and ‘to _lay_’ to
make to _lie_, so ‘to _drench_’ is to make to _drink_, though with a
sense now very short of ‘to drown;’ but ‘drench’ and ‘drown,’ though
desynonymized in our later English, were once perfectly adequate to one
another.

  He is _drenched_ in the flod,
  Abouten his hals an anker god.

          _Havelok the Dane_, 669.

    Thei that wolen be maad riche, fallen in to temptacioun, and in
    to snare of the devil, and in to many unprofitable desiris and
    noyous, whiche _drenchen_ men in to deth and perdicioun.--_1
    Tim._ vi. 9. WICLIF.

  Well may men knowe it was no wyght but he
  That kepte peple Ebrayk fro hir _drenching_,
  With drye feet thurgh-out the see passing.

          CHAUCER, _The Man of Lawes Tale_, 488 (Skeat).


=DRIFT.= A drove of sheep or cattle was once a ‘drift;’ so too the act
of driving.

    Hoc armentum, Anglice, a _dryfte_.--_Wright-Wülcker, Vocab._
    814. 11.

    By reason of the foulness and deepness of the way divers of
    the said sheep died in driving; partly for lack of meat and
    feeding, but especially by mean of the said unreasonable
    _drift_ the said sheep are utterly perished.--_Trevelyan
    Papers_, p. 130.

  And Anton Shiel he loves me not,
  For I gat twa _drifts_ of his sheep;
  The great Earl of Whitfield he loves me not,
  For nae gear fra me he could keep.

          _Scotch Ballad._


=DUKE.= One of Shakespeare’s commentators charges him with an
anachronism, the incongruous transfer of a modern title to an ancient
condition of society, when he styles Theseus ‘_Duke_ of Athens.’ It
would be of very little consequence if the charge was a true one; but
it is not, as his English Bible might have sufficiently taught him;
_Gen._ xxxvi. 15-19. ‘Duke’ has indeed since Shakespeare’s time become
that which this objector supposed it to have been always; but all were
‘dukes’ once who were ‘duces,’ captains and leaders of their people.

    He [St. Peter] techith christen men to be suget to kyngis and
    _dukis_, and to ech man for God.--WICLIF, _Prologe on the first
    Pistel of Peter_.

    Hannibal, _duke_ of Carthage.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b.
    i. c. 10.

      These were the _dukes_ and princes of avail
  That came from Greece.

          CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, b. ii.


=DUNCE=. I have sought elsewhere (_Study of Words_, 20th edit. p. 143)
to trace at some length the curious history of this word. Sufficient
here to say that Duns Scotus, whom Hooker styles ‘the wittiest of the
school divines,’ has given us this name, which now ascribes hopeless
ignorance, invincible stupidity, to him on whom it is affixed.
The course by which this came to pass was as follows. When at the
Reformation and Revival of Learning the works of the Schoolmen fell
into extreme disfavour, alike with the Reformers and with the votaries
of the new learning, Duns, a standard-bearer among those, was so often
referred to with scorn and contempt by these, that his name gradually
became that byeword which ever since it has been. See the quotation
from Stanyhurst, _s. v._ ‘Trivial.’

    Remember ye not how within this thirty years, and far less,
    and yet dureth unto this day, the old barking curs, _Dunce’s_
    disciples, and like draff called Scotists, the children of
    darkness, raged in every pulpit against Greek, Latin, and
    Hebrew?--TYNDALE, _Works_, 1575, p. 278.

    We have set _Dunce_ in Bocardo and have utterly banished him
    Oxford for ever with all his blind glosses.... The second time
    we came to New College after we had declared your injunctions,
    we found all the great Quadrant Court full of the leaves of
    _Dunce_, the wind blowing them in every corner.--_Wood’s
    Annals_, A.D. 1535, 62.

    What _Dunce_ or Sorbonist cannot maintain a paradox?--G.
    HARVEY, _Pierce’s Supererogation_, p. 159.

    As for terms of honesty or civility, they are gibberish unto
    him, and he a Jewish Rabbin or a Latin _dunce_ with him that
    useth any such form of monstrous terms.--Id., _ib._ p. 175.

      _Maud._ Is this your tutor?

      _Tutor._                    Yes surely, lady;
  I am the man that brought him in league with logic,
  And read the _Dunces_ to him.

          MIDDLETON, _A Chaste Maid in Cheapside_, act iii. sc. 1.


  =DUTCH=,  }
  DUTCHMAN. }

Till late in the seventeenth century ‘Dutch’ (‘deutsch,’ lit. belonging
to the people) meant generally ‘German,’ and a ‘Dutchman’ a native of
Germany, while what we now term a Dutchman was then a Hollander. In
America this with so many other usages is retained, and Germans are now
often called ‘Dutchmen’ there.

    Though the root of the English language be _Dutch_, yet she
    may be said to have been inoculated afterwards upon a French
    stock.--HOWELL, _Lexicon Tetraglotton_, Preface.

    _Germany_ is slandered to have sent none to this war [the
    Crusades] at this first voyage; and that other pilgrims,
    passing through that country, were mocked by the _Dutch_, and
    called fools for their pains.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. i. c. 13.

    At the same time began the _Teutonic_ Order, consisting only of
    _Dutchmen_, well descended.--Id. _ib._ b. ii. c. 16.


  =EAGER=,   }
  EAGERNESS. }

The physical and literal sense of ‘eager,’ that is, sharp or acrid
(Fr. _aigre_, Lat. _acrem_), has quite departed from the word. It
occasionally retained this, long after it was employed in the secondary
meaning which is its only one at present.

  She was lyk thyng for hungre deed,
  That ladde hir lyf oonly by breed
  Kneden with eisel[15] strong and _egre_.

          _Romaunt of the Rose_, 215.

    Bees have this property by nature to find and suck the
    mildest and best honey out of the sharpest and most _eager_
    flowers.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 43.

  Now on the _eager_ razor’s edge for life or death we stand.

          CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, b. x.

    _Asproso_, full of sowrenesse or _eagernesse_.--FLORIO, _New
    World of Words_ (A.D. 1611).


=EBB.= Nothing ‘ebbs,’ unless it is figuratively, except water now.
But ‘ebb,’ oftenest an adjective, was continually used in our earlier
English with a general meaning of shallow. There is still a Lancashire
proverb, ‘Cross the stream where it is _ebbest_.’

    Orpiment, a mineral digged out of the ground in Syria, where it
    lieth very _ebb_.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. ii. p. 469.

    This you may observe ordinarily in stones, that those parts
    and sides which lie covered deeper within the ground be more
    frim and tender, as being preserved by heat, than those outward
    faces which lie _ebb_, or above the earth.--Id., _Plutarch’s
    Morals_, p. 747.

    It is all one whether I be drowned in the _ebber_ shore, or
    in the midst of the deep sea.--Bishop HALL, _Meditations and
    Vows_, cent. ii.


=ECSTASY.= We still say of madmen that they are _beside themselves_;
but ‘ecstasy,’ or a standing out of oneself, is no longer used as an
equivalent to madness.

  This is the very coinage of your brain;
  This bodiless creation _ecstasy_
  Is very cunning in.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, act iii. sc. 4.

=EDIFY.= ‘From the Christian Church being called the temple or house
of God, this word acquired a metaphorical and spiritual meaning, and
is applied in the N. T. and in modern language to mental or spiritual
advancement. Old English writers used it in its original sense of
_build_’ (_Bible Word Book_). For some quotations which mark the coming
up of the secondary or metaphorical meaning see my _English Past and
Present_, 14th edit. p. 186.

  I shall overtourne this temple, and adown throwe,
  And in thre dayes after _edifie_ it newe.

          _Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus xvi. 131 (Skeat).

    And the Lord God _edifiede_ the rib, the which he toke of Adam,
    into a woman.--_Gen._ ii. 22. WICLIF.

    What pleasure and also utility is to a man which intendeth
    to _edify_, himself to express the figure of the work that
    he purposeth, according as he hath conceived it in his own
    fantasy.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b. i. c. 8.

                  A little wyde
  There was an holy chappell _edifyde_.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, i. 1, 34.


=EGREGIOUS.= This has generally now an uncomplimentary subaudition,
which it was very far from having of old.

  _Egregious_ viceroys of these eastern parts!

          MARLOWE, _Tamburlaine the Great_, part i. act i. sc. 1.

    It may be denied that bishops were our first reformers,
    for Wickliffe was before them, and his _egregious_ labours
    are not to be neglected.--MILTON, _Animadversions upon the
    Remonstrants’ Defence_.


=ELDER.= The German ‘eltern’ still signifies parents; as ‘elders’ did
once with us, though now the word has quite let this meaning go.

    And hise disciplis axiden hym, Maistir, what synnede, this man
    or hise _eldris_, that he schulde be borun blynd?--_John_ ix.
    2. WICLIF.

    And his _elders_ went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of
    Easter.--_Luke_ ii. 41. COVERDALE.

    Disobedient to their elders [γονεῦσιν ἀπειθεῖς].--_Rom._ i. 30.
    COVERDALE.

  So, or much like, our rebel _elders_ driven
  For aye from Eden, earthly type of heaven,
  Lie languishing near Tigris’ grassy side.

          SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas, The Handycrafts_.


=ELEMENT.= The air, as that among the four elements which is most
present everywhere, was frequently ‘_the_ element’ in our earlier
literature.

    When Pompey saw the dust in the _element_, and conjectured the
    flying of his horsemen, what mind he was of then it was hard to
    say.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 553.

    The face therefore of the _element_ you have skill to discern,
    and the signs of times can you not?--_Matt._ xvi. 3. Rheims.

  There is no stir or walking in the streets,
  And the complexion of the _element_
  In favour is like the work we have in hand,
  Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Julius Cæsar_, act i. sc. 3.

  I took it for a faery vision
  Of some gay creatures of the _element_,
  That in the colours of the rainbow live,
  And play in the plighted clouds.

          MILTON, _Comus_, 298.


=ELEPHANT.= I have little doubt that ‘elephant’ as an equivalent for
ivory is a Grecism not peculiar to Chapman, in whose translations from
Homer it several times occurs; but I cannot adduce an example from any
other. The use of ‘olifant’ in this sense is quite common in the older
French (see Didot’s _Glossary_ in Ducange, ed. 1887).

                I did last afford
  The varied ornament, which showed no want
  Of silver, gold, and polished _elephant_.

          CHAPMAN, _The Odysseis of Homer_, b. xxiii. l. 306.


=ELEVATE.= There are two intentions with which anything may be lifted
from the place which it occupies; either with that of setting it in a
more conspicuous position; or else of removing it out of the way, or,
figuratively, of withdrawing all importance and significance from it.
We employ ‘to elevate’ now in the former intention; our ancestors for
the most part, especially those whose style was influenced by their
Latin studies, in the latter.

    Withal, he forgat not to _elevate_ as much as he could the fame
    of the foresaid unhappy field fought, saying, That if all had
    been true, there would have been messengers coming thick one
    after another upon their flight to bring fresh tidings still
    thereof.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1199.

    Audience he had with great assent and applause; not more for
    _elevating_ the fault and trespass of the common people,
    than for laying the weight upon those that were the authors
    culpable.--Id., _ib._ p. 1207.

    Tully in his oration Pro Flacco, to _elevate_ or lessen that
    conceit which many Romans had of the nation of the Jews,
    objects little less unto them than our Saviour in this place
    doth, to wit that they were in bondage to the Romans.--JACKSON,
    _Of the Primeval Estate of Man_, b. x. c. 14.


=EMBEZZLE.= A man can now only ‘embezzle’ another man’s property; he
might once ‘embezzle’ his own. Thus, while we might now say that the
Unjust Steward ‘embezzled’ his lord’s goods (_Luke_ xvi. 1), we could
not say that the Prodigal Son ‘embezzled’ the portion which he had
received from his father, and which had thus become his own (_Luke_
xv. 13); but the one would have been as free to our early writers as
the other. There is a form, ‘to imbecile,’ used by Jeremy Taylor and
others, which has the same meaning as this word.

    Mr. Hackluit died, leaving a fair estate to an unthrift
    son, who _embezzled_ it.--FULLER, _Worthies of England:
    Herefordshire_.

    The collection of these various readings [is] a testimony even
    of the faithfulness of these later ages of the Church, and of
    the high reverence they had of these records, in that they
    would not so much as _embesell_ the various readings of them,
    but keep them still on foot for the prudent to judge of.--H.
    MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b. vii. c. 11.

    If we are ambitious of having a property in somewhat, or affect
    to call anything our own, ’tis only by nobly giving that we
    can accomplish our desire; that will certainly appropriate
    our goods to our use and benefit; but from basely keeping or
    vainly _embezzling_ them, they become not our possession and
    enjoyment, but our theft and our bane.--BARROW, _The Duty and
    Reward of Bounty to the Poor_.

    Be not _prodigal_ of your time on earth, which is so little in
    your power. ’Tis so precious a thing that it is to be redeemed;
    ’tis therefore too precious to be _embezzled_ and trifled
    away.--HOWE, _The Redeemer’s Dominion over the Invisible World_.


=EMULATION.= South in one of his sermons has said excellently well, ‘We
ought by all means to note the difference between envy and emulation;
which latter is a brave and noble thing, and quite of another nature,
as consisting only in a generous imitation of something excellent; and
that such an imitation as scorns to fall short of its copy, but strives
if possible to outdo it. The emulator is impatient of a superior, not
by depressing or maligning another but by perfecting himself. So that
while that sottish thing envy sometimes fills the whole soul, as a
great fog does the air: this on the contrary inspires it with a new
life and vigour, whets and stirs up all the powers of it to action.’
But ‘emulation,’ though sometimes used by our early writers in this
nobler sense, to express an honourable and generous rivalry, was by no
means always so; it was often an exact equivalent to envy.

    Zeal to promote the common good is welcomed with suspicion
    instead of love, and with _emulation_ instead of thanks.--_The
    Translators’ Preface to the Authorized Version._

              So every step,
  Exampled by the first step that is sick
  Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
  Of pale and bloodless _emulation_.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Troilus and Cressida_, act i. sc. 3.

    And the patriarchs through _emulation_ [moved with _envy_,
    A.V.] sold Joseph into Egypt.--_Acts_ vii. 9. Rheims.


=ENDEAVOUR.= This, connected with ‘devoir,’ is used as a reflexive verb
in our version of the New Testament and in the Prayer Book. Signifying
now no more than to try, it signified once to bend all our energies,
not to the attempt at fulfilling, but to the actual fulfilment of a
duty. The force of such passages as Ephes. iv. 3, ‘_endeavouring_
to keep the unity of the Spirit,’ is greatly weakened by giving to
‘endeavour’ its modern sense. Attaching to it this, we may too easily
persuade ourselves that the Apostle does no more than bid us to attempt
to preserve this unity, and that he quite recognizes the possibility of
our being defeated in this attempt.

    This is called in Scripture ‘a just man,’ that _endeavoureth_
    himself to leave all wickedness.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, p. 340.

    One thing I do, I forget that which is behind, and _endevour_
    myself into that which is before.--_Phil._ iii. 13. Geneva.


=ENGRAVE.= This word has now quite lost the sense of ‘to bury,’ which
it once possessed. See ‘Grave.’

  So both agree their bodies to _engrave_;
  The great earthes womb they open to the sky; ...
  They lay therein those corses tenderly.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 1, 60.

  And now with happy wish he closely craved
  For ever to be dead, to be so sweet _ingraved_.

          _Britain’s Ida_, iv. 2.

  Thou death of death, oh! in thy death _engrave_ me.

          PHINEAS FLETCHER, _Poetical Miscellanies_.


=ENJOY.= Not, when Wiclif wrote, nor till some time later,
distinguished from ‘rejoice,’ which see.

    And the pees of Crist _enioye_ [pax Christi _exsultet_,
    Vulgate] in youre hertis.--_Col._ iii. 15. WICLIF.


  =ENORMOUS=, }
  ENORMITY.   }

Now only applied to that which is irregular _in excess_, in this way
transcending the established norm or rule. But departure from rule or
irregularity in _any_ direction might be characterised as ‘enormous’
once.

  O great corrector of _enormous_ times,
  Shaker of o’er-rank states, thou grand decider
  Of dusty and old titles, that heal’st with blood
  The earth when it is sick.

          BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, _The Two Noble
                Kinsmen_, act v. sc. 1.

  Wild above rule or art, _enormous_ bliss.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, v. 297.

    Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the _irregularities_ of
    vain-glory, and wild _enormities_ of ancient magnanimity.--Sir
    T. BROWNE, _Hydriotaphia_.


=ENSURE.= None of our Dictionaries, as far as I can observe, have taken
notice of an old use of this word, namely, to betroth, and thus to make
_sure_ the future husband and wife to each other. See ‘Assure,’ ‘Sure.’

    After his mother Mary was _ensured_ to Joseph, before they were
    coupled together, it was perceived she was with child.--_Matt._
    i. 18. Sir JOHN CHEKE.

    Albeit that she was by the king’s mother and many other put in
    good comfort to affirm that she was _ensured_ unto the king;
    yet when she was solemnly sworn to say the truth, she confessed
    that they were never _ensured_.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King
    Richard III._


=EPICURE.= Now applied only to those who devote themselves, yet with
a certain elegance and refinement, to the pleasures of the table;
‘gourmets’ rather than ‘gourmands.’ We may trace two earlier stages
in its meaning. By Lord Bacon and others the followers of Epicurus,
whom we should call Epicureans, are often called ‘Epicures,’ after the
name of the founder of their sect. From them it was transferred to all
who were, like them, deniers of a divine Providence; and this is the
common use of it by our elder divines. But inasmuch as those who have
persuaded themselves that there is nothing above them, will seek their
good, since men must seek it somewhere, in the things beneath them, in
sensual delights, the name has been transferred, by that true moral
instinct which is continually at work in speech, from the philosophical
speculative atheist to the human swine for whom the world is but a
feeding-trough.

    So the _Epicures_ say of the Stoics’ felicity placed in virtue,
    that it is like the felicity of a player, who if he were left
    of his auditors and their applause, he would straight be out of
    heart and countenance.--BACON, _Colours of Good and Evil_, 3.

    Aristotle is altogether an _Epicure_; he holdeth that God
    careth nothing for human creatures; he allegeth God ruleth
    the world like as a sleepy maid rocketh a child.--LUTHER,
    _Table-Talk_, c. 73.

    The _Epicure_ grants there is a God, but denies his
    providence.--SYDENHAM, _The Athenian Babbler_, 1627, p. 7.


=EQUAL.= The ethical sense of ‘equal,’ as fair, candid, just, has
almost, if not altogether, departed from it. Compare ‘Unequal.’

  O my most _equal_ hearers, if these deeds
  May pass with suffrance, what one citizen
  But owes the forfeit of his life, yea, fame,
  To him that dares traduce him?

          BEN JONSON, _The Fox_, act iv. sc. 2.

    Hear now, O house of Israel; is not my way _equal_? are not
    your ways unequal?--_Ezek._ xviii. 25. (A. V.)


  =EQUIVOCAL=, }
  EQUIVOCALLY, }
  EQUIVOCATION.}

The calling two or more different _things_ by one and the same _name_
(æque vocare) is the source of almost all error in human discourse.
He who wishes to throw dust in the eyes of an opponent, to hinder his
arriving at the real facts of a case, will often have recourse to this
artifice, and thus ‘to equivocate’ and ‘equivocation’ have attained
their present secondary meaning, very different from their original,
which was simply the calling of two or more different things by one and
the same word.

    This visible world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein
    as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in _equivocal_
    shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substance in that
    invisible fabric.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Religio Medici_.

    Which [courage and constancy] he that wanteth is no other
    than _equivocally_ a gentleman, as an image or a carcass is a
    man.--BARROW, _Sermon on Industry in our several Callings_.

    He [the good herald] knows when indeed the names are the same,
    though altered through variety of writing in various ages; and
    where the _equivocation_ is untruly affected.--FULLER, _The
    Holy State_, b. ii. c. 22.

    All words, being arbitrary signs, are ambiguous; and few
    disputers have the jealousy and skill which is necessary to
    discuss _equivocations_; and so take verbal differences for
    material.--BAXTER, _Catholic Theology_, Preface.


  =ERR=, }
  ERROR. }

‘To err’ is still to wander; but it is now used always in a figurative
and ethical sense, to deviate morally from the right way. In my first
quotation from Chapman, it is Telemachus who speaks, and of course
Ulysses of whom he speaks.

  To thy knees therefore I am come, to attend
  Relation of the sad and wretched end
  My _erring_ father felt.

          CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Odysseis_, b. iv. 435.

          Even he is _error_-driven,
  If yet he lives, and sees the light of heaven.

          Id., _ib._ xx. 323.

  The extravagant and _erring_ spirit hies
  To his confine.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 1.

  The characters of signs and _erring_ stars.

          MARLOWE, _Faustus_, sc. 3.


=ESSAY.= There is no particular modesty now in calling a treatise or
dissertation an ‘essay;’ but from many passages it is plain that there
was so once; which indeed is only agreeable to the proper meaning of
the word, an ‘essay’ being a trial, proof, specimen, taste of a thing,
rather than the very and completed thing itself.

    To write just treatises requireth leisure in the writer, and
    leisure in the reader; and therefore are not so fit neither in
    regard of your highness’ princely affairs, nor in regard of my
    continual service; which is the cause which hath made me choose
    to write certain brief notes, set down rather significantly
    than curiously, which I have called _Essays_. The word is late,
    but the thing is ancient.--BACON, _Intended Dedication of his
    Essays to Prince Henry_.

  Yet modestly he does his work survey,
  And calls a finished poem an _essay_.

          DRYDEN, _Epistle 5, To the Earl of Roscommon_.


=EXEMPLARY.= A certain vagueness in our use of ‘exemplary’ makes it for
us little more than a loose synonym for excellent. We plainly often
forget that ‘exemplary’ is strictly that which serves, or might serve,
for an exemplar to others, while only through keeping this distinctly
before us will passages like the following yield their exact meaning to
us.

    We are not of opinion, therefore, as some are, that nature
    in working hath before her certain _exemplary_ draughts or
    patterns.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. i. c. 3.

    When the English, at the Spanish fleet’s approach in
    eighty-eight [1588], drew their ships out of Plymouth haven,
    the Lord Admiral Howard himself towed a cable, the least
    joint of whose _exemplary_ hand drew more than twenty men
    besides.--FULLER, _The Holy State_, b. iv. c. 17.


=EXEMPLIFY.= The use of ‘exemplify’ in the sense of the Greek
παραδειγματίζειν (_Matt._ i. 19) has now passed away. Observe also in
the passage quoted the curious use of ‘traduce.’

    He is a just and jealous God, not sparing to _exemplify_ and
    _traduce_ his best servants [_i.e._ when they sin], that their
    blur and penalty might scare all from venturing.--ROGERS,
    _Matrimonial Honour_, p. 337.


=EXPLODE.= All our present uses of ‘explode,’ whether literal or
figurative, have reference to bursting, and to bursting with noise;
and it is for the most part forgotten that these are all secondary and
derived; that ‘to explode,’ originally an active verb, means to drive
off the stage with loud clappings of the hands: and that when one of
our early writers speaks of an ‘exploded’ heresy, or an ‘exploded’
opinion, his image is not drawn from something which, having burst, has
so perished; but he would imply that it has been contemptuously driven
off from the world’s stage--the fact that ‘explosion’ in this earlier
sense was with a great noise being the connecting link between that
sense and our present.

    A third sort _explode_ this opinion as trespassing on Divine
    Providence.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. iii. c. 18.

    A man may with more facility avoid him that circumvents by
    money than him that deceives with glosing terms, which made
    Socrates so much abhor and _explode_ them.--BURTON, _Anatomy of
    Melancholy; Democritus to the Reader_.

          Thus was the applause they meant
  Turned to _exploding_ hiss, triumph to shame,
  Cast on themselves from their own mouths.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, x. 545; cf. xi. 699.

    Shall that man pass for a proficient in Christ’s school,
    who would have been _exploded_ in the school of Zeno or
    Epictetus?--SOUTH, _Sermons_, vol. i. p. 431.


  =EXTERMINATE=, }
  EXTERMINATION. }

This now signifies to destroy, to abolish; but our fathers, more true
to the etymology, understood by it to drive men out of and beyond their
own borders.

    Most things do either associate and draw near to themselves the
    like, and do also drive away, chase, and _exterminate_ their
    contraries.--BACON, _Colours of Good and Evil_, 7.

    We believe it to be the general interest of us all, as much
    as in us lies, with our common aid and succour to relieve our
    _exterminated_ and indigent brethren.--MILTON, _Letter written
    in Cromwell’s name on occasion of the persecutions of the
    Vaudois_.

    The state of the Jews was in that depression, in that
    conculcation, in that consternation, in that _extermination_ in
    the captivity of Babylon.--DONNE, _Sermons_, 19.


  =FACETIOUS=,   }
  FACETIOUSNESS. }

It is certainly not a little remarkable that alike in Greek, Latin,
and English, words expressive of witty festive conversation should
have degenerated, though not all exactly in the same direction, and
gradually acquired a worse signification than that with which they
began; I mean εὐτραπελία, ‘urbanitas,’ and our own ‘facetiousness;’
this degeneracy of the words warning us how easily the thing itself
degenerates: how sure it is to do so, to corrupt and spoil, if it be
not seasoned with the only salt which will hinder this. ‘Facetiousness’
has already acquired the sense of buffoonery, of the making of ignoble
mirth for others; there are plain indications that it will ere long
acquire the sense of _indecent_ buffoonery: while there was a time,
as the examples given below will prove, when it could be ascribed
in praise to high-bred ladies of the court and to grave prelates and
divines.

    He [Archbishop Williams] demonstrated that his mind was
    the lighter, because his friends were about him, and his
    _facetious_ wit was true to him at those seasons, because his
    heart was true to his company.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop
    Williams_, part ii. p. 32.

    A grave man, yet without moroseness, as who would willingly
    contribute his shot of _facetiousness_ on any just
    occasion.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Oxfordshire_.

    The king easily took notice of her [Anne Boleyn]; whether
    more captivated by the allurements of her beauty, or the
    _facetiousness_ of her behaviour, it is hard to say.--HEYLIN,
    _History of Queen Mary_, Introduction.


=FACT.= This and ‘act’ or ‘deed’ have been usefully desynonymized. An
‘act’ or ‘deed’ implies now always a person as the actor or doer; but
it is sufficient for a ‘fact’ that it exists, that it has been done,
the author or doer of it falling altogether out of sight.

    All the world is witnesse agaynst you, yea, and also your owne
    _factes_ and deedes.--BARNES, _Works_, 1572, p. 251.

  But, when the furious fit was overpast,
  His cruel _facts_ he often would repent.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, 1, iv. 34.

    Icetes took but a few of them to serve his turn, as if he had
    been ashamed of his _fact_, and had used their friendship by
    stealth.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, 1656, p. 228.


=FAIRY.= In whatever latitude we may employ ‘fairy’ now, this Romance
word is generally restricted to the middle beings of Teutonic and
Romanic popular mythology; being in no case applied, as it used to be,
to the δαίμονες of classical antiquity.

    Of the _fairy_ Manto [daughter of Tiresias] I cannot
    affirm any thing of truth, whether she were a _fairy_ or a
    prophetess.--Sir J. HARINGTON, _Orlando Furioso_, b. lxiii.

    So long as these wise _fairies_ Μοῖρα and Λάχεσις, that is
    to say Portion and Partition, had the ordering of suppers,
    dinners, and great feasts, a man should never see any illiberal
    or mechanical disorder.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 679.


=FAME.= This is now generally applied to the reputation derived from
the report of great actions, but was constantly used in our Authorized
Version (_Gen._ xlv. 16; _1 Kin._ x. 7; _Jer._ vi. 24; _Matt._ ix. 26),
and in contemporary writings, as equivalent to report alone. Compare
the distinction in Quintilian (v. 3) between ‘fama’ and ‘rumor.’

    The occasion which Pharaoh took to murder all the Hebrew males
    was from a constant _fame_ or prenotion that about this time
    there should a Hebrew male be born that should work wonders
    for the good of his people.--JACKSON, _Christ’s Everlasting
    Priesthood_, b. x. c. xl.

    And his _fame_ [ἡ ἀκοὴ αὐτοῦ] went throughout all
    Syria.--_Matt._ iv. 24. (A. V.)


=FAMILY.= It is not a good sign that the ‘family’ has now ceased to
include the servants; but for a long while the word retained the
largeness of its classical use, indeed it has only very recently lost
it altogether.

    The same care is to extend to all of our _family_, in their
    proportions, as to our children: for as by S. Paul’s reasoning
    the heir differs nothing from a servant while he is in
    minority, so a servant should differ nothing from a child
    in the substantial part of the care.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Holy
    Living_, 3, 2.

    He [Sir Matthew Hale] kept no greater a _family_ than
    myself.--BAXTER, _Life_, part 3, § 107.

    A just master may have an unconscionable servant; and if he
    have a numerous _family_ and keep many, it is a rare thing if
    he have not some bad.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671, vol. i. p.
    115.

  To join to wife good _family_,
  And none to keep for bravery ...
  These be the steps unfeignedly
  To climb to thrift by husbandry.

          TUSSER, _Hundred Points of Good Husbandry_, 9.


=FANCY.= The distinction between ‘fancy’ and ‘imagination,’ for which
Wordsworth so earnestly contended, has obtained full recognition. It
was the more easy for it to find acceptance from the fact that it
fell in with a certain _clinamen_, a disposition already obscurely
working in the minds of men, to ascribe different domains of meaning
to these several words. But while what has been thus done has been
well done, it would be a mistake to regard this as an old distinction
that was now recovered from the oblivion into which it had fallen.
The Greeks ascribed no such subordination of φαντασία (‘phantasy,’
‘phansy,’ ‘fancy’) to some other word, as we now ascribe to ‘fancy’ in
its relation to ‘imagination.’ Φαντασία was for Plato and Aristotle
(see too Longinus, c. 15), all that ‘imagination’ is for us, the
power which summons up before the mind’s eye of the poet, and of as
many as he can carry along with him, the forms of things not present,
shaping and moulding, dissolving and reuniting and fusing these at his
will; while ‘fancy,’ as we now understand the word, with the humbler
offices assigned to it, as the aggregative and associated power, more
playful but less earnest, dealing often in prettinesses rather than
in beauties, had not obtained any special word to express it. At
the Revival of Learning both words found themselves in our English
vocabulary; but far down into the seventeenth century there was no
sense of any distinction between them; they were simply duplicates, one
from the Greek and one from the Latin. They are constantly employed
by Henry More as absolutely convertible; and where Milton makes any
difference between them, it is to the advantage of ‘fancy,’ which
includes ‘imagination’ as a greater includes a less. At a later day it
was felt to be a waste of wealth to have two words absolutely identical
in meaning for one and the same mental operation; above all, while
another went without any to designate it at all; and thus the instinct
which is ever at work in a language for the making the most of its
resources began to work for the desynonymizing of ‘imagination’ and
‘fancy.’ This could only be effected by the coming down of one or the
other from its height of place. The lot naturally fell on ‘fancy,’ the
grand φαντάζεσθαι, on which it rested, being far more obscured to such
as were not scholars, than the Latin ‘imago,’ on which ‘imagination’
reposed.

  Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
  Such shaping _phantasies_, that apprehend
  More than cool reason ever comprehends.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act v. sc. 1.

                              In the soul
  Are many lesser faculties that serve
  Reason as chief; among them _Fancy_ next
  Her office holds; of all external things
  Which the five watchful senses represent
  She forms _imaginations_, airy shapes.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, v. 300.

    The devil can act upon the soul by suggesting the ideas and
    spiritual pictures of things to the _imagination_. For this is
    the grand repository of all the ideas and representations which
    the mind of man can work either upon or by. So that Satan,
    our skilful artist, can as easily slide his injections into
    the _fancy_ as present a deluding image to the eye.--SOUTH,
    _Sermons_, 1737, vol. i. p. 110.


=FASTIDIOUS.= Persons are ‘fastidious’ now, as feeling disgust;
things, and indeed persons too, were ‘fastidious’ once, as occasioning
disgust. The word has shifted from an objective to a subjective use.
‘Fastidiosus’ had both uses, but our modern quite predominated; indeed
the other is very rare.


    That thing for the which children be oftentimes beaten, is to
    them ever after _fastidious_.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b.
    i. c. 9.


=FEATURE.= This, the Old French ‘faiture,’ Latin ‘factura,’ is always
the part now of a larger whole, a ‘feature’ of the landscape, the
‘features’ of the face; but there was no such limitation once; anything
_made_, any ‘fattura,’ was a ‘feature’ once. ‘Facies’ in Latin,
according to Aulus Gellius (xiii. 29), underwent a not very dissimilar
change of meaning. In addition to the examples which follow, see
Spenser, _Fairy Queen_, iv. 2, 44; iii. 9, 21.

  A body so harmoniously composed,
    As if nature disclosed
  All her best symmetry in that one _feature_.

          BEN JONSON, _The Forest_, xi.

    We have not yet found them all [the scattered limbs of
    Truth], nor ever shall do, till her Master’s second coming;
    He shall bring together every joint and member, and shall
    mould them into an immortal _feature_ of loveliness and
    perfection.--MILTON, _Areopagitica_.

  So scented the grim _feature_, and upturned
  His nostril wide into the murky air.

          Id. _Paradise Lost_, x. 278.

    But this young _feature_ [a commentary on Scripture which
    Archbishop Williams had planned], like an imperfect embryo, was
    mortified in the womb by Star-chamber vexations.--HACKET, _Life
    of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p. 40.


=FEMININE.= The distinction between ‘feminine’ and ‘effeminate,’ that
the first is ‘womanly,’ the second ‘womanish,’ the first what becomes a
woman, and under certain limitations may without reproach be affirmed
of a man, while the second under all circumstances dishonours a man, as
‘mannish’ would dishonour a woman, is of comparatively modern growth.
Neither could ‘feminine’ now be used as an antithesis of ‘male,’ as by
Milton (_Paradise Lost_, i. 423) it is.

  Till at the last God of veray right
  Displeased was with his condiciouns,
  By cause he [Sardanapalus] was in every mannes sight
  So _femynyne_ in his affectiouns.

          LYDGATE, _Poem against Idleness_.

    But Ninias being esteemed no man of war at all, but altogether
    _feminine_, and subject to ease and delicacy, there is no
    probability in that opinion.--Sir W. RALEIGH, _History of the
    World_, b. ii. c 1, § 1.

    Commodus, the wanton and _feminine_ son of wise Antoninus,
    gave a check to the great name of his father.--Bishop TAYLOR,
    _Apples of Sodom_.


=FIRMAMENT.= We now use ‘firmament’ only for that portion of the sky on
all sides visible above the horizon, having gotten this application
of the word from the Vulgate (_Gen._ i. 6), or at any rate from the
Church Latin (‘_firmamentum_ cæleste,’ Tertullian, _De Bapt._ 3), as
that had derived it from the Septuagint. This by στερέωμα had sought to
express the firmness and stability of the sky-tent, which phenomenally
(and Scripture for the most part speaks phenomenally) is drawn over
the earth; and to reproduce the force of the original Hebrew word,--in
which, however, there is rather the notion of expansion than of
firmness (see H. More, _Defence of Cabbala_, p. 60). But besides this
use of ‘firmament,’ totally strange to the classical ‘firmamentum,’
being derived to us from the ecclesiastical employment of the word,
there is also an occasional use of it by the scholarly writers of the
seventeenth century in the original classical sense, as that which
makes strong or confirms.

    I thought it good to make a strong head or bank to rule and
    guide the course of the waters; by setting down this position
    or _firmament_, namely, that all knowledge is to be limited by
    religion, and to be referred to use and action.--BACON, _Of the
    Interpretation of Nature_.

    Religion is the ligature of all communities, and the
    _firmament_ of laws.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Ductor Dubitantium_, iii.
    3, 8.


=FLICKER.= This, with its variant ‘flacker,’ can only be used now of
the wavering motion of flames; but it was not so once.

                        But being made a swan,
  With snowy feathers in the air to _flicker_ he began.

          GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. vii.

    And the Cherubins _flackered_ with their wings, and lift
    themselves up from the earth.--_Ezek._ x. 19. COVERDALE.


=FLIRT.= This, or ‘flurt,’ as it used to be spelt, is a slightly
contracted form of the French ‘fleureter,’ from ‘fleur,’ a flower,
to flirt meaning to go as a bee from flower to flower, daintily
sipping the sweets of one flower, and then passing on to another (see
Cotgrave). At the same time much graver charges came to be often
implied in the word than are implied at the present. See on it A. S.
Palmer’s _Leaves from a Word-hunter’s Note Book_, pp. 33-40.

    For why may not the mother be naught, a peevish, drunken
    _flurt_, a waspish choleric slut, a crazed piece, a fool, as
    soon as the nurse?--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part i.
    sect. 2.

    Gadrouillette, _f._ A minx, gigle, _flirt_, callet, Gixie; (a
    feigned word, appliable to any such cattell).--COTGRAVE, _A
    French and English Dictionary_, ed. 1673.


=FLOUNCE.= This word, meaning ‘to plunge about,’ must not be confused
with ‘flounce’ (a part of a dress); see Skeat’s Dictionary.

    After an exhortation to his army, he [the Emperor
    Conrad] commanded them all at once to _flounce_ into the
    river.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. ii. c. 28.

    Launch now into the whirlpool, or rather _flounce_ into the mud
    and quagmire.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, vol. ii.
    p. 200.


=FONDLING.= ‘Fond’ retains to this day, at least in poetry, not seldom
the sense of foolish; but a ‘fondling’ is no longer a fool.

    An epicure hath some reason to allege, an extortioner is a
    man of wisdom, and acteth prudently in comparison to him; but
    this _fondling_ [the profane swearer] offendeth heaven and
    abandoneth happiness he knoweth not why or for what.--BARROW,
    _Sermon_ 15.

    We have many such _fondlings_, that are their wives’
    pack-horses and slaves.--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part
    iii. sect. 3.


=FORGETFUL.= Exactly the converse of what has happened to ‘dreadful’
and ‘frightful’ (which see) has befallen ‘forgetful.’

  It may be the _forgetful_ wine begot
  Some sudden blow, and thereupon this challenge.

          WEBSTER, _A Cure for a Cuckold_, act iii. sc. 1.

                        If the sleepy drench
  Of that _forgetful_ lake benumb not still.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, ii. 73.


  =FORLORN=,    }
  FORLORN HOPE. }

There are two points of difference between the past use of ‘forlorn
hope’ and the present. The first, that it was seldom used,--I can
recall no single example,--in that which is now its only application,
namely, of those who, being the first to mount the breach, thus set
their lives upon a desperate hazard; but always of the skirmishers and
others thrown out in front of an army about to engage. Here, indeed,
the central notion of the word may be affirmed to agree with that it
has now. These first come to hand-strokes with the enemy; they bear the
brunt of their onset; with less likelihood therefore that they will
escape than those who come after. This is quite true, and it comes
remarkably out in my first quotation from Holland; just as in a retreat
they are the ‘forlorn hope’ (_Swedish Intelligencer_, vol. i. p. 163),
who bring up the rear. But in passages innumerable this of the greater
hazard to which the ‘forlorn hope’ are exposed, has quite disappeared,
and the ‘forlorn’ (for ‘hope’ is often omitted) are simply that part
of the army which, being posted in the front, is first engaged. The
phrase is an importation from Holland, and ‘hope’ is the Dutch ‘hoop,’
a heap, band, troop. I find it first in Gascoigne’s _Fruits of War_,
st. 74.

    The fearful are in the _forlorn_ [see _Rev._ xxi. 8] of those
    that march for hell.--GURNALL, _The Christian in Complete
    Armour_, c. 1.

    They [the Enniskillen horse] offered with spirit to make always
    the _forlorn_ of the army.--DRYDEN (Scott’s edition), vol. vii.
    p. 303.

    These [the Roman Velites] were loose troops, answerable
    in a manner to those which we call now by a French name
    _Enfans Perdues_, but when we use our own terms, _The Forlorn
    Hope_.--Sir W. RALEIGH, _History of the World_, v. 3, 8.

    Before the main battle of the Carthaginians he sets the
    auxiliaries and aid-soldiers, a confused rabble and medley of
    all sorts of nations, who, as the _forlorn hope_, bearing the
    furious heat of the first brunt, might, if they did no other
    good, yet, with receiving many a wound in their bodies dull and
    turn the edge of the enemy’s sword.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 765.

    Upon them the light-armed _forlorn hope_ [qui primi agminis
    erant] of archers and darters of the Roman host, which went
    before the battle to skirmish, charged forcibly with their
    shot.--Id., _ib._ p. 641; cf. pp. 1149, 1150, 1195.

    Christ’s descent into hell was not ad prædicandum, to
    preach; useless, where his auditory was all the _forlorn
    hope_.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Hampshire_.


  =FORMAL=,  }
  FORMALLY,  }
  FORMALITY. }

It has been observed already, _s. v._ ‘Common Sense,’ that a vast
number of our words have descended to us from abstruse sciences and
speculations, we accepting them often in a total unconsciousness of the
quarter from which they came. Another proof of this assertion is here;
only, as it was metaphysics there, it is logic here which has given us
the word. It is curious to trace the steps by which ‘formality,’ which
meant in the language of the Schools the essentiality, the innermost
heart of a thing, that which gave it its form and shape, the ‘forma
formans,’ should now mean something not merely so different, but so
opposite.

  Be patient; for I will not let him stir,
  Till I have used the approved means I have,
  With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers
  To make of him a _formal_ man again.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Comedy of Errors_, act v. sc. 1.

    Next day we behold our bride a _formal_ wife.--FULLER, _Of the
    Clothes and Ornaments of the Jews_, § 6.

    There are many graces required of us, whose material and
    _formal_ part is repentance.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Doctrine and
    Practice of Repentance_, i. 3, 47.

    It is not only as impious and irreligious a thing, but as
    senseless and as absurd a thing to deny that the Son of God
    hath redeemed the world, as to deny that God hath created the
    world; and he is as _formally_ and as gloriously a martyr that
    dies for this article, The Son of God is come, as he that dies
    for this, There is a God.--DONNE, _Sermons_, 1640, p. 69.

    According to the rule of the casuists, the _formality_
    of prodigality is inordinateness of our laying out, or
    misbestowing on what we should not.--WHITLOCK, _Zootomia_, p.
    497.

    When the school makes pertinacy or obstinacy to be the
    _formality_ of heresy, they say not true at all, unless it be
    meant the obstinacy of the will and choice; and if they do,
    they speak impertinently and inartificially, this being but
    one of the causes that make error become heresy; the adequate
    and perfect _formality_ of heresy is whatsoever makes the
    error voluntary and vicious.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Liberty of
    Prophesying_, § 2, 10.

    Strong and importunate persuasions have not the nature and
    _formality_ of force: but they have oftentimes the effect of
    it; and he that solicits earnestly, sometimes determines as
    certainly as if he did force.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol.
    viii. p. 288.


  =FRANCE=,  }
  FRENCHMAN. }

We consider now, and consider rightly, that there was properly no
‘France’ before there were Franks; and, speaking of the land and people
before the Frankish conquest, we use Gaul, Gauls, and Gaulish; just
as we should not now speak of Cæsar’s ‘journey into _England_.’ Our
fathers had not these scruples (North, _Plutarch’s Lives_). See the
quotation from Milton, _s. v._ ‘Civil.’

  When Cæsar saw his army prone to war,
  And fates so bent, lest sloth and long delay
  Might cross him, he withdrew his troops from _France_,
  And in all quarters musters men for Rome.

          MARLOWE, _First Book of Lucan_.

    A _Frenchman_ together with a _Frenchwoman_, likewise a Grecian
    man and woman, were let down alive into the beast-market into a
    vault under the ground, stoned all about.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p.
    467.


=FRET.= This, the A.S. ‘fretan,’ the German ‘fressen,’ to eat, is with
us restricted now, though once it was otherwise, to the eating of the
heart through care, according to an image which we all can only too
well understand; and which has given the Pythagorean ‘Cor ne edito,’
the French ‘dévoré de chagrins.’

  Adam afterward ayeines his defence
  _Frette_ of that fruit.

          _Piers Plowman_, B-text, xviii. 193 (Skeat).

  He [Hercules] slough the cruel tirant Buserus,
  And made his hors to _frete_ him fleisch and boon.

          CHAUCER, _The Monkes Tale_ (Morris, iii. p. 205).

  I saugh how that his houndes han him [Actæon] caught,
  And _freten_ him, for that they knewe him naught.

          Id., _Knightes Tale_ (Morris, ii. p. 64).

    Thou makest his beauty to consume away, like as it were a moth
    _fretting_ a garment.--_Ps._ xxxix. 12. P. B. V.


=FRIGHTFUL.= Now always active, that which inspires fright; but
formerly as often passive, that which is, or is liable to be,
frightened. See ‘Dreadful,’ ‘Hateful.’

                  The wild and _frightful_ herds,
  Not hearing other noise, but this of chattering birds,
  Feed fairly on the lawns.

          DRAYTON, _Polyolbion_, Song 13.


=FRIPPERY.= Now such trumpery, such odds and ends of cheap finery,
as one might expect to meet at an old-clothes shop; but in our early
dramatists and others of their time, the shop itself where old clothes
were by the ‘fripper’ or broker scoured, ‘interpolated,’ and presented
anew for sale (officina vestium tritarum, Skinner); nor had ‘frippery’
then the contemptuous subaudition of worthlessness in the objects
offered for sale which its present use would imply. See Littré,
_Dictionnaire_, s. v. _Friperie_.

  _Trinculo._ O worthy Stephano, look what a wardrobe here is for thee.

  _Caliban._ Let it alone, thou fool, it is but trash.

  _Trinculo._ O, ho, monster! we know what belongs to a _frippery_.

          SHAKESPEARE, _The Tempest_, act iv. sc. 1.

  _Enter Luke, with shoes, garters, fans, and roses._

  _Gold._ Here he comes, sweating all over,
          He shows like a walking _frippery_.

          MASSINGER, _The City Madam_, act i. sc. 1.

    Hast thou foresworn all thy friends in the Old Jewry? or dost
    thou think us all Jews that inherit there? Yet, if thou dost,
    come over, and but see our _frippery_. Change an old shirt for
    a whole smock with us.--BEN JONSON, _Every Man in his Humour_,
    act i. sc. 1.


  =FULSOME=,   }
  FULSOMENESS. }

I have seen it questioned whether in the first syllable of ‘fulsome’
we are to find ‘foul’ or ‘full.’ There should be no question on the
matter; seeing that ‘fulsome’ is properly no more than ‘full,’ and
then secondly that which by its fulness and overfulness produces first
satiety, and then loathing and disgust. This meaning of ‘fulsome’
is still retained in our only present application of the word,
namely to compliments and flattery, which by their grossness produce
this effect on him who is their object; but the word had once many
more applications than this. See the quotation from Pope, _s. v._
‘Bacchanal.’

  His lean, pale, hoar, and withered corpse, grew _fulsome_, fair,
  and fresh.

          GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. vii.

  The next is Doctrine, in whose lips there dwells
  A spring of honey, sweeter than its name,
  Honey which never _fulsome_ is, yet _fills_
  The widest souls.

          BEAUMONT, _Psyche_, b. xix. st. 210.

    Chaste and modest as he [Persius] is esteemed, it cannot be
    denied but that in some cases he is broad and _fulsome_. No
    decency is considered; no _fulsomeness_ omitted.--DRYDEN,
    _Dedication of Translations from Juvenal_.

    Making her soul to loathe dainty meat, or putting a surfeit and
    _fulsomeness_ into all which she enjoys.--ROGERS, _Naaman the
    Syrian_, p. 32.


=GARB.= One of many words, all whose meaning has run to the surface. A
man’s dress was once only a portion, and a very insignificant portion,
of his ‘garb,’ which included his whole outward presentment to other
men; now it is all.

  First, for your _garb_, it must be grave and serious,
  Very reserved and locked; not tell a secret
  On any terms, not to your father.

          BEN JONSON, _Volpone_, act iv. sc. 1.

    The greatest spirits, and those of the best and noblest
    breeding, are ever the most respective and obsequious in their
    _garb_, and the most observant and grateful in their language
    to all.--FELTHAM, _Resolves_, lxxxv.

                Have thy observing eyes
  E’er marked the spider’s _garb_, how close she lies
  Within her curious web, and by and by
  How quick she hastes to her entangled fly?

          QUARLES, _History of Samson_, sect. 19.

    A σεμνοπρέπεια in his person, a grave and a smiling _garb_
    compounded together to bring strangers into a liking of their
    welcome.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p. 32.

  Horace’s wit and Virgil’s state
  He did not steal but emulate,
  And when he would like them appear,
  Their _garb_, but not their clothes, did wear.

          DENHAM, _On the Death of Cowley_.


=GARBLE.= Writings only are ‘garbled’ now; and ‘garbled’ extracts are
extracts dishonestly made, so shifted, mutilated, or in other ways
tampered with, that, while presented as fair specimens, they convey a
false impression. It is not difficult to trace the downward progress
of the word. It is derived from the Low Latin ‘garbellare,’ to sift or
cleanse corn from any dust or rubbish which may have become mingled
with it. It was then applied to any separation of the good from the
bad, retaining that, rejecting this, and used most commonly of spices;
then generally to picking and choosing, but without any intention to
select the better and to dismiss the worse: and lastly, as at present,
to picking and choosing with the distinct purpose of selecting that
which should convey the worse impression, and dismissing that which
should have conveyed a truer and a better. It is a very favourite word
in its earlier uses with Fuller.

    _Garbling_ of bow-staves (anno 1 R. 3, cap. 11) is the sorting
    or culling out of the good from the bad.--COWELL, _The
    Interpreter_, s. v.

    There was a fair hospital, built to the honour of St. Anthony
    in Bennet’s Fink, in this city; the protectors and proctors
    whereof claimed a privilege to themselves, to _garble_ the live
    pigs in the markets of the city; and such as they found starved
    or otherwise unwholesome for man’s sustenance they would slit
    in the ear, tie a bell about their necks, and turn them loose
    about the city.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: London_.

  _Garbling_ men’s manners you did well divide,
  To take the Spaniards’ wisdom, not their pride;
  With French activity you stored your mind,
  Leaving to them their fickleness behind;
  And soon did learn, your temperance was such,
  A sober industry even from the Dutch.

          Id., _Worthies of England. A Panegyric on Charles II._

    To _garble_, to cleanse from dross and dirt, as grocers do
    their spices, to pick or cull out.--PHILLIPS, _New World of
    Words_.


=GARLAND.= At present we know no other ‘garlands’ but of flowers; but
‘garland’ was at one time a technical name for the royal crown or
diadem, and not a poetical one, as might at first sight appear; as
witness these words of Matthew of Paris in his _Life of Henry III._:
Rex veste deauratâ, et coronulâ aureâ, quæ vulgariter _garlanda_
dicitur, redimitus.

    In the adoption and obtaining of the _garland_, I being seduced
    and provoked by sinister counsel did commit a naughty and
    abominable act.--GRAFTON, _Chronicle of King Richard III._

    In whose [Edward the Fourth’s] time, and by whose occasion,
    what about the getting of the _garland_, keeping it, losing and
    winning again, it hath cost more English blood than hath twice
    the winning of France.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King Richard
    III._ p. 107.

              What in me was purchased,
  Falls unto thee in a more fairer sort;
  So now the _garland_ wear’st successively.

          SHAKESPEARE, _2 Henry IV._ act iv. sc. 4.


=GARRET.= The Old French ‘garite,’ which is our ‘garret,’ is properly
a place of refuge or safety, being derived from the verb ‘garir;’
thus ‘gagner la guérite,’ to save oneself by flight. But this place
of safety would be often on a high wall, in a watch-tower, upon the
tops of houses; and thus the notion of the ‘garret’ was connected with
that of the highest stage or storey. The subaudition of its being
the poorest and meanest place in the house is an afterthought, and
certainly has no place in any of the following uses of the word.

  Thanne walkede y ferrer, and went al abouten,
  And seigh halles full hyghe, and houses ful noble
  With gaie _garites_ and grete, and iche hole y-glased.

          _Peres the Plowman’s Crede_, l. 214 (Skeat).

  The _garettes_ aboven the ghates bryght
  Of the ceté of heven, I lyken thus ryght
  Tylle the _garettes_ of a ceté of gold,
  That wroght war als I before told.

          RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 9101-9104.

    It is nat possible algate to have highe _garettes_, or toures,
    or highe places for watche men; therefor it nedethe to have out
    watche.--VEGETIUS, quoted in Way’s _Promptorium_, p. 187.


=GAZETTE.= The French form of an Italian word ‘gazzetta,’ designating a
small piece of tin money current at Venice, of the value of less than
a farthing (see Florio). This word ‘gazzetta’ may possibly be quite
distinct in origin from ‘gazzetta,’ the name of a monthly bill of news
printed commonly at Venice (see Skeat’s _Dictionary_). We see the word
in this latter sense, but not as yet thoroughly at home in English, for
it still retains [as it retained much later] an Italian termination, in
Ben Jonson’s _Volpone_ (act v. sc. 2), of which the scene is laid at
Venice. Curiously enough the same play gives also an example, quoted
below, of ‘gazette’ in the sense of a coin.

    If you will have a stool, it will cost you a gazet, which is
    almost a penny.--CORYAT, _Crudities_, vol. ii. p. 15.

  What monstrous and most painful circumstance
  Is here to get some three or four _gazets_,
  Some threepence in the whole.

          BEN JONSON, _Volpone_, act ii. sc. 2.


=GELDING.= Restrained at present to _horses_ which have ceased to be
entire; but until ‘eunuch,’ which is of somewhat late adoption, had
been introduced into the language, serving also the needs which that
serves now.

    Thanne Joseph was lad in Egepte, and bought him Potiphar, the
    _gelding_ of Pharao.--_Gen._ xxxix. 1. WICLIF.

    And whanne thei weren come up of the watir, the spirit of
    the Lord ravyschide Filip, and the _gelding_ say hym no
    more.--_Acts_ viii. 39. WICLIF.

    Lysimachus was very angry, and thought great scorn that
    Demetrius should reckon him a _gelding_.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s
    Lives_, p. 741.


=GENEROSITY.= We still use ‘generous’ occasionally in the sense of
highly or nobly born; but ‘generosity’ has quite lost this its earlier
sense, and acquired a purely ethical meaning. Its history illustrates,
as does the history of so many other words, what one may call the
aristocratic tendencies of language.

    Nobility began in thine ancestors and ended in thee: and the
    _generosity_ that they gained by virtue, thou hast blotted by
    vice.--LYLY, _Euphues and his England_.

    Their eyes are commonly black and small, noses little, nails
    almost as long as their fingers, but serving to distinguish
    their _generosity_.--HARRIS, _Voyages_, vol. i. p. 465.


=GENIAL.= It is curious to find ‘genial’ used in a sense not merely
so different, but so directly opposed to that in which we employ it
now, as in the quotation which follows we do. Whether there are other
examples of the same use, I am unable to say.

    There are not a few very much to be pitied, whose industry
    being not attended with natural parts, they have sweat to
    little purpose, and rolled the stone in vain, which chiefly
    proceedeth from natural incapacity and _genial_ indisposition,
    at least to those particulars whereunto they apply their
    endeavours.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Vulgar Errors_, b. i. c. 5.


=GESTATION.= Now a technical word applied only to the period during
which the females of animals carry their young; but acknowledging no
such limitation once.

    _Gestation_ in a chariot or wagon hath in it a shaking of the
    body, but some vehement, and some more soft.--Sir T. ELYOT,
    _Castle of Health_, b. ii. c. 34.

    _Gestation_, an exercise of the body, by being carried
    in coach, litter, upon horseback, or in a vessel on the
    water.--HOLLAND, _Pliny, Explanation of the Words of Art_.


=GHOST.= It is only in the very highest acceptation of all that ‘Ghost’
and ‘Spirit’ are now synonymous and exchangeable. They once were so
through the entire range of their several uses.

  And in this manere was man made,
  And thus God gaf hym a _goost_.

          _Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus ix. 45 (Skeat).

  As wel in body as _goost_, chaste was sche.

          CHAUCER, _The Doctoures Tale_ (Morris, iii. p. 77).

    He sawe that the heavens opened, and the _goost_ as a dove
    commynge downe upon Him.--_Mark_ i. 10. COVERDALE.


=GIRL.= A child, and this of either sex. In Middle English the phrase
‘knave gerlys’ occurs in the sense of boys. It fared in early English
not otherwise with ‘wench’ (which see).

  Thorw wyn and thorw women there was Loth acombred,
  And there gat in glotonye _gerlis_ that were cherlis.

          _Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus i. 32 (Skeat).

  In daunger he hadde at his owne assise
  The yonge _gurles_ of the diocise,
  And knew here counseil.

          CHAUCER, _Canterbury Tales, The Prologue_, 663
                 (Morris, ii. p. 21).


=GIST.= This, the Old French ‘giste,’ from the old ‘gésir’ (Latin
‘jacēre’) meant formerly, as the French word ‘gîte’ means still, the
place where one lodges for the night. A scroll containing the route and
resting places of a royal party during a progress was sometimes so
called. For the connexion between ‘gist’ in this sense and ‘gist’ as we
use it now see Skeat’s _Dictionary_.

    After he had sent Popilius before in spial, and perceived that
    the avenues were open in all parts, he marched forward himself,
    and by the second _gist_ came to Dium [secundis _castris_
    pervenit ad Dium].--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1174.

    The guides who were to conduct them on their way had
    commandment so to cast their _gists_ and journeys that by three
    of the clock in the morning of the third day they might assail
    Pythoum.--Id., _ib._ p. 1193.


  =GLORY=,    }
  GLORIOUS,   }
  GLORIOUSLY. }

‘Glory’ is never employed now in the sense of ‘_vain_-glory,’ nor
‘glorious’ in that of ‘_vain_-glorious,’ as once they often were.

    In military commanders and soldiers, _vain-glory_ is an
    essential point; for as iron sharpens iron, so by _glory_ one
    courage sharpeneth another.--BACON, _Essays_, 54.

    So commonly actions begun in _glory_ shut up in shame.--Bishop
    HALL, _Contemplations, On Babel_.

  To that intent God maid him thus,
  That man suld nocht be _glorious_,
  Nor in himself na thing suld se
  But mater of humilitie.

          LYNDESAY, _The Monarchie_.

    Some took this for a _glorious_ brag; others thought he
    [Alcibiades] was like enough to have done it.--NORTH,
    _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 183.

    Likewise _glorious_ followers, who make themselves as
    trumpets of the commendation of those they follow, are full
    of inconveniences. For they taint business through want of
    secrecy; and they export honour from a man, and make him a
    return in envy.--BACON, _Essays_, 48 (Abbott, ii. p. 66).

    He [Anselm] little dreamt then that the weeding-hook of
    Reformation would after two ages pluck up his _glorious_
    poppy [prelacy] from insulting over the good corn
    [presbytery].--MILTON, _Reason of Church Government_, b. i. c.
    5.

    I speak it not _gloriously_, or out of affectation.--BEN
    JONSON, _Every Man out of his Humour_, act ii. sc. 1.


  =GOOD-NATURE=, }
  GOOD-NATURED.  }

As metaphysics have yielded us ‘common sense,’ and logic ‘formal’ and
‘formality,’ so we owe to theology ‘good-nature.’ By it our elder
divines understood far more than we understand by it now; even all
which it is possible for a man to have, without having the grace of
God. The contrast between grace and nature was of course unknown to the
Greeks; but, this being kept in mind, we may say that the ‘good-nature’
of our theology two centuries ago was as nearly as possible expressed
by the εὐφυΐα of Aristotle (_Eth. Nic._ iii. 7; compare the
‘heureusement né’ of the French); the genial preparedness for the
reception of every high teaching. In the paper of _The Spectator_,
quoted below, which treats exclusively of ‘good-nature,’ the word is
passing, but has by no means passed, into its modern meaning. See
‘Ill-nature.’

    _Good-nature_, being the relics and remains of that shipwreck
    which Adam made, is the proper and immediate disposition to
    holiness. When _good-nature_ is heightened by the grace of God,
    that which was natural becomes now spiritual.--Bishop TAYLOR,
    _Sermon preached at the Funeral of Sir George Dalstone_.

    _Good-nature!_ alas, where is it? Since Adam fell, there was
    never any such thing in rerum naturâ; if there be any good
    thing in any man, it is all from grace. We may talk of this and
    that, of _good-natured men_, and I know not what; but the very
    truth is, set grace aside (I mean all grace, both renewing
    grace and restraining grace), there is no more _good-nature_
    in any man than there was in Cain and in Judas. That thing
    which we use to call _good-nature_ is indeed but a subordinate
    means or instrument, whereby God restraineth some men more than
    others, from their birth and special constitution, from sundry
    outrageous exorbitances, and so is a branch of this restraining
    grace whereof we now speak.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671, vol.
    i. p. 279.

    If any good did appear in the conversation of some men who
    followed that religion [the Pagan], it is not to be imputed
    to the influence of that, but to some better cause; to the
    relics of _good-nature_, to the glimmerings of natural light,
    or (perhaps also) to secret whispers and impressions of divine
    grace on some men’s minds vouchsafed in pity to them.--BARROW,
    _Sermon 14 on the Apostles’ Creed_.

    They [infidels] explode all natural difference of good and
    evil; deriding benignity, mercy, pity, gratitude, ingenuity;
    that is, all instances of _good-nature_, as childish and silly
    dispositions.--Id., _Sermon 6 on the Apostles’ Creed_.

    Xenophon, in the Life of his imaginary Prince, is always
    celebrating the philanthropy or _good-nature_ of his
    hero, which he tells us he brought into the world with
    him.--_Spectator_, no. 169.


=GOSPELLER.= Now seldom used save in ritual language, and there
designating the priest or deacon who in the divine service reads the
Gospel of the day; but employed once as equivalent to ‘Evangelist,’ and
subsequently applied to adherents of the Reformed faith; both which
meanings have since departed from it.

    Marke, the _gospeller_, was the goostli sone of Petre in
    baptysm.--WICLIF, _The Prologe of Marke_.

    The persecution was carried on against the _gospellers_ with
    much fierceness by those of the Roman persuasion.--STRYPE,
    _Memorial of Archbishop Cranmer_, b. iii. c. 16.


=GOSSIP.= It would be interesting to collect instances in which the
humbler classes of society have retained the correct use of a word,
which has been let go by those of higher education. ‘Gossip’ is one,
being still used by our peasantry in its first and etymological sense,
namely as a sponsor in baptism--one _sib_ or akin in _God_, according
to the doctrine of the medieval Church, that sponsors contracted a
spiritual affinity with the child for whom they stood. ‘Gossips,’ in
this primary sense, would often be familiar with one another--and thus
the word was applied to all familiars and intimates. At a later day it
came to signify such idle talk, the ‘commérage’ (which word has exactly
the same history), which too often would find place in the intercourse
of such.

    They had mothers as we had; and those mothers had _gossips_ (if
    their children were christened), as we are.--BEN JONSON, _The
    Staple of News, The Induction_.

    Thus fareth the golden mean, through the misconstruction of
    the extremes. Well-tempered zeal is lukewarmness; devotion is
    hypocrisy; charity, ostentation; constancy, obstinacy; gravity,
    pride; humility, abjection of spirit; and so go through
    the whole parish of virtues, where misprision and envy are
    _gossips_, be sure the child shall be nicknamed.--WHITLOCK,
    _Zootomia_, p. 3.

    Should a great lady that was invited to be a _gossip_, in her
    place send her kitchen-maid, ’twould be ill-taken.--SELDEN,
    _Table-Talk, Prayer_.


=GRAVE.= The O.E. ‘grafan’ (compare German ‘graben,’ ‘to grave’) was
once used in the senses which ‘graben’ still retains. See ‘Engrave.’

  They sette mark hir metyng sholde be
  Ther King Nynus was _graven_, under a tree.

          CHAUCER, _Legend of Good Women_, 784 (Skeat, p. 50).

    I wil laye sege to the rounde aboute, and _grave_ up dykes
    against ye.--_Isai._ xxix. 3. COVERDALE.

    He hath _graven_ and digged up a pit, and is fallen himself
    into the destruction that he made for other.--_Ps._ vii. 16.
    (P. B. V.)


=GROPE.= Now to feel _for_, and uncertainly, as does a blind man or one
in the dark; but once simply to feel, to grasp.

    Tho han hondis, and schulen not _grope_ [et non _palpabunt_,
    Vulg.]--_Ps._ cxiii. 7. WICLIF.

    I have touched and tasted the Lord, and _groped_ Him with
    hands, and yet unbelief hath made all unsavoury.--ROGERS,
    _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 231.


=GRUDGE.= Now to repine at the good which others already have, or which
we may be required to impart to them; but it formerly implied _open_
utterances of discontent and displeasure against others, and did the
work which ‘to murmur’ does now. Traces of this still survive in our
English Bible.

    And the Farisees and scribis _grutchiden_; seiynge, For this
    resseyveth synful men, and etith with hem.--_Luke_ xv. 2.
    WICLIF.

    After bakbytyng cometh _grucching_ or murmuracioun, and somtyme
    it springith of impacience agayns God, and somtyme agains
    man.--CHAUCER, _The Persones Tale_ (Morris, iii. p. 305).

    Yea without _grudging_ Christ suffered the cruel Jews to
    crown Him with most sharp thorns, and to strike Him with a
    reed.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs: Examination of William Thorpe_.

    Use hospitality one to another without _grudging_ [ἄνευ
    γογγυσμῶν].--_1 Pet._ iv. 9. (A.V.)


=GUARD.= Is ‘guard,’ in the sense of welt or border to a garment,
nothing more than a _special_ application of ‘guard,’ as it is
familiar to us all? or is it altogether a different word with its own
etymology, and only by accident offering the same letters in the same
sequence? I have assumed, though not with perfect confidence, the
former; for indeed otherwise the word would have no right to a place
here.

    Antipater wears in outward show his apparel with a plain white
    welt or _guard_, but he is within all purple, I warrant you,
    and as red as scarlet.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 412.

    Then were the fathers of those children glad men to see their
    sons apparelled like Romans, in fair long gowns, _garded_ with
    purple.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 492.

      Give him a livery
  More _guarded_ than his fellows.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Merchant of Venice_, act ii. sc. 2.


=HAG.= One of the many words applied formerly to both sexes, but now
restrained only to one. See ‘Coquet,’ ‘Girl,’ ‘Harlot,’ ‘Hoyden,’
‘Termagant,’ ‘Witch.’

  And that old _hag_ [Silenus] that with a staff his staggering limbs
     doth stay,
  Scarce able on his ass to sit for reeling every way.

          GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. iv.

  Curst be thy throte and soule. Raven,
  Schriech-owle, _hag_ [addressed to a man].

          CHAPMAN, _Byron’s Conspiracies_, act iii.


  =HANDSOME=,   }
  HANDSOMENESS. }

Now referred exclusively to comeliness, either literal or figurative.
It is of course closely connected with ‘handy,’ indeed differs from
it only in termination, and in all early uses means having prompt
and dexterous use of the hands, and then generally able, adroit.
In Cotgrave’s _Dictionary_, ‘habile,’ ‘adroit,’ ‘maniable,’ take
precedence of ‘beau,’ ‘belle,’ as its French equivalents. See
‘Unhandsome.’

    Few of them [the Germans] use swords or great lances; but
    carry javelins with a narrow and short iron, but so sharp and
    _handsome_, that, as occasion serveth, with the same weapon
    they can fight both at hand and afar off.--GREENWEY, _Tacitus_,
    vol. i. p. 259.

    A light footman’s shield he takes unto him, and a Spanish blade
    by his side, more _handsome_ to fight short and close [ad
    propiorem _habili_ pugnam].--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 255.

    Philopœmen sought to put down all exercise, which made men’s
    bodies unmeet to take pains, and to become soldiers to fight in
    defence of their country, that otherwise would have been very
    able and _handsome_ for the same.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_,
    p. 306.

                Both twain of them made haste,
  And girding close for _handsomeness_ their garments to their waist,
  Bestirred their cunning hands apace.

          GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. vi.


=HARBINGER.= This word belongs at present to our poetical diction,
and to that only; its original significance being nearly or quite
forgotten: as is evident from the inaccurate ways in which it has come
to be used; as though a ‘harbinger’ were merely one who announced
the coming, and not always one who prepared a place and lodging, a
‘harbour,’ for another. He did indeed announce the near approach,
but only as an accidental consequence of his office. Our Lord, if we
may reverently say it, assumed to Himself precisely the office of a
‘harbinger,’ when He said, ‘I go to prepare a place for you’ (_John_
xiv. 2).

    There was a _harbinger_ who had lodged a gentleman in a very
    ill room; who expostulated with him somewhat rudely; but the
    _harbinger_ carelessly said, ‘You will take pleasure in it when
    you are out of it.’--BACON, _Apophthegms_.

  I’ll be myself the _harbinger_, and make joyful
  The hearing of my wife with your approach.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Macbeth_, act i. sc. 4.

    The fame of Frederick’s valour and maiden fortune, never as yet
    spotted with ill success, like a _harbinger_ hastening before,
    had provided victory to entertain him at his arrival.--FULLER,
    _Holy War_, b. iii. c. 31.

  A winged _harbinger_ from bright heaven flown
    Bespeaks a lodging-room
    For the mighty King of love,
  The spotless structure of a virgin womb.

          Bishop TAYLOR, _On the Annunciation_.


  =HARDY=, }
  HARDILY. }

When used of _persons_, ‘hardy’ means now enduring, indifferent to
fatigue, hunger, thirst, heat, cold, and the like. But it had once
a far more prevailing sense of bold, which now only remains to it
in connexion with _things_, as we should still speak of a ‘hardy,’
meaning thereby a bold, assertion; though never now of a ‘hardy,’ if we
intended a bold or daring person. Lord Bacon’s Charles the _Hardy_ is
Charles le _Téméraire_, or Charles the _Bold_, as we always style him
now.

  Hap helpeth _hardy_ man alday, quod he.

          CHAUCER, _Legend of Good Women_ (Skeat, p. 86).

    It is not to be forgotten that Commineus observeth of his
    first master, duke Charles the _Hardy_, namely, that he would
    communicate his secrets with none.--BACON, _Essays_, 27.

    _Hardily_ [audacter, Vulg.] he entride in to Pilat, and axide
    the body of Jhesu.--_Mark_ xv. 43. WICLIF (earlier version).


=HARLOT.= I have no desire to entangle myself in the question of this
word’s etymology; it is sufficient to observe that it was used of
both sexes alike; and though for the most part a word of slight and
contempt, signifying generally a low fellow, vagabond, buffoon, acrobat
(in the _Promptorium_ ‘scurrus’ is the Latin equivalent of it), implied
nothing of that special _form_ of sin to which it now exclusively
refers.

  Salle never _harlotte_ have happe, thorowe helpe of my Lord,
  To kille a crownde kynge, with crysome enoynttede.

          _Morte Arthure_, 2446.

  That non _harlot_ were so hardy to leyne hande uppon hym.

          _Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus 18, 77 (Skeat).

  He was a gentil _harlot_ and a kynde.

          CHAUCER, _Prologue_, 647.

    Thou lord (God) has done mare wondire than the _herlot_:
    he lerid to ga in a corde, thou makis men to ga abouen the
    watire.--HAMPOLE, _Psalm_ xxxix. 7 (ed. Bramley, 1884).

    No man but he and thou and such other false _harlots_ praiseth
    any such preaching.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of
    William Thorpe_.

    About this time [A.D. 1264] a redress of certain sects was
    intended, among which one by name specially occurreth, and
    called the assembly of _harlots_,[16] a kind of people of a
    lewd disposition and uncivil.--Id., _ib._ vol. i. p. 435.


=HARNESS.= In French the difference between the ‘harness’ of a man
and of a horse is expressed by a slight difference in the spelling,
‘harnois’ in one case, ‘harnais’ in the other. In English we only
retain the word now in the second of these uses.

    But when a stronger then he cometh apon hym and overcommeth
    him, he taketh from him his _harnes_ wherin he trusted, and
    devideth his gooddes.--_Luke_ xi. 22. TYNDALE.

    When Abram herde that his brother was taken, he _harnessed_ his
    bonde-servauntes, and followed after them untill Dan.--_Gen._
    xiv. COVERDALE.

    Those that sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him,
    and _harness_ them with the bright armour of life and
    immortality.--H. MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b. iv. c.
    18.

  And all about the courtly stable
  Bright-_harnessed_ angels sit in order serviceable.

          MILTON, _On the Nativity_.


=HARVEST.= It is remarkable that while spring, summer, winter, have all
their home-bred names, we designate the other quarter of the year by
its Latin title ‘autumn,’ ‘hærfest’ (= the German ‘Herbst’) having been
appropriated to the ingathering of the _fruits_ of this season, not to
the season itself. In this indeed we are truer to the proper meaning
of ‘harvest’ than the Germans, who have transferred the word from the
former to the latter; for it is closely related with the Greek καρπός.
Occasionally, however, as in the passages which follow, ‘harvest’
assumes with us also the signification of autumn.

    These ben _hervest_ trees [arbores autumnales, Vulg.] with out
    fruyt, twies deed, drawun up bi the roote.--_Jude_ 12. WICLIF.

  There stood the Springtime with a crown of fresh and fragrant flowers;
  There waited Summer naked stark, all save a wheaten hat;
  And _Harvest_ smeared with treading grapes late at the pressing fat;
  And lastly quaking for the cold stood Winter all forlorn.

          GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. ii.


=HASSOCK.= Already in Phillips’s _New World of Words_, 1706, the
‘hassock’ was what it is now, ‘a kind of straw cushion used to kneel
upon in churches;’ and some of us may remember to have seen in country
churches ‘hassocks’ of solid tufts of coarse black grass which had so
grown and matted together that they served this purpose sufficiently
well. But this is only the secondary and transferred use of the word.
It was once the name by which this coarse grass growing in these rank
tufts was itself called; and this name, as Forby tells us, in Norfolk
it still bears. See Way’s _Promptorium_, s. v. ‘Hassok.’

    Land so full of hassocks as to be impossible to find the deer
    among them.--HUTCHINSON, _Drainage of Land_.

    These _hassocks_, in bogs, were formerly taken up with a part
    of the soil, matted together with roots, shaped, trimmed, and
    dressed, a sufficient part of their shaggy and tufted surface
    being left to make kneeling much easier than on the pavement of
    the church or the bare-boarded floor of a pew.--FORBY, _East
    Anglia_.


=HATEFUL.= This has undergone exactly the same limitation of meaning as
‘Dreadful’ and ‘Frightful,’ which see.

                Little office
  The _hateful_ Commons will perform for us,
  Except like curs to tear us all to pieces.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Richard II._, act ii. sc. 2.

  No more shall nation against nation rise,
  Nor ardent warriors meet with _hateful_ eyes.

          POPE, _Messiah_, 57.


=HEAR.= Our scholars of the seventeenth century occasionally use the
Latin idiom, ‘to hear well,’ or ‘to hear ill,’ _i.e._ concerning
oneself (bene audire, male audire), instead of, to be praised, or to be
blamed.

    [Fabius] was well aware, that not only within his own camp, but
    also now at Rome, he _heard ill_ for his temporizing and slow
    proceedings.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 441.

    What more national corruption, for which England _hears ill_
    abroad, than household gluttony?--MILTON, _Areopagitica_, p.
    431.

    The abbot made his mind known to the Lord Keeper, that he
    would gladly be present in the Abbey of Westminster on our
    Christmas-day in the morning, to behold and hear how that
    great feast was solemnized in our congregations, which _heard_
    very _ill_ beyond the seas for profaneness.--HACKET, _Life of
    Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 210.


=HEARSE.= Now the carriage in which the dead are conveyed to the grave,
but this was not the meaning from the first. The origin is the French
‘herse,’ a harrow; this implement in France being made in a triangular
form, not square as with us. Hence the name of ‘herce’ or ‘herche’ was
given to a triangular framework, generally of iron, used for holding a
number of candles at funerals; and which, being elaborately fashioned
and framed, was allowed afterwards to remain in the church for a longer
or shorter period.

    In the quer was a _hersse_ mad of tymbur and covered with
    blake, and armes upon the blake.--_Diary of Henry Machyn_,
    1550-1563, p. 44.

    A cenotaph is an empty funeral monument or tomb, erected for
    the honour of the dead; in imitation of which our _hearses_
    here in England are set up in churches during the continuance
    of a year or for the space of certain months.--WEEVER, _Ancient
    Funeral Monuments_, p. 32.

    _Hearse_, an empty tomb erected for the honour of the
    dead.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.

  The beating of thy pulse, when thou art well,
  Is just the tolling of thy passing bell.
  Night is thy _hearse_, whose sable canopy
  Covers alike deceasëd day and thee.
  And all those weeping dews that nightly fall
  Are but the tears shed for thy funeral.

          Bishop KING, _Poems_, p. 19.


=HELP.= ‘To help’ used not unfrequently to designate an assisting in
one particular manner, in that namely of healing. A recent editor of
Shakespeare, not having this present in his mind, has said of those
lines first quoted below: ‘We cannot but believe Shakespeare wrote, Do
wounds _salve_ wounds, &c., or Do wounds _heal_ wounds, &c.’ There is
indeed nothing here needing to be set right.

  Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe?
  Do wounds _help_ wounds, or grief _help_ grievous deeds?

          SHAKESPEARE, _Lucrece_.

  Love doth to her repair,
  To _help_ him of his blindness,
  And being _helpt_ inhabits there.

          Id., _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act iv. sc. 2.

                    Still she retains
  Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve
  Visits the herds along the twilight meadows,
  _Helping_ all urchin blasts and ill-luck signs
  That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make.

          MILTON, _Comus_, 842.


=HEREAFTER.= This word, while it looks on to a future, always looks on
to one more or less divided by an interval of time from the present.
But it was often employed as equivalent to ‘from this time forth’ in
our Elizabethan literature; it is so in the examples which follow.

    _Hereafter_ [ἀπ’ ἄρτι] ye shall see heaven open and the angels
    of God ascending and descending on the Son of man.--_St. John_
    i. 51. (A.V.)

  We will establish our estate upon
  Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name _hereafter_
  The prince of Cumberland.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Macbeth_, act i. sc. 4.


=HIDE.= This word is at present only contemptuously applied to the skin
of man, being reserved almost exclusively for that of beasts; but it
had once the same extent of meaning as by the German ‘haut’ is still
retained, which is ‘cutis’ and ‘pellis’ both.

  The ladye fayre of hew and _hyde_
  Shee sate downe by the bedside.

          _Eger and Grine_, 263.

  Her kerchers were all of silk,
  Her hayre as white as any milke,
  Lovesome of hue and _hyde_.

          _Ballad of John de Reeve_, 226.


=HOBBY.= The ‘hobby’ being the ambling nag ridden for pleasure, and
then the child’s toy in imitation of the same, had in these senses
nearly passed out of use, when the word revived, by a very natural
transfer, in the sense which it now has, of a favourite pursuit which
carries a man easily and pleasantly forward.

    They have likewise excellent good horses (we term them
    _hobbies_), which have not the same pace that other horses
    in their course, but a soft and round amble, setting one leg
    before another very finely.--HOLLAND, _Camden’s Ireland_, p. 63.

    King Agesilaus, having a great sort of little children, was one
    day disposed to solace himself among them in a gallery where
    they played, and took a little _hobby_-horse of wood, and
    bestrid it.--PUTTENHAM, _Art of English Poesy_, b. iii. c. 24.

  A _hobby_-horse, or some such pretty toy,
  A rattle would befit you better, boy.

          RANDOLPH, _Poems_, p. 19.


=HOMELY.= The etymology of ‘homely’ which Milton puts into the mouth of
Comus,

  ‘It is for _homely_ features to keep _home_;
  They had their name hence,’

witnesses that in his time it had the same meaning which it has in
ours. At an earlier day, however, it much more nearly corresponded to
the German ‘heimlich,’ that is, secret, inward, familiar, as those may
be presumed to be that share in a common _home_. ‘Homeliness’ is more
than once the word by which Wiclif translates ‘mansuetudo:’ thus, _2
Cor._ x. 1; _Jam._ i. 21.

    And the enemyes of a man ben thei that ben _homeli_ with
    him.--_Matt._ x. 36. WICLIF. [Cf. _Judg._ xix. 4, and often.]

  God graunte the thin _homly_ fo espye:
  For in this world nys worse pestilence
  Than _homly_ foo, alday in thy presence.

          CHAUCER, _The Marchaundes Tale_ (Morris, ii. p. 335).

    Such peple be able and worthi to be admytted into the _homeli_
    reding of Holi Writt.--PECOCK, _Repressor_, c. 3.

    With all these men I was right _homely_, and communed with them
    long time and oft.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of
    William Thorpe_.


=HOYDEN.= Now and for a long time since a clownish ill-bred _girl_;
what is vulgarly called in America a ‘gal-boy,’ yet it is only another
form of ‘heathen.’ Remote as the words appear at starting, it will
not be hard to bring them close together. In the first place, it is
only by a superinduced meaning that ‘heathen’ has its present sense
of non-christian; it is properly, as Grimm has abundantly shown, as
indeed _Piers Plowman_ had told us long ago, a dweller on the heath;
then any living a wild savage life; thus we have in Wiclif (_Acts_
xxviii. 1), ‘And the _hethene_ men [barbari, Vulg.] diden to us not
litil curtesie;’ and only afterwards was the word applied to those who
resisted to the last the humanizing influences of the Christian faith.
This ‘heathen’ is in Dutch ‘heyden’ (see Sewel); while less than two
hundred years ago ‘hoyden’ was by no means confined, as it now is, to
the female sex, the clownish ill-bred girl, but was oftener applied to
men.

    Shall I argue of conversation with this _hoyden_, to go
    and practise at his opportunities in the larder?--MILTON,
    _Colasterion_.

    Falourdin, _m._ A lusk, lowt, lurden, a lubberly sloven,
    heavy sot, lumpish _hoydon_.--COTGRAVE, _A French and English
    Dictionary_.

    Badault, _m._ A fool, dolt, sot, fop, ass, coxcomb, gaping
    _hoydon_.--Id. _ib._

    A rude _hoidon_; Grue, badault, falourdin, becjaune; Balordo,
    babionetto, rustico; Bouaron.--HOWELL, _Lexicon Tetraglotton_.


  =HUMOUR=,  }
  HUMOUROUS, }
  HUMOURIST. }

The four ‘humours’ in man, according to the old physicians, were blood,
choler, phlegm, and melancholy. So long as these were duly tempered,
all would be well. But so soon as any of them unduly preponderated,
the man became ‘humourous,’ one ‘humour’ or another bearing too great
a sway in him. As such, his conduct would not be according to the
received rule of other men, but have something peculiar, whimsical,
self-willed in it. In this the self-asserting character of the
‘humourous’ man lay the point of contact, the middle term, between the
modern use of ‘humour’ and the ancient. It was his ‘humour’ which would
lead a man to take an original view and aspect of things, a ‘humourous’
aspect, first in the old sense, which in some of our provincial
dialects still lives on, and then in that which we now employ. The
classical passage in English literature on ‘humour’ and its history
is the Prologue, or ‘Stage,’ as it is called, to Ben Jonson’s _Every
Man out of his Humour_; it is, however, too long to cite; an earlier
occurs in Gower’s _Confessio Amantis_, lib. 7, in init. See ‘Temper.’
‘Humourous’ has been sometimes used in quite another sense, as simply
equivalent to moist; so in the passage from Chapman’s _Homer_, quoted
below.

    In which [kingdom of heaven] neither such high-flown
    enthusiasts, nor any dry churlish reasoners and disputers,
    shall have either part or portion, till they lay down those
    gigantic _humours_, and become (as our Saviour Christ, who is
    that unerring Truth, has prescribed) like little children.--H.
    MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b. viii. c. 15.

    _Good Humour_ is not only the best security against enthusiasm,
    but the best foundation of piety and true religion. For if
    right thoughts and worthy apprehensions of the Supreme Being
    are fundamental to all true worship and adoration, ’tis more
    than probable we shall never miscarry in this respect except
    through _Ill Humour_ only.--SHAFTESBURY, _Works_, 1727, vol. i.
    p. 22.

  Yet such is now the duke’s condition,
  That he misconstrues all that you have done;
  The duke is _humourous_.

          SHAKESPEARE, _As You Like It_, act i. sc. 2.

    The people thereof [Ephraim] were active, valiant, ambitious
    of honour; but withal hasty, _humourous_, hard to be pleased;
    forward enough to fight with their foes, and too forward to
    fall out with their friends.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of
    Palestine_, b. ii. c. 9.

    Or it may be (what is little better than that), instead of the
    living righteousness of Christ, he will magnify himself in some
    _humourous_ pieces of holiness of his own.--H. MORE, _Grand
    Mystery of Godliness_, b. viii. c. 14.

    Upon his sight of the first signs and experiments of the
    plagues which did accompany them, he [Pharaoh] demeaned himself
    like a proud phantastic _humorist_.--JACKSON, _Christ’s
    Everlasting Priesthood_, b. x. c. 40.

    The seamen are a nation by themselves, a _humourous_ and
    fantastic people.--CLARENDON, _History of the Rebellion_, b.
    ii. in init.

    Wretched men, that shake off the true comely habit of religion,
    to bespeak them a new-fashioned suit of profession at an
    _humourist’s_ shop!--ADAMS, _The Devil’s Banquet_, p. 52.

  This eased her heart and dried her _humourous_ eye.

          CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Odysseis_, b. iv. l. 120.


=HUNGER.= It was long before this and ‘famine’ were desynonymized, and
indeed the great famine year is still spoken of in Ireland as ‘the year
of the hunger.’ Still in the main the words are distinguished, ‘famine’
expressing an outward fact, the dearth of food, and ‘hunger’ the inward
sense and experience of this fact.

    And aftir that he hadde endid alle thingis, a strong _hungre_
    was maad in that cuntre.--_Luke_ xv. 14. WICLIF.

  Pestilences and _hungers_ shall be
  And erthedyns in many contré.

          RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 4035.

    Oon of hem roos up, Agabus bi name, and signefiede bi the
    spirit a greet _hungur_ to comynge in al the world, which
    _hungur_ was maad undur Claudius.--_Acts_ xi. 28. WICLIF.

    Behold the tyme commeth that I shal sende an _hunger_ in
    to the earth; not the _hunger_ of bread, nor the thyrst of
    water.--_Amos_ viii. 11. COVERDALE.


=HUSBAND.= This, the Old Norse ‘hús-bondi,’ is much more nearly the
Latin ‘paterfamilias’ than ‘vir.’ As the house, above all that of him
who owns and tills the soil, stands by a wise and watchful economy,
it is easy to see how ‘husband’ came to signify one who knows how
prudently to spare and save.

    All good _husbands_ agree in this, That every work should have
    the due and convenient season.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i. p.
    556.

    They are too good _husbands_, and too thrifty of God’s grace,
    too sparing of the Holy Ghost, that restrain God’s general
    propositions, Venite omnes, Let all come, so particularly as to
    say that when God says _all_, he means some.--DONNE, _Sermon
    33_.

  Thou dost thyself wise and industrious deem;
  A mighty _husband_ thou wouldst seem;
  Fond man, like a bought slave thou all the while
  Dost but for others sweat and toil.

          COWLEY, _The Shortness of Life and Uncertainty of Riches_.

    After we come once to view the seam or vein where the hidden
    treasure lies, we account all we possess besides as dross; for
    whose further assurance we alienate all our interest in the
    world, with as great willingness as good _husbands_ do base
    tenements or hard-rented leases, to compass some goodly royalty
    offered them more than half for nothing.--JACKSON, _The Eternal
    Truth of the Scriptures_, b. iv. c. 8.


  =IDIOT=,   }
  IDIOTICAL. }

A word with a very interesting and instructive history, which,
however, is only fully intelligible by a reference to the Greek. The
ἰδιώτης or ‘idiot’ is first the private man as distinguished from
the man sustaining a public office; then, inasmuch as public life
was considered an absolutely necessary condition of man’s highest
education, the untaught or mentally undeveloped, as distinguished from
the educated; and only after it had run through these courses did
‘idiot’ come to signify what ἰδιώτης never did, the man whose mental
powers are not merely unexercised but deficient, as distinguished from
him in full possession of them. This is the only employment to which we
now put the word; but examples of its earlier and more Greek uses are
frequent in Jeremy Taylor and others. See my _Synonyms of the N.T._ §
79.

    And here, again, their allegation out of Gregory the First and
    Damascene, That images be the laymen’s books, and that pictures
    are the Scripture of _idiots_ and simple persons, is worthy to
    be considered.--_Homilies; Against Perils of Idolatry_.

    It is clear, by Bellarmine’s confession, that S. Austin
    affirmed that the plain places of Scripture are sufficient to
    all laics, and all _idiots_ or private persons.--Bishop TAYLOR,
    _A Dissuasive from Popery_, part ii. b. i. § 1.

    Christ was received of _idiots_, of the vulgar people, and
    of the simpler sort, while He was rejected, despised, and
    persecuted even to death by the high priests, lawyers, scribes,
    doctors, and rabbies.--BLOUNT, _Philostratus_, p. 237.

    It [Scripture] speaks commonly according to vulgar
    apprehension, as when it tells of ‘the ends of the heaven;’
    which now almost every _idiot_ knows hath no ends at all.--JOHN
    SMITH, _Select Discourses_, vi., _On Prophecy_.

    Truth is content, when it comes into the world, to wear
    our mantles, to learn our language: it speaks to the most
    _idiotical_ sort of men in the most _idiotical_ way. The reason
    of this plain and _idiotical_ style of Scripture it may be
    worth our farther taking notice of.--Id., _ibid._


  =ILL-NATURE=, }
  ILL-NATURED.  }

This is now rather one special evil quality, as κακία is often in
Greek; it was once the complex of all, or more properly the natural
substratum on which they all were superinduced. See ‘Good-nature,’ and,
in addition to the passage from South, quoted below, a very instructive
discussion on both words in his _Sermons_, 1737, vol. vi. pp. 104-111.

    I may truly say of the mind of an ungrateful person, that
    it is kindness-proof. It is inpenetrable, unconquerable;
    unconquerable by that which conquers all things else, even by
    love itself. And the reason is manifest; for you may remember
    that I told you that ingratitude sprang from a principle of
    _ill-nature_; which being a thing founded in such a certain
    constitution of blood and spirit, as being born with a man
    into the world, and upon that account called _nature_, shall
    prevent all remedies that can be applied by education.--SOUTH,
    _Sermons_, 1737, vol. i. p. 429.

    King Henry the Eighth was an _ill-natured_ prince to execute so
    many whom he had so highly favoured.--Sir T. OVERBURY, _Crumbs
    fallen from King James’ Table_.

    He is the worst of men, whom kindness cannot soften, nor
    endearments oblige; whom gratitude cannot tie faster than
    the bands of life and death.--He is an _ill-natured_
    sinner.--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Miracles of the Divine Mercy_,
    serm. 27.


=IMP.= Employed in nobler senses formerly than now. ‘To imp’ is
properly to engraft, and an ‘imp’ a graft, scion, or young shoot; and,
even as we now speak of the ‘scions’ of a noble house, so there was
in earlier English the same natural transfer of ‘imps’ from plants to
persons.

  I was sum-tyme a frere,
  And the coventes gardyner for to graffe _ympes_.

          _Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus v. 136 (Skeat).

  Of feble trees ther cometh feble _ympes_.

          CHAUCER, _The Monkes Prologue_ (Morris, iii. p. 200).

    The sudden taking away of those most goodly and virtuous young
    _imps_, the Duke of Suffolk and his brother, by the sweating
    sickness, was it not also a manifest token of God’s heavy
    displeasure towards us?--BECON, _A Comfortable Epistle_.

    The king returned into England with victory and triumph; the
    king preferred there eighty noble _imps_ to the order of
    knighthood.--STOW, _Annals_, 1592, p. 385.


  =IMPOTENT=, }
  IMPOTENCE.  }

The inner connexion between weakness and violence is finely declared in
Latin in the fact that ‘impotens’ and ‘impotentia’ imply both; so once
did ‘impotent’ and ‘impotence’ in English (see Spenser’s _Fairy Queen_,
ii. 11, 23), though they now retain only the meaning of weak.

                      An _impotent_ lover
  Of women for a flash; but his fires quenched,
  Hating as deadly.

          MASSINGER, _The Unnatural Combat_, act iii. sc. 2.

    The Lady Davey, ever _impotent_ in her passions, was
    even distracted with anger, that she was crossed in her
    will.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 194.

    The truth is, that in this battle and whole business the
    Britons never more plainly manifested themselves to be right
    barbarous; such confusion, such _impotence_, as seemed likest
    not to a war, but to the wild hurry of a distracted woman, with
    as mad a crew at her heels.--MILTON, _History of England_, b.
    ii.

    If a great personage undertakes an action passionately and
    upon great interest, let him manage it indiscreetly, let the
    whole design be unjust, let it be acted with all the malice and
    _impotency_ in the world, he shall have enough to flatter him,
    but not enough to reprove him.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Holy Living_,
    c. 2, § 6.


=IMPROVE.= So long as the verb ‘to improve’ was directly connected in
men’s thoughts with the Latin ‘improbare,’ it was inevitable that it
should have a meaning very different from that which now attaches to
it; and so we find it used as equivalent to the Greek ἐλέγχειν, the
Latin ‘reprobare,’ to disapprove of, to disallow.

    If tho thre [opinions] be sufficiently _improved_, that is to
    saie, if it be sufficiently schewen that the thre be nought
    and untrewe and badde, alle the othere untrewe opiniouns
    bilded upon hem muste needis therebi take her fal.--PECOCK,
    _Repressor_, part 1, c. 1.

    For love of the world the olde pharesies blasphemed the Holy
    Ghost, and persecuted the manifest truth which they could not
    _improve_.--TYNDALE, _Exposition on the First Epistle of S.
    John_.

    If ye cannot _improve_ it [my doctrine] by God’s word, and
    yet of an hate and malicious mind that you bear to the truth,
    labour to resist it and condemn it that it should not spread, I
    ensure you your sin is irremissible and even against the Holy
    Ghost.--FRITH, _Works_, 1572, p. 3.

    Be instant in season and out of season; _improve_ [ἔλεγξον],
    rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.--_2 Tim._
    iv. 2. (Geneva Version.)


=INCENSE.= Now to kindle _anger_ only; but once to kindle or inflame
any passion, good or bad, in the breast. Anger, as the strongest
passion, finally appropriated the word, just as in Greek it made θυμός
and ὀργή its own.

    He [Asdrubal] it was, that when his men were weary and
    drew back, _incensed_ [accendit] them again, one while by
    fair words and entreaty, another while by sharp checks and
    rebukes.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 665.

    Prince Edward struck his breast and swore, that though all his
    friends forsook him, yet he would enter Ptolemais, though only
    with Fowin, his horsekeeper. By which speech he _incensed_ the
    English to go on with him.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. iv. c. 28.


=INCIVILITY.= See ‘Civil.’

    By this means infinite numbers of souls may be brought from
    their idolatry, bloody sacrifices, ignorance, and _incivility_,
    to the worshipping of the true God.--Sir W. RALEIGH, _Of the
    Voyage for Guiana_.


  =INCREDULOUS=, }
  INCREDULITY.   }

In Low Latin, and in ages of a blind unintelligent faith, ‘credulitas’
came to be regarded as equivalent to ‘fides,’ and ‘credulity’ to
‘faith.’ The two latter, with their negatives, ‘incredulity’ and
‘unbelief,’ have been usefully desynonymized in our later English; but
the quotations which follow will show that this was not always the case.

    For we also were sometime unwise, _incredulous_, erring,
    serving divers lusts and voluptuousnesses.--_Tit._ iii. 3.
    Rhemish Version.

    And we see that they could not enter in because of
    _incredulity_.--_Heb._ iii. 19. The same version.

    But let us take heed; as God hates a lie, so He hates
    _incredulity_, an obstinate, a foolish, and pertinacious
    understanding.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Sermon at the Funeral of the
    Lord Primate_.


  =INDIFFERENT=, }
  INDIFFERENCE,  }
  INDIFFERENTLY. }

It is a striking testimony of the low general average which we assume
common to most things, that a thing which does not _differ_ from
others, is therefore qualified as poor; a sentence of depreciation is
pronounced upon it when it is declared to be ‘indifferent.’ When in
Greek διαφέρειν means ‘præstare,’ and τὰ διαφέροντα ‘præstantiora,’ we
have exactly the same feeling embodying itself at the other end. But
this use of these words is modern. ‘Indifferent’ was impartial once,
not _making_ differences where none really were.

    God receiveth the learned and unlearned, and casteth away none,
    but is _indifferent_ unto all.--_Homilies: Exhortation to the
    Reading of Holy Scripture._

    If overseer of the poor, he [the good parishioner] is careful
    the rates be made _indifferent_, whose inequality oftentimes is
    more burdensome than the sum.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. ii. c.
    11.

  Come Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
  The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,
  The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release,
  The _indifferent_ judge between the high and low.

          Sir P. SIDNEY, _Astrophel and Stella_, 39.

    Requesting that they might speak before the senate, and be
    heard with _indifference_.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1214.

    That they may truly and _indifferently_ minister
    justice.--_Book of Common Prayer._


=INDIVIDUAL.= Properly not capable of division; indivisible, as is an
atom; then, undivided, inseparable, and so used in the quotations which
follow. We, using ‘individual’ as = person, have in fact recurred to
the earlier meaning.

  Then long eternity shall greet our bliss
  With an _individual_ kiss,
  And joy shall overtake us like a flood.

          MILTON, _On Time_.

            Anacreon,
  My _individual_ companion.

          HOLYDAY, _Marriages of the Arts_, act ii. sc. 6.



=INDOLENCE.= ‘Indolentia’ was a word first invented by Cicero, when
he was obliged to find some equivalent for the ἀπάθεια of certain
Greek schools. That it was not counted one of his happiest coinages
we may conclude from the seldom use of it by any other authors but
himself, as also from the fact that Seneca, a little later proposing
‘impatientia’ as the Latin equivalent for ἀπάθεια, implied that none
such had hitherto been found. The word has taken firmer root in English
than it ever did in Latin. At the same time, meaning as it does now a
disposition or temper of languid non-exertion, it has lost the accuracy
of use which it had in the philosophical schools, where it signified a
state of freedom from passion and pain; which signification it retained
among our own writers of the Caroline period, and even later. To this
day, indeed, surgeons call certain painless swellings ‘_indolent_
tumours.’

    Now, to begin with fortitude, they say it is the mean
    between cowardice and rash audacity, of which twain the one
    is a defect, the other an excess of the ireful passion;
    liberality between niggardise and prodigality, clemency and
    mildness between senseless _indolence_ and cruelty.--HOLLAND,
    _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 69.

    Now though Christ were far from both, yet He came nearer to an
    excess of passion than to an _indolency_, to a senselessness,
    to a privation of natural affections. Inordinateness of
    affections may sometimes make some men like some beasts; but
    _indolency_, absence, emptiness, privation of affections,
    makes any man, at all times, like stones, like dirt.--DONNE,
    _Sermons_, 1640, p. 156.

    The submission here spoken of in the text is not a stupid
    _indolence_, or insensibility under such calamities as God
    shall be pleased to bring upon us.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744,
    vol. x. p. 97.


  =INGENIOUS=,   }
  INGENUOUS,     }
  INGENIOUSLY,   }
  INGENUITY,     }
  INGENUOUSNESS. }

We are now pretty well agreed in our use of these words; but there
was a time when the uttermost confusion reigned amongst them. Thus,
in the first and second quotations which follow, ‘ingenious’ is used
where we should now use, and where oftentimes the writers of that time
would have used, ‘ingenuous,’ and the converse in the third; while in
like manner ‘ingenuity’ in each of the succeeding three quotations
stands for our present ‘ingenuousness,’ and ‘ingenuousness’ in the
last for ‘ingenuity.’ In respect of ‘ingenious’ and ‘ingenuous,’ the
arrangement at which we have now arrived regarding their several
meanings, namely that the first indicates _mental_, the second _moral_
qualities, is good; ‘ingenious’ being from ‘ingenium’ and ‘ingenuous’
from ‘ingenuus.’ But ‘ingenuity,’ being from ‘ingenuous,’ should have
kept the meaning, which it has now quite let go, of innate nobleness
of disposition; while ‘ingeniousness,’ against which there can be no
objection to which ‘ingenuousness’ is not equally exposed, might have
expressed what ‘ingenuity’ does now.

    Now as an _ingenious_ debtor desires his freedom at his
    creditor’s hands, that thereby he may be capable of paying his
    debt, as well as to escape the misery which himself should
    endure by his imprisonment; so an _ingenious_ soul (and such
    is every saint) deprecates hell, as well with an eye to
    God’s glory as to his own ease and happiness.--GURNALL, _The
    Christian in Complete Armour_, part ii. c. 54, § 2.

  Here let us breathe and haply institute
  A course of learning and _ingenious_ studies.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Taming of the Shrew_, act i. sc. 1.

    An _ingenious_ person will rather wear a plain garment of
    his own than a rich livery, the mark of servitude.--BATES,
    _Spiritual Perfection_, Preface.

  Thou art true and honest; _ingeniously_ I speak;
  No blame belongs to thee.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Timon of Athens_, act ii. sc. 2.

    Since heaven is so glorious a state, and so certainly designed
    for us, if we please, let us spend all that we have, all our
    passions and affections, all our study and industry, all
    our desires and stratagems, all our witty and _ingenuous_
    faculties, towards the arriving thither.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Holy
    Dying_, c. 2, § 4.

    Christian simplicity teaches openness and _ingenuity_ in
    contracts and matters of buying and selling.--Id., _Sermon_ 24.
    part ii.

    When a man makes use of the name of any simple idea, which he
    perceives is not understood, or is in danger to be mistaken, he
    is obliged by the laws of _ingenuity_ and the end of speech, to
    declare his meaning, and make known what idea he makes it stand
    for.--LOCKE, _An Essay concerning Human Understanding_, b. iii.
    c. 11, § 14.

    It [gratitude] is such a debt as is left to every man’s
    _ingenuity_ (in respect to any legal coaction) whether he will
    pay it or no.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, vol. i. p. 410.

    By his _ingenuousness_ he [the good handicrafts-man] leaves his
    art better than he found it.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. ii. c.
    19.


=INN.= This has always meant a lodging, a place to which one turns
_in_; but it is now, and for a long time has been, restricted to one
which yields food and shelter, or it may be only the last, in return
for payment. Such terms as Lincoln’s Inn, Gray’s Inn, attest the older
use of the word.

  Arcite anoon unto his _inne_ is fare,
  As fayn as foul is of the brighte sonne.

          CHAUCER, _Knightes Tale_, 1578 (Morris, ii. p. 75).

  The honey-makers’ busy buzzing swarm
  Fiercely assail and wound the naked skins
  Of such as come to rob their curious _inns_.

          SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas, his Divine Works,
                The Capitaine_, 369.


  =INSOLENT=, }
  INSOLENCE.  }

The ‘insolent’ is properly no more than the unusual. This, as the
violation of the fixed law and order of society, is commonly offensive,
even as it indicates a mind willing to offend; and thus ‘insolent’ has
acquired its present meaning. But for the poet, the fact that he is
forsaking the beaten track, that he can say,

  ‘peragro loca, _nullius ante
  Trita solo_,’

in this way to be ‘insolent’ or original, as we should now say, may
be his highest praise. The epithet ‘furious’ joined to ‘insolence’ in
the second quotation is to be explained of that ‘fine madness’ which
Spenser as a Platonist esteemed a necessary condition of the poet.

    For ditty and amorous ode I find Sir Walter Raleigh’s vein most
    lofty, _insolent_, and passionate.--PUTTENHAM, _Art of English
    Poesy_, b. i. c. 3.

                  Her great excellence
  Lifts me above the measure of my might,
  That, being fild with furious _insolence_,
  I feele myselfe like one yrapt in spright.

          SPENSER, _Colin Clout’s come Home again_, 619
               (Morris, v. p. 105).


  =INSTITUTE=, }
  INSTITUTER,  }
  INSTITUTION. }

These all had once in English meanings coextensive with those of the
Latin words which they represent. We now inform, instruct (the images
are nearly the same), but we do not ‘institute,’ children any more.

  A painful schoolmaster, that hath in hand
  To _institute_ the flower of all a land,
  Gives longest lessons unto those, where Heaven
  The ablest wits and aptest wills hath given.

          SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas; Seventh Day of the First Week_.

    Neither did he this for want of better instructions, having
    had the learnedest and wisest man reputed of all Britain, the
    _instituter_ of his youth.--MILTON, _History of England_, b.
    iii.

    A Short Catechism for the _institution_ of young persons in the
    Christian Religion.--_Title of a Treatise by Jeremy Taylor._


  =INTEND=,  }
  INTENTION. }

The inveterate habit of procrastination has brought us to say now that
we ‘intend’ a thing, when we mean hereafter to do it. Our fathers with
a more accurate use of the word ‘intended’ that which they were at
that moment actually and earnestly engaged in doing. The same habit of
procrastination has made ‘by-and-bye’ mean not straightway, but at a
comparatively remote period; and ‘presently’ not at this present, but
in a little while. ‘Intention’ too, or ‘intension,’ for Jeremy Taylor
in the same work spells the word both ways, was once something not
future but present.

    The Devil sleepeth not. He ever _intendeth_ to withdraw us from
    prayer.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, vol. i. p. 342.

    So often as he [Augustus] was at them [the games], he did
    nothing else but _intend_ the same.--HOLLAND, _Suetonius_, p.
    60.

    He [Lord Bacon] saw plainly that natural philosophy hath been
    _intended_ by few persons, and in them hath occupied the least
    part of their time.--BACON, _Filum Labyrinthi_, 6.

    It is so plain that every man profiteth in that he most
    _intendeth_, that it needeth not to be stood upon.--Id.,
    _Essays_, 29.

  I suffer for their guilt now, and my soul,
  Like one that looks on ill-affected eyes,
  Is hurt with mere _intention_ on their follies.

          BEN JONSON, _Cynthia’s Revels_.

            But did you not
  Observe with what _intention_ the duke
  Set eyes on Domitilla?

          SHIRLEY, _The Royal Master_, act ii. sc. 1.

    According as we neglect meditation, so are our prayers
    imperfect; meditation being the soul of prayer, and the
    _intention_ of our spirit.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Life of Christ_,
    part i. § 5.


=JACOBIN.= The great French Revolution has stamped itself too deeply
and terribly upon the mind of Europe for ‘Jacobin’ ever again to have
any other meaning than that which the famous Club, assembling in the
hall of the Jacobin convent, has given it; but it needs hardly to say
that a ‘Jacobin’ was once a Dominican friar, though this name did not
extend beyond France.

  Now am I yonge, stoute and bolde,
  Now am I Robert, now Robyn,
  Now frere menour, now _jacobyn_.

          _Romaunt of the Rose_, 6339 (Morris, vi. p. 193).

  Agent for England, send thy mistress word,
  What this detested _Jacobin_ hath done.

          MARLOWE, _The Massacre at Paris_, act iii. sc. 4.

    A certain _Jacobin_ offered himself to the fire to prove that
    Savonarola had true revelations, and was no heretic.--Bishop
    TAYLOR, _The Liberty of Prophesying_, The Epistle Dedicatory.


=JOLLY.= For a long time after its adoption into the English language,
‘jolly’ kept the meaning of beautiful, which it brought with it from
the French, and which ‘joli’ in French still retains.

  Then sete thei thre to solas hem at the windowe,
  Even over the _joly_ place that to that paleis longed.

          _William of Palerne_, 5478.

                                I know myself to be
  A _jolly_ fellow: for even now I did behold and see
  Mine image in the water sheer, and sure methought I took
  Delight to see my goodly shape and favour in the brook.

          GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. 13.

  When all the glorious realm of pure delight,
  Illustrious Paradise, waited on the feet
  Of _jolly_ Eve.

          BEAUMONT, _Psyche_, iv. 4.


=KINDLY.= Nothing ethical was connoted in ‘kindly’ once; it was simply
the adjective of ‘kind.’ But it is God’s ordinance that ‘kind’ should
be ‘kindly,’ in our modern sense of the word as well; and thus the word
has attained this meaning. See ‘Unkind.’

    This Joon in the Gospel witnesseth that the _kyndeli_ sone of
    God is maad man.--WICLIF, _Prologe of John_.

    Forasmuch as his mind gave him, that, his nephews living, men
    would not reckon that he could have right to the realm, he
    thought therefore without delay to rid them, as though the
    killing of his kinsmen could amend his cause, and make him a
    _kindly_ king.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King Richard III._

    The royal eagle is called in Greek Gnesios, as one would say,
    true and _kindly_, as descended from the gentle and right aëry
    of eagles.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 272.

    Whatsoever as the Son of God He may do, it is _kindly_ for
    Him as the Son of Man to save the sons of men.--ANDREWES,
    _Sermons_, vol. iv. p. 253.

    Where are they? Gone to their own place, to Judas their
    brother; and, as is most _kindly_, the sons, to the father, of
    wickedness, there to be plagued with him for ever.--Id., _Of
    the Conspiracy of the Gowries_, serm. 4.

    What greater tyranny and usurpation over poor souls would he
    have than is now exercised, since the perjured prelates, the
    _kindly_ brood of the Man of sin, have defiled and burdened our
    poor Church?--_Jus Populi Vindicatum_, 1665.


=KNAVE.= How many serving-lads must have been unfaithful and dishonest
before ‘knave,’ which meant at first no more than boy, acquired the
meaning which it has now! Note the same history in the German ‘Bube,’
‘Dirne,’ ‘Schalk,’ and see ‘Varlet.’

    If it is a _knave_ child, sle ye him; if it is a womman, kepe
    ye.--_Exodus_ i. 16. WICLIF.

  The tyme is come, a _knave_ childe sche bere.

          CHAUCER, _The Man of Lawes Tale_ (Morris, ii. p. 192).

                  O murderous slumber,
  Lay’st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy,
  That plays thee music? gentle _knave_, good night.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Julius Cæsar_, act iv. sc. 3.


=KNUCKLE.= The German ‘Knöchel’ is any joint whatsoever; nor was our
‘knuckle’ limited formerly, as now it well nigh exclusively is, at
least in regard of the human body, to certain smaller joints of the
hand.

  Thou, Nilus, wert assigned to stay her pains and travels past,
  To which as soon as Io came with much ado, at last,
  With weary _knuckles_ on thy brim she kneeled sadly down.

          GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. 1.

    But when

      ‘his scornful muse could ne’er abide
  With tragic shoes her _ancles_ for to hide,’

    the pace of the verse told me that her maukin _knuckles_ were
    never shapen to that royal buskin.--MILTON, _Apology for
    Smectymnuus_, p. 186.


=LACE.= That which now commonly bears this name has it on the score
of its curiously woven threads; but ‘lace,’ Old French ‘las,’ ‘laqs,’
identical with the Latin ‘laqueus,’ is commonly used by our earlier
writers in the more original sense of a noose.

  And in my Mynde I measure pace by pace,
  To seeke the place where I myself had lost,
  That day that I was tangled in the _lace_
  In seemyng slacke that knitted ever most.

          EARL OF SURREY, _The Restless State of a Lover_, p. 2
               (ed. 1717).

    Yet if the polype can get and entangle him [the lobster] once
    within his long _laces_, he dies for it.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s
    Morals_, p. 973.


=LANDSCAPE.= The second syllable in ‘land_scape_’ or ‘land_skip_’ is
only a Dutch example of an earlier form of the same termination which
we meet in ‘friend_ship_,’ ‘lord_ship_,’ ‘fellow_ship_,’ and the
like. As these mean the manner or fashion of a friend, of a lord, and
so on, so ‘landscape’ the manner or fashion of the land; and in our
earlier English this rather as the pictured or otherwise counterfeited
model, than in its very self. As this imitation would be necessarily
in small, the word acquired the secondary meaning of a compendium or
multum in parvo; cf. Skinner, _Etymologicon_, s. v. _Landskip_: Tabula
chorographica, primario autem terra, provincia, seu topographica,
σκιαγραφία; Phillips, _New World of Words_, s. v.; and Earle,
_Philology of the English Tongue_, § 327, who suggests that the word
has been borrowed by us from the Dutch painters, which would account
for the termination ‘-scape,’ ‘-skip’ instead of the native suffix
‘-ship.’ See Skeat’s Dictionary.

    The sins of other women show in _landskip_, far off and full of
    shadow; her [a harlot’s] _in statue_, near hand and bigger in
    the life.--Sir THOMAS OVERBURY, _Characters_.

    London, as you know, is our Ἑλλάδος Ἑλλάς, our England of
    England, and our _landskip_ and representation of the whole
    island.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p. 59.

    The detestable traitor, that prodigy of nature, that opprobrium
    of mankind, that _landscape_ of iniquity, that sink of sin,
    and that compendium of baseness, who now calls himself our
    Protector.--_Address sent by the Anabaptists to the King_,
    1658, in CLARENDON’S _History of the Rebellion_, b. xv.


=LATCH.= Few things now are ‘latched’ or caught except a door or
casement; but the word was formerly of much wider use. It is the O.E.
_lœccan_.

    Those that remained threw darts at our men, and _latching_ our
    darts, sent them again at us.--GOLDING, _Cæsar_, p. 60.

    Peahens are wont to lay by night, and that from an high place
    where they perch; and then, unless there be good heed taken
    that the eggs be _latched_ in some soft bed underneath, they
    are soon broken.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 301.


=LECTURE.= Where words like ‘lecture’ and ‘reading’ exist side by side,
it is very usual for one after a while to be appropriated to the doing
of the thing, the other to the thing which is done. So it has been
here; but they were once synonymous.

    After the _lecture_ of the law and of the prophets, the rulers
    of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Good brethren, if ye
    have any sermon to exhort the people, say on.--_Acts_ xiii. 15.
    COVERDALE.

    That may be gathered out of Plutarch’s writings, out of
    those especially where he speaketh of the _lecture_ of the
    poets.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 982.

    In my _lecture_ I often perceive how my authors commend
    examples for magnanimity and force, that rather proceed from
    a thick skin and hardness of the bones.--FLORIO, _Montaigne’s
    Essays_, p. 72.


=LEGACY.= This now owns no relation except with ‘lēgatum,’ which
meant in juristic Latin a portion of the inheritance by testamentary
disposition withdrawn from the heir, and bestowed upon some other. It
was formerly used as a derivative of ‘legatus,’ ambassador, in the
sense of embassage.

    They were then preaching bishops, and more often seen in
    pulpits than in princes’ palaces: more often occupied in his
    _legacy_, who said, Go ye into the whole world and preach
    the gospel to all men, than in embassages and affairs of
    princes.--_Homilies, Against Peril of Idolatry._

    Otherwise, while he is yet far off, sending a _legacy_, he
    asketh those things that belong to peace.--_Luke_ xiv. 32.
    Rheims.

    And his citizens hated him, and they sent a _legacie_
    after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over
    us.--_Luke_ xix. 14. Ibid.


=LEVY.= Troops are now raised, or ‘levied,’ indifferently: but a siege
is only raised, and not ‘levied,’ as it too once might have been.

    Euphranor having _levied_ the siege from this one city,
    forthwith led his army to Demetrias.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1178.


  =LEWD=,   }
  LEWDLY,   }
  LEWDNESS. }

There are three distinct stages in the meaning of the word ‘lewd;’ of
these it has entirely overlived two, and survives only in the third,
namely in that of wanton or lascivious. Without discussing here its
etymology or its exact relation to ‘lay,’ it is sufficient to observe,
that, as ‘lay,’ it was often used in the sense of ignorant, or rather
unlearned. Next, according to the proud saying of the Pharisees, ‘This
people who knoweth not the law are cursed’ (_John_ vii. 49), and on
the assumption, which would have its truth, that those untaught in the
doctrines, would be unexercised in the practices, of Christianity, it
came to signify vicious, though without designating one vice more than
others. While in its present and third stage, it has, like so many
other words, retired from this general designation of all vices, to
express one of the more frequent, alone.

  Archa-Dei in the olde law Levites it kepten;
  Hadde nevere _lewed_ man leve to leggen honde on that chest.

          _Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus xii. 115 (Skeat).

    For as moche as the curatis ben often so _lewed_, that thei
    understonden not bookis of Latyn for to teche the peple, it is
    spedful not only to the _lewed_ peple, but also to the _lewed_
    curatis, to have bookis in Englisch of needful loore to the
    _lewed_ people.--_Wycliffe Mss._, p. 5.

  Of sondry thoughtes thus they jangle and trete
  As _lewed_ peple demeth comunly
  Of thinges that ben maad more subtily
  Than they can in her _lewdenes_ comprehende.

          CHAUCER, _The Squieres Tale_ (Morris, ii. p. 361).

    Joon was a _lewde_ fischere and untaught in scolys.--PURVEY,
    _Preface to Epistles of St. Jerome_, p. 65.

    Neither was it Christ’s intention that there should be any
    thing in it [the Lord’s Prayer] dark or far from our capacity,
    specially since it belongeth equally to all, and is as
    necessary for the _lewd_ as the learned.--_A Short Catechism_,
    1553.

                    This is servitude,
  To serve the unwise, or him who hath rebelled
  Against his worthier, as thine now serve thee,
  Thyself not free, but to thyself enthralled,
  Yet _lewdly_ darest our ministering upbraid.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, vi. 178.

    If it were a matter of wrong or wicked _lewdness_
    [ῥᾳδιούργημα], O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with
    you.--_Acts_ xviii. 14. (A.V.)


=LIBERAL.= Often used by Shakespeare and his contemporaries as free of
tongue, licentious or wanton in speech.

  There with fantastic garlands did she come,
  Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
  That _liberal_ shepherds give a grosser name,
  But our cold maids do dead-men’s-fingers call them.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, act iv. sc. 7.

    _Desdemona_ [of _Iago_]: Is he not a most profane and _liberal_
    counsellor?--Id., _Othello_, act ii. sc. 1.

  But that we know thee, Wyatt, to be true,
  Thy overboldness should be paid with death;
  But cease, for fear your _liberal_ tongue offend.

          WEBSTER, _The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt_.


=LIBEL.= This, properly a little book, is with us any defamatory speech
or writing; but was not formerly so restricted; indeed, in the legal
language of Scotland, where an indictment is in technical language a
‘libel,’ it still retains a wider meaning.

    Forsoothe, it is said, Who evere shal leeve his wyf, geve he to
    hir a _libel_.--_Matt._ v. 31. WICLIF.

    Let the Allmightie geve me answere, and let him that is my
    contrary party sue me with a _lybell_.--_Job_ xxxi. 35.
    COVERDALE.

  Here is a _libel_ too accusing Cæsar,
  From Lucius Vectius, and confirmed by Curius.

          BEN JONSON, _Catiline_, act v. sc. 4.


=LIBERTINE.= A striking evidence of the extreme likelihood that he
who has no restraints on his belief will ere long have none upon his
life, is given by this word ‘libertine.’ Applied at first to certain
heretical sects, and intended to mark the licentious _liberty_ of their
creed, ‘libertine’ soon let go altogether its relation to what a man
believed, and acquired the sense which it now has, a ‘libertine’ being
one who has released himself from all moral restraints, and especially
in his relations with the other sex.

    That the Scriptures do not contain in them all things necessary
    to salvation, is the fountain of many great and capital
    errors; I instance in the whole doctrine of the _libertines_,
    familists, quakers, and other enthusiasts, which issue from
    this corrupted fountain.--Bishop TAYLOR, _A Dissuasive from
    Popery_, part ii. b. 1, § 2.

    It is not to be denied that the said _libertine_ doctrines do
    more contradict the doctrine of the Gospel, even Christianity
    itself, than the doctrines of the Papists about the same
    subjects do.--BAXTER, _Catholic Theology_, part iii. p. 289.

    It is too probable that our modern _libertines_, deists, and
    atheists, took occasion from the scandalous contentions of
    Christians about many things, to disbelieve all.--_A Discourse
    of Logomachies_, 1711.


=LITIGIOUS.= This word has changed from an objective to a subjective
sense. Things were ‘litigious’ once, which offered matter for going
to law; persons are ‘litigious’ now, who are prone to going to law.
Both meanings are to be found in the Latin ‘litigiosus,’ though
predominantly that which we have now made the sole meaning.

    Dolopia he hath subdued by force of arms, and could not abide
    to hear that the determination of certain provinces, which were
    debatable and _litigious_, should be referred to the award of
    the people of Rome.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1111.

    Of the articles gainsaid by a great outcry, three and no more
    did seem to be _litigious_.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop
    Williams_, part i. p. 140.

  No fences parted fields, nor marks nor bounds
  Distinguished acres of _litigious_ grounds.

          DRYDEN, _Virgil’s Georgics_, b. i. 193, 4.


=LIVELY.= This had once nearly, if not altogether, the same meaning as
‘living.’ We have here the explanation of a circumstance which many
probably have noted and regretted in the Authorized Version of the
New Testament, namely that while λίθον ζῶντα at _1 Pet._ ii. 4 is ‘a
_living_ stone,’ λίθοι ζῶντες, which follows immediately, ver. 5, is
only ‘_lively_ stones,’ ‘living’ being thus brought down to ‘lively’
with no correspondent reduction in the original to warrant it. But
when our Version was made, there was scarcely any distinction between
the forces of the words. Still it would certainly have been better to
adhere to one word or the other.

    Mine enemies are _lively_ (Heb. living), and they are
    strong.--_Ps._ xxxviii. 19. (A.V.)

    Was it well done to suffer him, imprisoned in chains, lying in
    a dark dungeon, to draw his _lively_ breath at the pleasure of
    the hangman?--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 228.

  Had I but seen thy picture in this plight,
  It would have madded me; what shall I do
  Now I behold thy _lively_ body so?

          SHAKESPEARE, _Titus Andronicus_, act iii. sc. 1.

  That his dear father might interment have,
  See, the young man entered a _lively_ grave.

          MASSINGER, _The Fatal Dowry_, act ii. sc. 1.


=LIVERY.= It need hardly be observed that the explanation of ‘livery’
which Spenser offers (see below) is perfectly correct; but we do
not any longer recognize the second of those uses of the word there
mentioned by him. It is no longer applied to the ration, or stated
portion of food, delivered at stated periods (the σιτομέτριον of _Luke_
xii. 42), either to the members of a household, to soldiers, or to
others.

  To bed they busked them anon,
  Their _liveryes_ were served them up soone,
  With a merry cheer.

          _Ballad of John de Reeve_, 155.

    What _Liverye_ is, we by common use in England knowe well
    enough, namelye, that it is, allowaunce of horse-meate, as
    they commonly use the woord in stabling, as to keepe horses at
    _liverye_, the which woord, I gess, is derived of livering or
    delivering foorth theyr nightlye foode. Soe in great howses the
    _liverye_ is sayd to be served up for all night. And _Liverye_
    is also called the upper garment which serving-men weareth, soe
    called (as I suppose) for that it is delivered and taken from
    him at pleasure.--SPENSER, _View of the State of Ireland_, p.
    623 (Globe edition).

    The emperor’s officers every night went through the town from
    house to house, whereat any English gentleman did repast or
    lodge, and served their _liveries_ for all night; first the
    officers brought into the house a cast of fine manchet, and of
    silver two great pots, and white wine, and sugar, to the weight
    of a pound, &c.--CAVENDISH, _Life of Cardinal Wolsey_.


  =LOITER=, }
  LOITERER. }

Whatever may be the derivation of ‘to loiter,’[17] it is certain that
it formerly implied a great deal more and worse than it implies now.
The ‘loiterer’ then was very much what the tramp is now.

    God bad that no such strong lubbers should _loyter_ and goe
    a begging, and be chargeable to the congregation.--TYNDALE,
    _Works_, p. 217.

    He that giveth any alms to an idle beggar robbeth the truly
    poor; as S. Ambrose sometimes complaineth that the maintenance
    of the poor is made the spoil of the _loiterer_.--SANDERSON,
    _Sermons_, 1671. vol. i. p. 198.

    Yf he be but once taken soe idlye roging, he [the Provost
    Marshal] may punnish him more lightlye, as with stockes or such
    like; but yf he be founde agayne soe _loytring_ he may scourge
    him with whippes or roddes; after which yf he be agayne taken,
    lett him have the bitterness of the marshall lawe.--SPENSER,
    _View of the State of Ireland_, p. 679 (Globe Edition).

    They spend their youth in _loitering_, bezzling, and
    harlotting.--MILTON, _Animadversions on Remonstrants’ Defence_.


=LOVER.= This word has undergone two restrictions, of which formerly
it knew nothing. A natural delicacy, and an unwillingness to confound
under a common name things essentially different, has caused ‘lover’
no longer to be equivalent with friend, but always to imply a relation
resting on the difference of sex; while further, and within these
narrower limits, the ‘lover’ now is always the man, not as once the man
or the woman indifferently. We may still indeed speak of ‘a pair of
lovers,’ but then datur denominatio a potiori. ‘Leman’ had something
of the same history, though that history ended in leaving this a
designation of the woman alone.

    If ye love them that love you, what thank have ye therefore?
    for sinners also love their _lovers_.--_Luke_ vi. 32.
    COVERDALE.

    For Hiram was ever a _lover_ of David.--_1 Kin._ v. 1. (A.V.)

                      This Posthumus,
  Most like a noble lord in love, and one
  That had a royal _lover_, took his hint.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Cymbeline_, act v. sc. 5.

  If I freely may discover
  What would please me in a _lover_,
  I would have _her_ fair and witty,
  Savouring more of court than city.

          BEN JONSON, _The Poetaster_.


=LUCID INTERVAL.= We limit this at present to the brief and transient
season when a mind, ordinarily clouded and obscured by insanity,
recovers for a while its clearness. It had no such limitation formerly,
but was of very wide use, as the four passages quoted below, in each of
which its application is different, will show.[18]

    East of Edom lay the land of Uz, where Job dwelt, so renowned
    for his patience, when the devil heaped afflictions upon him,
    allowing him no _lucid intervals_.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of
    Palestine_, b. iv. c. 2.

  Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
  Strike through, and make a _lucid interval_:
  But Shadwell’s genuine night admits no ray,
  His rising fogs prevail upon the day.

          DRYDEN, _Mac-Flecknoe_.

    Such is the nature of man, that it requires _lucid intervals_;
    and the vigour of the mind would flag and decay, should it
    always jog on at the rate of a common enjoyment, without being
    sometimes quickened and exalted with the vicissitude of some
    more refined pleasures.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol. viii. p.
    403.

    Thus he [Lord Lyttelton] continued, giving his dying
    benediction to all around him. On Monday morning a _lucid
    interval_ gave some small hopes; but these vanished in the
    evening.--_Narrative of the Physician, inserted in Johnson’s
    Life of Lord Lyttelton._


=LUMBER.= As the Lombards were the bankers, so also they were the
pawnbrokers of the Middle Ages; indeed, as they would often advance
money upon pledges, the two businesses were very closely joined, would
often run in, to one another. The ‘lumber’ room was originally the
Lombard room, or room where the Lombard banker and broker stowed away
his pledges; ‘lumber’ then, as in the passage from Butler, the pawns
and pledges themselves. As these would naturally often accumulate here
till they became out of date and unserviceable, the steps are easy to
be traced by which the word came to possess its present meaning.

    _Lumber_, potius _lumbar_, as to put one’s clothes to _lumbar_,
    _i.e._ pignori dare, oppignorare.--SKINNER, _Etymologicon_.

  And by an action falsely laid of trover
  The _lumber_ for their proper goods recover.

          BUTLER, _Upon Critics_.

    They put up all the little plate they had in the _lumber_,
    which is pawning it, till the ships came.--Lady MURRAY, _Lives
    of George Baillie and of Lady Grisell Baillie_.


=LURCH.= ‘To lurch’ is seldom used now except of a ship, which
‘lurches’ when it makes something of a headlong dip in the sea; the
fact that by so doing it, partially at least, hides itself, and
so ‘lurks,’ explains this employment of the word. But ‘to lurch,’
generally as an active verb, was of much more frequent use in early
English; and soon superinduced on the sense of lying concealed that
of lying in wait with the view of intercepting and seizing a prey.
After a while this superadded notion of intercepting and seizing some
booty quite thrust out that of lying concealed; as in all three of the
quotations which follow. See Skeat’s Dictionary.

    It is not an auspicate beginning of a feast, nor agreeable
    to amity and good fellowship, to snatch or _lurch_ one from
    another, to have many hands in a dish at once, striving a
    vie who should be more nimble with his fingers.--HOLLAND,
    _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 679.

    I speak not of many more [discommodities of a residence]: too
    far off from great cities, which may hinder business; or too
    near them, which _lurcheth_ all provisions, and maketh every
    thing dear.--BACON, _Essays_, 45 (ed. Abbott, ii. p. 50).

    At the beginning of this war [the Crusades] the Pope’s temporal
    power in Italy was very slender; but soon after he grew within
    short time without all measure, and did _lurch_ a castle here,
    gain a city there from the emperor, while he was employed in
    Palestine.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. i. c. 11.


=LUST.= Used at this present only in an ill sense, not as ἐπιθυμία, but
as ἐπιθυμία κακή (_Col._ iii. 5), and this mainly in one particular
direction. ‘Lust’ had formerly no such limitations, nor has it now in
German. The same holds good of the verb.

  Of prikyng and of huntyng for the hare
  Was al his _lust_, for no cost wolde he spare.

          CHAUCER, _Canterbury Tales_, 192.

    Through faith a man is purged of his sins, and obtaineth _lust_
    unto the law of God.--TYNDALE, _Prologue upon the Epistle to
    the Romans_.

    It was not because of the multitude of you above all nations
    that the Lord had _lust_ unto you and chose you.--_Deut._ vii.
    7. COVERDALE.

    My _lust_ to devotion is little, my joy none at all.--Bishop
    HALL, _Letters_, Dec. 2, Ep. 1.

    Thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy
    soul _lusteth_ after.--_Deut._ xii. 15. (A.V.)


  =LUXURY=,  }
  LUXURIOUS. }

‘Luxuria’ in classical Latin was very much what our ‘luxury’ is now.
The meaning which in our earlier English was its only one, namely
indulgence in sins of the flesh, it derived from the use of ‘luxuria’
in the medieval ethics, where it never means anything else but this.
The weakening of the influence of the scholastic theology, joined to
a more familiar acquaintance with classical Latinity, has probably
caused its return to the classical meaning. In the definition given by
Phillips (see below), we note the process of transition from its old
meaning to its new, the old still remaining, but the new superinduced
upon it.

  O foule luste, O _luxurie_, lo thin ende!
  Nought oonly that thou feyntest mannes mynde,
  But verrayly thou wolt his body schende.

          CHAUCER, _The Man of Lawes Tale_ (Morris, ii. p. 198).

    _Luxury_ and lust fasten a rust and foulness on the mind, that
    it cannot see sin in its odious deformity, nor virtue in its
    unattainable beauty.--BATES, _Spiritual Perfection_, c. 1.

    _Luxury_, all superfluity and excess in carnal pleasures,
    sumptuous fare or building; sensuality, riotousness,
    profuseness.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.

  She knows the heat of a _luxurious_ bed.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Much Ado about Nothing_, act iv. sc. 1.

    Again, that many of their Popes be such as I have
    said, naughty, wicked, _luxurious_ men, they openly
    confess.--JACKSON, _The Eternal Truth of Scriptures_, b. ii. c.
    14.


  =MAGNIFICENT=, }
  MAGNIFICENCE.  }

Frequently used by our elder writers where we should employ munificent
or generous. Yet there lay in the word something more than in these;
something of the μεγαλοπρέπεια of Aristotle; a certain grandeur
presiding over and ordering this large distribution of wealth. Behind
both uses an earlier and a nobler than either may be traced, as is
evident from my first quotation.

    Then cometh _magnificence_, that is to say when a man doth and
    performeth gret werkes of goodnesse.--CHAUCER, _The Persones
    Tale_.

    Every amorous person becometh liberal and _magnificent_,
    although he had been aforetime a pinching snudge; in such
    sort as men take more pleasure to give away and bestow upon
    those whom they love, than they do take and receive of
    others.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 1147.

                          Am I close-handed,
  Because I scatter not among you that
  I must not call my own? know, you court-leeches,
  A prince is never so _magnificent_
  As when he’s sparing to enrich a few
  With the injuries of many.

          MASSINGER, _The Emperor of the East_, act ii. sc. 1.

    Bounty and _magnificence_ are virtues very regal; but a
    prodigal king is nearer a tyrant than a parsimonious.--BACON,
    _Essays, Of a King_.


=MAID.= A word which, in its highest sense as = virgin, might once be
applied to either sex, to Sir Galahad as freely as to the _Pucelle_,
but which is now restricted to one. Compare παρθένος in Greek.

    To him [John the Apostle] God hangyng in the cross bitook his
    modir, that a _mayde_ schulde kepe a mayde.--WICLIF, _Prolog of
    John_.

  I wot wel that thapostil was a _mayde_;
  But natheles, though that he wrot or sayde
  He wold that every wight were such as he,
  All nys but counseil to virginité.

          CHAUCER, _Prologe of the Wyf of Bathe_, 79.

    Sir Galahad is a _maid_ and sinner never; and that is the cause
    he shall achieve where he goeth that ye nor none such shall not
    attain.--Sir T. MALORY, _Morte D’Arthur_, b. xiii. c. 16.


  =MAKE=, }
  MAKER.  }

The very early use of ‘maker,’ as equivalent to poet, and ‘to make’
as applied to the exercise of the poet’s art, is evidence that the
words are of genuine home-growth, and not mere imitations of the
Greek ποιητής and ποιεῖν, which Sir Philip Sidney, as will be seen
below, suggests as possible. The words, like the French ‘trouvère’ and
‘troubadour,’ the O.H.G. ‘scof,’ and the O.E. ‘sceop,’ mark men’s sense
that invention, and in a certain sense, creation, is the essential
character of the poet. The quotation from Chaucer will sufficiently
prove how entirely mistaken Sir John Harington was, when he affirmed
(_Apology for Poetry_, p. 2) that Puttenham in his _Art of English
Poesy_, 1589, was the first who gave ‘make’ and ‘maker’ this meaning.
Sir Walter Scott somewhere claims them as Scotticisms; but exclusively
such they certainly are not.

  And eke to me hit is a greet penaunce,
  Sith rym in English hath swich scarsitee,
  To folowe word by word the curiositee
  Of Graunson, flour of hem that _make_ in Fraunce.

          CHAUCER, _Compleynt of Venus_, 79 (Skeat).

  The God of shepherds, Tityrus, is dead,
  Who taught me homely, as I can, to _make_.

          SPENSER, _The Shepherd’s Calendar, June_.

    The old famous poete Chaucer, for his excellencie and wonderful
    skil in _making_, his scholler Lidgate (a worthy scholler
    of so excellent a maister) calleth the Loadestarre of our
    language.--E. K., _Epistle Dedicatory to Spenser’s Shepherd’s
    Calendar_.

    There cannot be in a _maker_ a fouler fault than to falsify
    his accent to serve his cadence, or by untrue orthography to
    wrench his words to help his rhyme.--PUTTENHAM, _Art of English
    Poesy_, b. ii. c. 8.

    The Greeks named the poet ποιητής, which name, as the most
    excellent, hath gone through other languages. It cometh of this
    word ποιεῖν, to make; wherein I know not whether by luck or
    wisdom we Englishmen have met well with the Greeks in calling
    him a _maker_.--Sir P. SIDNEY, _Defence of Poesy_.


=MANSION.= This is a finely selected word, suggested no doubt by the
‘mansiones’ of the Vulgate, whereby our Translators, and Tyndale before
them, rendered the μοναί of John xiv. 2. Knowing, however, as we do
that μοναί never meant ‘mansions’ in our modern, or auctioneers’ sense
of the word, we cannot doubt that by this word they intended places of
tarrying, which might be for a longer or a shorter time; resting places
which remained for the Christian traveller who should have reached at
length his heavenly home. This use of ‘mansion’ as a place of tarrying
is frequent enough in our early literature, although our modern use is
by no means unknown.

    They [the Angels] be pure minds and were never neither blinded
    through sin, ne hindered through any earthly _mansion_ and
    corruptible body.--HUTCHINSON, _Works_, p. 160 (ed. 1842).

  Before the starry threshold of Jove’s court
  My _mansion_ is, where those immortal shapes
  Of bright aerial spirits live unsphered,
  In regions mild of calm and serene air.

          MILTON, _Comus_, i. 4.


=MANURE.= The same word as ‘manœuvre,’ to work with the hand; and thus,
to till or cultivate the earth, this tillage being in earlier periods
of society the great and predominant labour of the hands. We restrain
the word now to one particular branch of this cultivation, but our
ancestors made it to embrace the whole.

    The _manuring_ hand of the tiller shall root up all that
    burdens the soil.--MILTON, _Reason of Church Government_.

    It [Japan] is mountainous and craggy, full of rocks and stony
    places, so that the third part of this empire is not inhabited
    or _manured_.--_Memorials of Japan_ (Hakluyt Society), p. 3.

    A rare and excellent wit untaught doth bring forth many
    good and evil things together; as a fat soil, that lieth
    _unmanured_, bringeth forth both herbs and weeds.--NORTH,
    _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 185.

    Every man’s hand itching to throw a cudgel at him, who, like
    a nut-tree, must be _manured_ by beating, or else would never
    bear fruit.--FULLER, _Holy War_, ii. 11.


  =MEAN=,   }
  MEANNESS. }

O.E. ‘gemǽne,’ Goth. ‘gamains’ (compare Germ. ‘gemein’), cognate with
Latin ‘communis’ (our ‘common’)--all with a history very closely
corresponding to that of the Greek κοινός (see _Acts_ x. 14). The
connotation of moral baseness only accrued to the word by degrees.

    And the _mean_ man boweth down, and the great man humbleth
    himself.--_Isai._ ii. 9. (A.V.)

  But, for his _meannesse_ and disparagement,
  My Sire, who me too dearely well did love,
  Unto my choice by no meanes would assent.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, iv. 7, 16.


  =MECHANIC=, }
  MECHANICAL. }

A word which now simply expresses a fact, and is altogether untinged
with passion or sentiment; but in its early history it ran exactly
parallel to the Greek βάναυσος, which, expressing first one who plied
a handicraft, came afterwards, in obedience to certain constant
tendencies of language, to imply the man ethically illiberal. See the
quotation from Holland, _s. v._ ‘Fairy.’

    Base and _mechanical_ niggardise they [flatterers] account
    temperate frugality.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 93.

  Base dunghill villain and _mechanical_.

          SHAKESPEARE, _2 Henry VI._, act i. sc. 3.

    It was never a good world, since employment was counted
    _mechanic_, and idleness gentility.--WHITLOCK, _Zootomia_, p.
    30.


=MEDDLE.= This had once no such offensive meaning of mixing oneself up
in other people’s business as now it has. On the contrary, Barrow in
one of his sermons draws expressly the distinction between ‘meddling’
and being meddlesome, and only condemns the latter.

    In the drynke that she _meddlid_ to you, mynge ye double to
    hir.--_Apoc._ xviii. 6. WICLIF.

    How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am
    a Samaritan? For the Jews _meddle_ not [oὐ συγχρῶνται] with the
    Samaritans.--_John_ iv. 9. CRANMER.

    We beseech you, brethren, that ye study to be quiet, and to
    _meddle_ with your own business.--_1 Thess._ iv. 10, 11.
    TYNDALE.

  Tho he, that had well y-cond his lere,
  Thus _medled_ his talke with many a teare.

          SPENSER, _The Shepherd’s Calendar, May_.


=MEDITERRANEAN.= Only seas are ‘mediterranean’ now, and for us only
one Sea; but there is no reason why cities and countries should not be
characterized as ‘mediterranean’ as well; and they were so once. We
have preferred, however, to employ ‘inland.’

    Their buildings are for the most part of tymber, for the
    _mediterranean_ countreys have almost no stone.--_The Kyngdome
    of Japonia_, p. 6.

    An old man, full of days, and living still in your
    _mediterranean_ city, Coventry.--HENRY HOLLAND, _Preface to
    Holland’s Cyropædia_.

    It [Arabia] hath store of cities, as well _mediterranean_ as
    maritime.--HOLLAND, _Ammianus_.


=MEDLEY.= The same word as the French ‘mêlée.’ It is plain from the
frequent use of the French ‘mêlée’ in the description of battles that
we feel now the want of a corresponding English word. There have been
attempts, though hardly successful ones, to naturalize ‘mêlée,’ and as
‘volée’ has become in English ‘volley,’ that so ‘mêlée’ should become
‘melley.’ Perhaps, as Tennyson has sanctioned these, employing ‘mellay’
in his _Princess_, they may now succeed. But there would have been no
need of this, nor yet of borrowing the modern French form, if ‘medley’
had been allowed to keep this more passionate use, which once it
possessed.

    The consul for his part forslowed not to come to handfight. The
    _medley_ continued above three hours, and the hope of victory
    hung in equal balance.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1119.

    Now began the conflict for the winning and defending of
    that old castle, which proved a _medley_ of twelve hours
    long.--_Swedish Intelligencer_, vol. ii. p. 41.


=MELANCHOLY.= This has now ceased, nearly or altogether, to designate
a particular form of moody madness, the German ‘Tiefsinn,’ which was
ascribed by the old physicians to a predominance of _black bile_
mingling with the blood. It was not, it is true, always restrained to
this particular form of mental unsoundness; thus Burton’s ‘Anatomy of
_Melancholy_’ has not to do with this one form of madness, but with
all. This, however, was its prevailing use, and here is to be found the
link of connexion between its present use, as a deep pensiveness or
sadness, and its past.

    That property of _melancholy_, whereby men become to be
    delirious in some one point, their judgment standing untouched
    in others.--H. MORE, _A Brief Discourse of Enthusiasm_, sect.
    xiv.

    Luther’s conference with the devil might be, for ought I know,
    nothing but a _melancholy_ dream.--CHILLINGWORTH, _The Religion
    of Protestants_, Preface.

    Though I am persuaded that none but the devil and this
    _melancholy_ miscreant were in the plot [the Duke of
    Buckingham’s murder], yet in foro Dei many were guilty of this
    blood, that rejoiced it was spilt.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop
    Williams_, part ii. p. 80.

    Some _melancholy_ men have believed that elephants and birds
    and other creatures, have a language whereby they discourse
    with one another.--Bishop REYNOLDS, _Passions and Faculties of
    the Soul_, c. 39.


  =MERE=, }
  MERELY. }

There is a good note on these words, and on the changes of meaning
which they have undergone, in Craik’s _English of Shakespeare_, p.
80. He there says: ‘Merely (from the Latin merus and mere) means
purely, only. It separates that which it designates and qualifies
from everything else. But in so doing the chief or most emphatic
reference may be made either to that which is included, or to that
which is excluded. In modern English it is always to the latter. In
Shakespeare’s day the other reference was more common, that namely to
what was included.’

    With them all the people of Mounster went out, and many
    other of them which were _mere_ English, thenceforth joined
    themselves with the Irish against the king, and termed
    themselves very Irish.--SPENSER, _View of the State of Ireland_.

    Our wine is here mingled with water and with myrrh; there [in
    heaven] it is _mere_ and unmixed.--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Worthy
    Communicant_.

    The great winding-sheets, that bury all things in oblivion, are
    two, deluges and earthquakes. As for conflagrations and great
    droughts, they do not _merely_ dispeople and destroy. Phaeton’s
    car went but a day; and the three years’ drought, in the time
    of Elias, was but particular, and left people alive.--BACON,
    _Essays_, 58.

  Fye on’t; O fye! ’tis an unweeded garden,
  That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
  Possess it _merely_.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2.


=MESS.= This used continually to be applied to a quarternion, or group
of _four_ persons or things. Probably in the distribution of food to
large numbers, it was found most convenient to arrange them in _fours_,
and hence this application of the word. A ‘mess’ at the Inns of Court
still consists of four. A phrase-book published in London in 1617 bears
this title, ‘Janua Linguarum _Quadrilinguis_, or A Messe of Tongues,
Latine, English, French, and Spanish.’

    There lacks a fourth thing to make up the _mess_.--LATIMER,
    _Sermon_ 5.

  Where are your _mess_[19] of sons to back you now?

          SHAKESPEARE, _3 Henry VI._ act i. sc. 4.

    Amongst whom [converted Jews] we meet with a _mess_ of most
    eminent men; Nicolaus Lyra, that grand commentator on the
    Bible; Hieronymus de Sanctâ Fide, turned Christian about anno
    1412; Ludovicus Carettus, living in Paris anno 1553; and the
    never sufficiently to be praised Emmanuel Tremellius.--FULLER,
    _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, part ii. b. 5.


=METAL.= The Latin ‘metallum’ signified a mine before it signified
the metal which was found in the mine; and Jeremy Taylor uses ‘metal’
in this sense of mine. This may be a latinism peculiar to him, as he
has of such not a few; in which case it would scarcely have a right
to a place in this little volume, which does not propose to note
the peculiarities of single writers, but the general course of the
language. I, however, insert it, counting it more probable that my
limited reading hinders me from furnishing an example of this use from
some other author, than that such does not somewhere exist.

    It was impossible to live without our king, but as slaves live,
    that is, such who are civilly dead, and persons condemned
    to _metals_.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Ductor Dubitantium, Epistle
    Dedicatory_.


=METHODIST.= This term is restricted at present to the followers of
John Wesley; but it was once applied to those who followed a certain
‘method’ in philosophical speculation, or in the ethical treatment of
themselves or others.

    The finest _methodists_, according to Aristotle’s golden
    rule of artificial bounds, condemn geometrical precepts in
    arithmetic, or arithmetical precepts in geometry, as irregular
    and abusive.--G. HARVEY, _Pierce’s Supererogation_, p. 117.

    For physick, search into the writings of Hippocrates, Galen and
    the _methodists_.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, vol. ii. p. 135.

    All of us have some or other tender parts of our souls, which
    we cannot endure should be ungently touched; every man must be
    his own _methodist_ to find them out.--JACKSON, _Justifying
    Faith_, b. iv. c. 5.


=MILITIA.= By this name, as the contests between Charles I. and his
Parliament have made us all to know, the entire military force of the
nation, and not a part of it only, was designated in the seventeenth
century. It is true indeed that this force did much more nearly
resemble our militia than our standing army, but it was never used for
that to the exclusion of this.

    It was a small thing to contend with the Parliament about the
    sole power of the _militia_, which we see him doing little less
    than laying hands on the weapons of God Himself, which are his
    judgements, to wield and manage them by the sway and bent of his
    own frail cogitations.--MILTON, _Iconoclastes_, c. 26.

    The king’s captains and soldiers fight his battles, and yet
    he is _summus imperator_, and the power of the _militia_ is
    his.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Ductor Dubitantium_, iii. 3, 7.

    Ye are of his flock and his _militia_; ye are now to fight
    his battles, and therefore to put on his armour.--Id., _On
    Preparation for Confirmation_, § 7.


=MINION.= Once no more than darling or dearling (mignon). It is quite a
superaddition of later times that the ‘minion’ is an unworthy object,
on whom an excessive fondness is bestowed.

  Map now an Adam in thy memory,
  By God’s own hand made with great majesty;
  No idiot fool, nor drunk with vain opinion,
  But God’s disciple, and his dearest _minion_.

          SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas’ Weeks, The Imposture_.

  Whoso to marry a _minion_ wife
    Hath had good chance and hap,
  Must love her and cherish her all his life,
    And dandle her in his lap.

          _Old Song._


=MINUTE.= ‘Minutes’ are now ‘minúte’ portions of _time_; they might
once be ‘minúte’ portions of anything.

    But whanne a pore widewe was comun, sche keste two _mynutis_,
    that is a ferthing.--_Mark_ xii. 42. WICLIF.

    Let us, with the poor widow of the Gospel, at least give two
    _minutes_.--BECON, _The Nosegay_, Preface.

    An enquiry into the _minutes_ of conscience is commonly the
    work of persons that live holily.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Doctrine and
    Practice of Repentance_, Preface.

    And now, after such a sublimity of malice, I will not instance
    in the sacrilegious ruin of the neighbouring temples, which
    needs must have perished in the flame. These are but _minutes_,
    in respect of the ruin prepared for the living temples.--Id.,
    _Sermon on the Gunpowder Treason_.


=MISCREANT.= A settled conviction that to believe wrongly is the way to
live wrongly has caused that in all languages words, which originally
did but indicate the first, have gradually acquired a meaning of the
second. There is no more illustrious example of this than ‘miscreant,’
which now charges him to whom it is applied not with religious
error, but with extreme moral depravity; while yet, according to its
etymology, it did but mean at the first misbeliever, and as such would
have been as freely applied to the morally most blameless of these
as to the vilest and the worst. In the quotation from Shakespeare
York means to charge the Maid of Orleans, as a dealer in unlawful
charms, with apostasy from the Christian faith, according to the low
and unworthy estimate of her character, above which even Shakespeare
himself has not risen.

    We are not therefore ashamed of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus
    Christ, because _miscreants_ in scorn have upbraided us that
    the highest of our wisdom is, Believe.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical
    Polity_, b. v.

    One sort you say be those that believe not in Christ, but deny
    Christ and his Scripture; as be the Turks, paynims, and such
    other _miscreants_.--FRITH, _Works_, 1572, p. 62.

  Curse, _miscreant_, when thou comest to the stake.

          SHAKESPEARE, _1 Henry VI._, act v. sc. 2.

    The consort and the principal servants of Soliman had been
    honourably restored without ransom; and the emperor’s
    generosity to the _miscreant_ was interpreted as treason to
    the Christian cause.--GIBBON, _Decline and Fall of the Roman
    Empire_, c. 58.


  =MISER=,   }
  MISERY,    }
  MISERABLE. }

We may notice a curious shifting of parts in ‘miser,’ ‘misery,’
‘miserable.’ There was a time when the ‘miser’ was the wretched man,
he is now the covetous; at the same time ‘misery,’ which is now
wretchedness, and ‘miserable,’ which is now wretched, were severally
covetousness and covetous. They have in fact exactly reversed their
uses. Men still express by some words of this group, although not by
the same, by ‘miser’ (and ‘miserly’), not as once by ‘misery’ and
‘miserable,’ their deep moral conviction that the avaricious man is his
own tormentor, and bears his punishment involved in his sin. A passage,
too long to quote, in Gascoigne’s _Fruits of War_, st. 72-74, is very
instructive on the different uses of the word ‘miser’ even in his time,
and on the manner in which it was even then hovering between the two
meanings.

    Because thou sayest, ‘That I am rich and enriched and lack
    nothing;’ and knowest not that thou art a _miser_ [et nescis
    quia tu es _miser_, Vulg.] and miserable and poor and blind and
    naked.--_Rev._ iii. 17. Rhemish Version.

  Vouchsafe to stay your steed for humble _miser’s_ sake.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 1, 8.

    He [Perseus] returned again to his old humour which was born
    and bred with him, and that was avarice and _misery_.--NORTH,
    _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 215.

    But Brutus, scorning his [Octavius Cæsar’s] _misery_ and
    niggardliness, gave unto every band a number of wethers to
    sacrifice, and fifty silver drachmas to every soldier.--Id.,
    _ib._, p. 830.

    If _avarice_ be thy vice, yet make it not thy punishment;
    _miserable_ men commiserate not themselves; bowelless unto
    themselves, and merciless unto their own bowels.--Sir T.
    BROWNE, _Letter to a Friend_.

    The liberal-hearted man is by the opinion of the prodigal,
    _miserable_; and by the judgment of the _miserable_,
    lavish.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. v. c. 65.


=MISS.= Now to be conscious of the loss of, and nearly answering to the
Latin ‘desiderare,’ but once to do without, to dispense with.

                    But as ’tis,
  We cannot _miss_ him; he does make our fire,
  Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices
  That profit us.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Tempest_, act i. sc. 2.

  I will have honest valiant souls about me,
  I cannot _miss_ thee.

          BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, _The Mad Lover_, act. ii.


=MODEL.= This is due to a French form from a late Latin diminutive of
‘modulus,’ a diminutive of ‘modus;’ but this diminutive sense which
once went constantly with the word, and which will alone explain the
quotations which follow, when it lies in the word now, exists only by
accident of context.

  O England, _model_ to thy inward greatness,
  Like little body with a mighty heart.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Henry V._, act ii. Chorus.

  And nothing can we call our own but death,
  And that small _model_ of the barren earth
  Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

          Id., _Richard II._, act iii. sc. 2.

    If Solomon’s Temple were compared to some structures and fanes
    of heathen gods, it would appear as St. Gregory’s to St. Paul’s
    (the babe by the mother’s side), or rather this David’s _model_
    would be like David himself standing by Goliath, so gigantic
    were some pagan fabrics in comparison thereof.--FULLER, _A
    Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, b. iii. c. 3.


=MOOD.= It is hardly necessary to observe that there are two ‘moods’ in
the English language, the one the Latin ‘modus,’ and existing in the
two forms of ‘mood’ (grammatical) and ‘mode;’ the other the Anglo-Saxon
‘mód,’ the German ‘muth.’ It is this last with which we are dealing
here. It would seem as if its homonym had influenced it so far as to
take out in great part the force from it, though not from ‘moody;’ but
it had not always so done.

  And on here bare knees adoun they falle,
  And wolde han kist his feet ther as he stood,
  Till atte laste aslaked was his _mood_.

          CHAUCER, _The Knightes Tale_, 900.

  And as a lion skulking all in night
  Far off in pastures, and, come home, all dight
  In jaws and breastlocks with an oxe’s blood
  New feasted on him, his looks full of _mood_,
  So looked Ulysses.

          CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Odysseis_, xxii. 518.

  Then Phœbus gathered up his steeds that yet for fear had run
  Like flaighted fiends, and in his _mood_ without respect begun
  To beat his whipstock on their pates, and lash them on their sides.

          GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. ii.


=MOROSE.= It is very curious that while the classical ‘mōrosus’
expressed one given overmuch to his own manners, habits, ways (mores),
very nearly the Greek αὐθέκαστος, the medieval ‘mŏrosus’ was commonly
connected with ‘mora,’ a delay;[20] and in treatises of Christian
ethics was the technical word to express the sin of _delaying_ upon
impure, wanton, or, as in the quotation from South, malignant
thoughts, instead of rejecting them on the instant. See, for instance,
Gerson, _Opp._, vol. i. p. 377, for evidence constantly recurring of
its connexion for him with ‘mora.’ So long as the scholastic theology
exerted more or less influence on our own, ‘morose’ was often employed
in this sense; which, however, it has since entirely foregone. I owe
the third quotation given below to Todd, who is so entirely unaware of
this history of ‘morose,’ that he explains it there as ungovernable!

    Here are forbidden all wanton words, and all _morose_
    delighting in venereous thoughts, all rolling and tossing such
    things in our minds.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Doctrine and Practice of
    Repentance_, c. 4, § 1.

    All _morose_ thoughts, that is, _delaying_, dwelling, or
    insisting on such thoughts, fancying of such unclean matters
    with delectation.--HAMMOND, _Practical Catechism_, b. ii. § 6.

    In this [the seventh] commandment are forbidden all that feed
    this sin [adultery], or are incentives to it, as luxurious
    diet, inflaming wines, an idle life, _morose_ thoughts, that
    dwell in the fancy with delight.--NICHOLSON, _Exposition of the
    Catechism_, 1662, p. 123.

    For we must know that it is the _morose_ dwelling of the
    thoughts upon an injury, a long and sullen meditation upon a
    wrong, that incorporates and rivets it into the mind.--SOUTH,
    _Sermons_, vol. x. p. 278.


=MORTAL.= We speak still of a ‘mortal’ sin or a ‘mortal’ wound, but
the active sense has nearly departed from the word, as the passive has
altogether departed from ‘deadly,’ which see.

  Were there a serpent seen with forkéd tongue
  That slily glided towards your majesty,
  It were but necessary you were waked,
  Lest, being suffered in that harmful slumber,
  The _mortal_ worm might make the sleep eternal.

          SHAKESPEARE, _2 Henry VI._, act iii. sc. 2.

            Come, thou _mortal_ wretch,
  With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
  Of life at once untie.

          Id., _Antony and Cleopatra_, act v. sc. 2.


=MOUNTEBANK.= Now _any_ antic fool; but once restrained to the
quack-doctor who at fairs and such places of resort, having _mounted_
on a _bank_ or _bench_, from thence proclaimed the virtue of his drugs;
being described by Whitlock (_Zootomia_, p. 436) as ‘a fellow above the
vulgar more by three planks and two empty hogsheads than by any true
skill.’ See the quotation from Jackson, _s. v._ ‘Authentic.’

    Such is the weakness and easy credulity of men, that a
    _mountebank_ or cunning woman is preferred before an able
    physician.--WHITLOCK, _Zootomia_, p. 437.

    Giving no cause of complaint to any but such as are unwilling
    to be healed of their shameful and dangerous diseases, who
    love ignorant and flattering _mountebanks_ more than the
    most learned and faithful physicians of souls.--GAUDEN,
    _Hieraspistes_, p. 427.

  Above the reach of antidotes, the power
  Of the famed Pontic _mountebank_ to cure.

          OLDHAM, _Third Satire upon the Jesuits_.


=MUSE.= There is a very curious use of ‘Muse’ in our earlier
literature, according to which the female sex of this inspirer of song
falls quite out of sight. This recurs too often and too deliberately to
be explained away as the accidental inaccuracy of some single writer.

  Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds
  Intends our _Muse_ to vaunt _his_ heavenly verse.

          MARLOWE, _Dr. Faustus_, 5, 6.

  So is it not with me as with that _Muse_,
  Stirred by a painted beauty to _his_ verse.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Sonnet 21_.

            So may some gentle _Muse_,
  With lucky words favour my destined urn,
  And, as _he_ passes, turn.

          MILTON, _Lycidas_, 19.

  Sharp-judging Adriel, the Muses’ friend,
  Himself a _Muse_.

          DRYDEN, _Absalom and Achitophel_, pt. 1.


=MUTTON.= It is a refinement in the English language, one wanting in
some other languages which count themselves as refined or more, that
it has in so many cases one word to express the living animal, and
another its flesh prepared for food; ox and beef, calf and veal, deer
and venison, sheep and mutton. In this last instance the refinement is
of somewhat late introduction. At one time they were synonyms.

    Peucestas, having feasted them in the kingdom of Persia, and
    given every soldier a _mutton_ to sacrifice, thought he had won
    great favour and credit among them.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_,
    p. 505.

    A starved _mutton’s_ carcass would better fit their
    palates.--BEN JONSON, _The Sad Shepherd_, act i. sc. 2.


=NAMELY.= Now only designates; but, like the German ‘namentlich,’ once
designated as first and chief, as deserving above all others to be
named.

    For there are many disobedient, and talkers of vanity,
    and deceivers of minds, _namely_ [μάλιστα] they of the
    circumcision.--_Tit._ i. 10. TYNDALE.

    For in the darkness occasioned by the opposition of the earth
    just in the mids between the sun and the moon, there was
    nothing for him [Nicias] to fear, and _namely_ at such a time,
    when there was cause for him to have stood upon his feet, and
    served valiantly in the field.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_,
    p. 265.


=NATURALIST.= At present the student of natural history; but in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the name was often given to the
deist, as one who denied any but a religion _of nature_, ‘Natural
religion men’ such were sometimes called. See the quotation from
Rogers, _s. v._ ‘Civil.’

    But that he [the atheist] might not be shy of me, I have
    conformed myself as near his own garb as I might, without
    partaking of his folly or wickedness; and have appeared in the
    plain shape of a mere _naturalist_ myself, that I might, if it
    were possible, win him off from downright atheism.--H. MORE,
    _Antidote against Atheism_, Preface, p. 7.

    This is the invention of Satan, that whereas all will not
    be profane, nor _naturalists_, nor epicures, but will be
    religious, lo, he hath a bait for every fish, and can insinuate
    himself as well into religion itself as into lusts and
    pleasures.--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 115.

    Heathen _naturalists_ hold better consort with the primitive
    Church concerning the nature of sin original than the
    Socinians.--JACKSON, _Of Christ’s Everlasting Priesthood_, b.
    x. c. 8, § 4.


=NEEDFUL.= This was once often equivalent to ‘needy.’ The words,
however, have in more recent times been discriminated in use, and
‘needy’ is active, and ‘needful’ passive.

    These ferthinges shal be gaderid at everi moneth ende, and
    delid forth to the _needful_ man in honor of Christ and his
    moder.--_English Gilds_, p. 38.

    Grieve not the heart of him that is helpless, and withdraw not
    the gift from the _needful_.--_Ecclus._ iv. 2. COVERDALE.

    For thou art the poor man’s help, and strength for the
    _needful_ in his necessity.--_Isai._ xxv. 3. Id.

    Great variety of clothes have been permitted to princes and
    nobility, and they usually give those clothes as rewards to
    servants and other persons _needful_ enough.--Bishop TAYLOR,
    _Holy Living_, iv. 8, 13.


=NEPHEW.= Restrained at this present to the son of a brother or a
sister; but formerly of much laxer use, a grandson, or even a remoter
lineal descendant. In East Anglia it is still so used in the popular
language (see Nall, _Dialects of the East Coast_, s. v.). ‘Nephew’ in
fact has undergone exactly the same change of meaning that ‘nepos’ in
Latin underwent; which in the Augustan age meaning grandson, in the
post-Augustan acquired the signification of ‘nephew’ in our present
acceptation of that word. See ‘Niece.’

    The warts, black moles, spots and freckles of fathers, not
    appearing at all upon their own children’s skin, begin
    afterwards to put forth and show themselves in their _nephews_,
    to wit, the children of their sons and daughters.--HOLLAND,
    _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 555.

    With what intent they [the apocryphal books] were first
    published, those words of the _nephew_ of Jesus do plainly
    enough signify: After that my _grandfather_ Jesus had given
    himself to the reading of the law and the prophets, he
    purposed also to write something pertaining to learning and
    wisdom.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. v. c. 20.

    If any widow have children or _nephews_ [ἔκγονα], let them
    learn first to show piety at home, and to requite their
    parents.--_1 Tim._ v. 4. (A.V.)


=NICE.= The use of ‘nice’ in the sense of fastidious, difficult to
please, still survives, indeed this is now, as in times past, the
ruling notion of the word; only this ‘niceness’ is taken now much
oftener in good part than in ill; nor, even when taken in an ill sense,
would the word be used exactly as in the passage which follows.

    A. W. [Anthony Wood] was with him several times, ate and drank
    with him, and had several discourses with him concerning arms
    and armory, which he understood well; but he found him _nice_
    and supercilious.--A. WOOD, _Athenæ Oxonienses_, 1848, vol. i.
    p. 161.


=NIECE.= This word has undergone the same change and limitation of
meaning as ‘nephew,’ with indeed the further limitation that it is now
applied to the female sex alone, to the _daughter_ of a brother or a
sister, being once used, as ‘neptis’ was at the first, for children’s
children, male and female alike. See ‘Nephew.’

    Laban answeride to hym: My dowytres and sones, and the flockis,
    and alle that thou beholdist, ben myne, and what may I do to my
    sones and to my _neces_?--_Gen._ xxi. 43 (cf. _Exod._ xxxiv.
    7). WICLIF.

    The Emperor Augustus, among other singularities that he had by
    himself during his life, saw, ere he died, the nephew of his
    _niece_, that is to say, his progeny to the fourth degree of
    lineal descent.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 162.

    Within the compass of which very same time he [Julius Cæsar]
    lost by death first his mother, then his daughter Julia,
    and not long after his _niece_ by the said daughter.--Id.,
    _Suetonius_, p. 11.


  =NOISOME=,   }
  NOISOMENESS. }

At present offensive and moving disgust; but once noxious and actually
hurtful; thus a skunk would be ‘noisome’ now; a tiger was ‘noisome’
then. In all passages of the Authorized Translation of the Bible where
the word occurs, as at _Ezek._ xiv. 15, 21, it is used not in the
present meaning, but the past. See ‘Annoy.’

    They that will be rich fall into temptations and snares, and
    into many foolish and _noisome_ [βλαβεράς] lusts, which drown
    men in perdition and destruction.--_1 Tim._ vi. 9. Geneva.

    He [the superstitious person] is persuaded that they be gods
    indeed, but such as be _noisome_, hurtful, and doing mischief
    unto men.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 260.

    This _noisome_ creature [the crocodile] is one of the greatest
    wonders we meet with, in that from so small a beginning as an
    egg, not much bigger than that of a turkey, they increase to
    eight or ten yards in length.--HERBERT, _Travels_, 1636, p. 323.

    They [the prelates] are so far from hindering dissension, that
    they have made unprofitable, and even _noisome_, the chiefest
    remedy we have to keep Christendom at one, which is, by
    Councils.--MILTON, _Reason of Church Government_, b. i. c. 6.

    Sad in his time was the condition of the Israelites, oppressed
    by the Midianites, who swarmed like grasshoppers for number and
    _noisomeness_, devouring all which the other had sown.--FULLER,
    _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, part i. b. ii. c. 8.


  =NOVEL=,  }
  NOVELIST. }

‘Novels’ once were simply news, ‘nouvelles;’ and the ‘novelist’ not a
writer of new tales, but an innovator, a bringer in of new fashions
into the Church or State.

  She brynges in her bille som _novels_ new;
  Behold! it is of an olif tree
  A branch, thynkes me.

          _Townley Mysteries._

    But, see and say what you will, _novelists_ had rather be
    talked of, that they began a fashion and set a copy for
    others, than to keep within the imitation of the most excellent
    precedents.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p.
    36.

    Every _novelist_ with a whirligig in his brain must broach new
    opinions, and those made canons, nay sanctions, as sure as if
    a General Council had confirmed them.--ADAMS, _The Devil’s
    Banquet_, 1614, p. 52.

    I can hardly believe my eyes while I read such a petit
    _novelist_ charging the whole Church as fools and heretics for
    not subscribing to a silly heretical notion, solely of his own
    invention.--SOUTH, _Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock’s Book_, p.
    3.


=NURSERY.= We have but one use of ‘nursery’ at this present, namely as
the place of nursing; but it was once applied as well to the person
nursed, or the act of nursing.

    A jolly dame, no doubt; as appears by the well battling of
    the plump boy, her _nursery_.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of
    Palestine_, part i. b. ii. c. 8.

    If _nursery_ exceeds her [a mother’s] strength, and yet her
    conscience will scarce permit her to lay aside and free herself
    from so natural, so religious a work, yet tell her, God loves
    mercy better than sacrifice.--ROGERS, _Matrimonial Honour_, p.
    247.

  I loved her most, and thought to set my rest
  On her kind _nursery_.

          SHAKESPEARE, _King Lear_, act i. sc. 1.


=OBELISK.= The ‘obelus’ is properly a sharp-pointed spear or spit.
With a sign resembling this, spurious or doubtful passages were marked
in the books of antiquity, which sign bore therefore this name of
‘obelus,’ or sometimes of its diminutive ‘obeliscus.’ It is in this
sense that we find ‘obelisk’ employed by the writers in the seventeenth
century; while for us at the present a small pillar tapering towards
the summit is the only ‘obelisk’ that we know.

    The Lord Keeper, the most circumspect of any man alive to
    provide for uniformity, and to countenance it, was scratched
    with their _obelisk_, that he favoured Puritans, and that
    sundry of them had protection through his connivency or
    clemency.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 95.

    I have set my mark upon them [_i.e._ affected pedantic words];
    and if any of them may have chanced to escape the _obelisk_,
    there can arise no other inconvenience from it but an occasion
    to exercise the choice and judgment of the reader.--PHILLIPS,
    _New World of Words_, Preface.


=OBNOXIOUS.= This, in its present lax and slovenly use a vague
unserviceable synonym for offensive, is properly applied to one who on
the ground of a mischief or wrong committed by him is justly liable to
punishment (_ob noxam_ pœnæ obligatus); and is used in this sense by
South (see below). But there often falls out of the word the sense of a
wrong committed; and that of liability to punishment, whether just or
unjust, only remains; it does so very markedly in the quotation from
Donne. But we punish, or wish to punish, those whom we dislike, and
thus ‘obnoxious’ has obtained its present sense of offensive.

    They envy Christ, but they turn upon the man, who was more
    _obnoxious_ to them, and they tell him that it was not lawful
    for him to carry his bed that day [_John_ v. 10].--DONNE,
    _Sermon 20_.

    Examine thyself in the particulars of thy relations; especially
    where thou governest and takest accounts of others, and art not
    so _obnoxious_ to them as they to thee.--Bishop TAYLOR, _The
    Worthy Communicant_, c. vi. sect. 2.

    What shall we then say of the power of God Himself to dispose
    of men? little, finite, _obnoxious_ things of his own
    making?--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol. viii. p. 315.

    He [Satan] is in a chain, and that chain is in God’s hand; and
    consequently, notwithstanding his utmost spite, he cannot be
    more malicious than he is _obnoxious_.--Id., _ib._ vol. vi. p.
    287.


  =OBSEQUIOUS=,   }
  OBSEQUIOUSNESS. }

There lies ever in ‘obsequious’ at the present the sense of an
observance which is overdone, of an unmanly readiness to fall in
with the will of another; there lay nothing of this in the Latin
‘obsequium,’ nor yet in our English word as employed two centuries ago.
See the quotation from Feltham, _s. v._ ‘Garb.’

    Besides many other fishes in divers places, which are very
    obeisant and _obsequious_, when they be called by their
    names.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 970.

    I ever set this down, that the only course to be held with the
    Queen was by _obsequiousness_ and observance.--Lord BACON,
    _Defence of Himself_.

    His corrections are so far from compelling men to come to
    heaven, as that they put many men farther out of their way, and
    work an obduration rather than an _obsequiousness_.--DONNE,
    _Sermon 45_.

    In her relation to the king she was the best pattern of
    conjugal love and _obsequiousness_.--BATES, _Sermon upon the
    Death of the Queen_.


  =OCCUPY=, }
  OCCUPIER. }

He now ‘occupies’ who has in present possession; but the word involved
once the further signification of using, employing, laying out that
which was thus possessed; and by an ‘occupier’ was meant a trader or
retail dealer.

    He [Eumenes] made as though he had occasion to _occupy_ money,
    and so borrowed a great sum of them.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s
    Lives_, p. 505.

    If they bind me fast with new ropes that never were _occupied_,
    then shall I be weak, and be as another man.--_Judges_ xvi. 11.
    (A.V.)

    Mercury, the master of merchants and _occupiers_
    [ἀγοραίων].--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 692.


=OFFAL.= This, bearing its derivation on its front, namely that it
is that which, as refuse and of little or no worth, is suffered or
caused to _fall off_, we restrict at the present to the refuse of the
butcher’s stall; but it was once employed in a much wider acceptation,
an acceptation which here and there still survives. Thus, as one who
writes to me, ‘in all her Majesty’s dockyards there is a monthly sale
by auction of “offal wood,” being literally that which _falls off_ from
the log under the saw, axe, or adze.’

  Glean not in barren soil these _offal_ ears,
  Sith reap thou may’st whole harvests of delight.

          SOUTHWELL, _Lewd Love is Loss_.

    Of gold the very smallest filings are precious, and our
    Blessed Saviour, when there was no want of provision, yet gave
    it in charge to his disciples, the _off-fall_ should not be
    lost.--SANDERSON, _Preface to the Clavi Trabales_.

    Poor Lazarus lies howling at his gates for a few crumbs; he
    only seeks chippings, _offals_; let him roar and howl, famish
    and eat his own flesh; he respects him not.--BURTON, _Anatomy
    of Melancholy_, part iii. sect. 1.


  =OFFICIOUS=,  }
  OFFICIOUSNESS.}

Again and again we light on words used once in a good, but now in an
unfavourable, sense. An ‘officious’ person is now a busy uninvited
meddler in matters which do not belong to him; so late as Burke’s
time he might be one prompt and forward in due _offices_ of kindness.
The more honourable use of ‘officious’ now only survives in the
distinction familiar to diplomacy between an ‘official’ and ‘officious’
communication.

  With granted leave _officious_ I return.

          MILTON, _Paradise Regained_, ii. 302.

    _Officious_, ready to do good offices, serviceable, friendly,
    very courteous and obliging.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.

    They [the nobility of France] were tolerably well bred, very
    _officious_, humane, and hospitable.--BURKE, _Reflections on
    the Revolution in France_, p. 251.

  Well try’d through many a varying year,
  See Levett to the grave descend,
  _Officious_, innocent, sincere,
  Of every friendless name the friend.

          S. JOHNSON (A.D. 1782).

    Which familiar and affectionate _officiousness_ and sumptuous
    cost, together with that sinister fame that woman was noted
    with [_Luke_ vii. 37], could not but give much scandal to
    the Pharisees there present.--H. MORE, _Grand Mystery of
    Godliness_, b. viii. c. 13.


=ORIENT.= This had once a beautiful use, as clear, bright, shining,
which has now wholly departed from it. Thus, the ‘orient’ pearl of
our earlier poets is not ‘oriental,’ but pellucid, white, shining.
Doubtless it acquired this meaning originally from the greater
clearness and lightness of the east, as the quarter whence the day
breaks.

    Those shells that keep in the main sea, and lie deeper than
    that the sunbeams can pierce unto them, keep the finest and
    most delicate pearls. And yet they as _orient_ as they be, wax
    yellow with age.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 255.

    He, who out of that dark chaos made the glorious heavens,
    and garnished them with so many _orient_ stars, can move
    upon thy dark soul and enlighten it, though now it be as
    void of knowledge as the evening of the first day was of
    light.--GURNALL, _Christian in Complete Armour_, ii. 22, 1.

  Her wings and train of feathers, mixed fine
  Of _orient_ azure and incarnadine.

          SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas, Fifth Day_.

    Κόκκος βαφική, a shrub, whose red berries or grains gave
    an _orient_ tincture to cloth.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of
    Palestine_, b. iv. c. 6.


=ORTOLAN.= This, the name now of a delicate bird haunting _gardens_,
was once the name of the gardener (‘hortolanus,’ ‘ortolano’) himself.

    Though to an old tree it must needs be somewhat dangerous to
    be oft removed, yet for my part I yield myself entirely to
    the will and pleasure of the most notable _ortolan_.--_State
    Papers_, 1536, vol. vi. p. 534.


=OSTLER.= Not formerly the servant of the inn having care of the
horses, but the innkeeper or host, the ‘hosteller’ himself.

    And another dai he brougte forth twey pans, and gaf to the
    _ostiler_ [stabulario, Vulg].--_Luke_ x. 35. WICLIF.

  The _innkeeper_ was old, fourscore almost;
  Indeed an emblem, rather than an host;
  In whom we read how God and Time decree
  To honour thrifty _ostlers_, such as he.

          CORBET. _Iter. Boreale._


=OUGHT.= Of the two perfects of the verb ‘to owe’ (see Morris, _English
Accidence_, p. 189; and Earle, _Philology of the English Tongue_, §
289), namely ‘ought’ and ‘owed,’ the former has come now to be used
of a moral owing or obligation only, never of a material; but it was
not always so. In the passage from Spenser ‘ought’ is used in the sense
of ‘possessed.’ Among the many tacit alterations which our Authorized
Version has at various times undergone, the substitution in many places
of ‘owed’ for ‘ought’ is one.

  But th’ Elfin knight which _ought_ that warlike wage,
  Disdaind to loose the meed he wonne in fray.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, i. 4, 39.

    There was a certain creditor, who had two debtors. The one
    _ought_ five hundred pence, and the other fifty.--_Luke_ vii.
    41. (A. V.)

    Also we forgive the oversights and faults committed against
    us, and the crown-tax that ye _ought_ us.--_1 Macc._ xiii. 39.
    Geneva Version.


=OVERTURE.= Not now an aperture or opening, in the literal and primary
sense of the word, as formerly it was; but always in some secondary and
derived.

    The squirrels also foresee a tempest coming; and look in what
    corner the wind is like to stand, on that side they stop up the
    mouth of their holes, and make an _overture_ on the other side
    against it.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, b. viii. c. 38.


  =PAINFUL=,   }
  PAINFULNESS, }
  PAINFULLY.   }

‘Painful’ is now feeling pain, or inflicting it; it was once taking
pains. Many things would not be so ‘painful’ in the present sense of
the word, if they had been more ‘painful’ in the earlier,--as perhaps
some sermons.

    Within fourteen generations, the royal blood of the kings
    of Judah ran in the veins of plain Joseph, a _painful_
    carpenter.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. v. c. 29.

    I think we have some as _painful_ magistrates as ever was in
    England.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, p. 142.

    _Painfulness_ by feeble means shall be able to gain that which
    in the plenty of more forcible instruments is through sloth and
    negligence lost.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. v. § 22.

    O the holiness of their living, and _painfulness_ of their
    preaching!--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. ii. c. 6.

    Whoever would be truly thankful, let him live in some
    honest vocation, and therein bestow himself faithfully and
    _painfully_.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, vol. i. p. 251.


=PALESTINE.= This is now a name for the entire Holy Land; but in the
Authorized Version ‘Palestine,’ or ‘Palestina,’ as it is written
three times out of the four on which it occurs, is used in a far more
restricted sense, namely, as equivalent to Philistia, that narrow strip
of coast occupied by the Philistines. This a close examination of the
several passages (see Wright’s _Dictionary of the Bible_) will make
abundantly clear. And it is also invariably so employed by Milton; thus
see, besides the passage quoted below, _Samson Agonistes_, 144, and _On
the Nativity_, 199.

    Rejoice not thou, whole _Palestina_, because the rod of him
    that smote thee is broken.--_Isai._ xiv. 29. (A.V.)

    Such their [the Philistines’] puissance, that from them the
    Greeks and Latins called all this land _Palestina_, because the
    Philistines lived on the sea coast, most obvious to the notice
    of foreigners.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, ii. 10,
    23.

  Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man
  And downward fish: yet had his temple high
  Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast
  Of _Palestine_, in Gath and Ascalon,
  And Accaron, and Gaza’s frontier bounds.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, i. 462.


  =PALLIATE=, }
  PALLIATION. }

‘To palliate’ is at this day to extenuate a fault through the setting
out of whatever will best serve to diminish the estimate of its
gravity; and does not imply any endeavour wholly to deny it; nay,
implies rather a certain recognition and admission of the fault itself.
Truer to its etymology once, it expressed the _cloking_ of it, the
attempt, successful or otherwise, entirely to conceal and cover it. Eve
‘palliates’ her fault in the modern sense of the word (_Gen._ iii. 13),
Gehazi in the earlier (_2 Kin._ v. 25).

  You cannot _palliate_ mischief, but it will
  Through all the fairest coverings of deceit
  Be always seen.

          DANIEL, _The Tragedy of Philotas_, act iv. sc. 2.

    You see the Devil could fetch up nothing of Samuel at
    the request of Saul, but a shadow and a resemblance, his
    countenance and his mantle, which yet was not enough to cover
    the cheat, or to _palliate_ the illusion.--SOUTH, _Sermon on
    Easter Day_.

    The generality of Christians make the external frame of
    religion but a _palliation_ for sin.--H. MORE, _Grand Mystery
    of Godliness_, p. ix.


=PANTOMIME.=--Now the mimic show itself, but at the first introduction
of the word (Bacon’s constant use of ‘pantomimus’ and ‘pantomimi,’
and Ben Jonson’s as well, testify that it was new in their time), the
player who presented the show.

    I would our _pantomimes_ also and stage-players would examine
    themselves and their callings by this rule.--SANDERSON, _Sermon
    on 1 Cor._ vii. 24.

    The hypocrite cometh forth in a disguise, and acteth his part,
    and because men applaud him, thinketh God is of their mind,
    as the _pantomime_ in Seneca, who observing the people well
    pleased with his dancing, did every day go up into the Capitol
    and dance before Jupiter, and was persuaded that he was also
    delighted in him.--FARINGDON, _Sermon 10_.

  Not that I think those _pantomimes_,
  Who vary actions with the times,
  Are less ingenious in their art
  Than those who dully act one part.

          BUTLER, _Hudibras_, p. 3, can. 2.


  =PATHETIC=,   }
  PATHETICAL,   }
  PATHETICALLY. }

The ‘pathetic’ is now only _one_ kind of the passionate, that which,
feeling _pity_, is itself capable of stirring it; but ‘pathetic’ or
‘pathetical’ and ‘passionate’ were once of an equal reach. When in a
language like ours two words, derived from two different languages, as
in this case from the Greek and from the Latin, exist side by side,
being at the same time identical in signification, the desynonymizing
process which we may note here, continually comes into play.

    He [Hiel, cf. _Josh._ vi. 26 and _1 Kings_ xvi. 34] mistood
    Joshua’s curse rather for a _pathetical_ expression than
    prophetical prediction.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_,
    b. ii. c. 12.

  Whatever word enhanceth Joseph’s praise,
  Her echo doubles it, and doth supply
  Some more _pathetic_ and transcendant phrase
  To raise his merit.

          BEAUMONT, _Psyche_, c. i. st. 148.

    For Truth, I know not how, hath this unhappiness fatal to
    her, ere she can come to the trial and inspection of the
    understanding; being to pass through many little wards and
    limits of the several affections and desires, she cannot
    shift it, but must put on such colours and attire as those
    _pathetical_ handmaids of the soul please to lead her in to
    their queen.--MILTON, _Reason of Church Government_, b. ii. c.
    3.

    But the principal point whereon our apostle pitcheth for
    evincing the priesthood of Christ to be far more excellent than
    the Levitical priesthood was, was reserved to the last, and
    _pathetically_ though briefly avouched, ver. 20 [_Heb._ vii.
    20].--JACKSON, _Of the Divine Essence and Attributes_, b. ix. §
    2.


=PATTERN.= One is at first tempted to accuse our Translators of an
inaccuracy at _Heb._ ix. 23, since, whatever ὑπόδειγμα may mean
elsewhere, it is impossible that it can there mean ‘pattern,’ in our
sense of exemplar or original from which a copy or sketch is derived,
‘patron’ upon whom the client forms and fashions himself. This is
inconsistent with, and would indeed entirely defeat, the whole argument
of the Apostle. The ὑποδείγματα there can be only the earthly copies
and imitations of the heavenly and archetypal originals, ἀντίτυπα τῶν
ἀληθινῶν. A passage, however, in the _Homilies_ entirely relieves
them from any charge of error. All that can be said is that they have
employed ‘pattern’ in a somewhat unusual sense, but one which an
analogous use of ‘copy’ in our own day sufficiently explains.

    Which priests serve unto the _patron_ [ὑποδείγματι] and shadow
    of heavenly things.--_Heb._ viii. 5. Geneva.

    It was therefore necessary that the _patterns_ of things in the
    heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things
    themselves with better sacrifices than these.--_Heb._ ix. 23.
    (A.V.)

    Where most rebellions and rebels be, there is the express
    similitude of hell, and the rebels themselves are the
    very figures of fiends and devils; and their captain, the
    ungracious _pattern_ of Lucifer and Satan, the prince of
    darkness.--_Homilies, Against Wilful Rebellion._


  =PEEVISH=,   }
  PEEVISHNESS. }

By ‘peevishness’ we now understand a small but constantly fretting
ill-temper; yet no one can read our old authors, with whom ‘peevish’
and ‘peevishness’ are of constant recurrence, without feeling
that their use of them is different from ours; although precisely
to determine what their use was is anything but easy. Gifford
(_Massinger_, vol. i. p. 71) says confidently, ‘peevish is foolish;’
but upon induction from an insufficient number of passages. ‘Peevish’
is rather self-willed, obstinate. That in a world like ours those who
refuse to give up their own wills should be continually crossed, and
thus should become fretful, and ‘peevish’ in our modern sense of the
word, is inevitable; and here is the history of the change of meaning
which it has undergone.

  _Valentine._ Cannot your grace win her to fancy him?

  _Duke._ No, trust me; she is _peevish_, sullen, froward,
  Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act iii. sc. 1.

    We provoke, rail, scoff, calumniate, challenge, hate, abuse
    (hard-hearted, implacable, malicious, _peevish_, inexorable
    as we are), to satisfy our lust or private spleen.--BURTON,
    _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part iii. § 1.

    _Pertinax_ hominum genus, a _peevish_ generation of men.--Id.,
    _ib._, part iii. § 4.

    That grand document of keeping to the light within us they
    [the Quakers] borrow out of St. John’s Gospel; and yet they
    are so frantic and _peevish_, that they would fling away the
    staff without which they are not able to make one step in
    religion.--H. MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b. viii. c.
    12.

    In case the Romans, upon an inbred _peevishness_ and engraffed
    pertinacity of theirs, should not hear reason, but refuse an
    indifferent end, then both God and man shall be witness as well
    of the moderation of Perseus, as of their pride and insolent
    frowardness.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1152.

    We must carefully distinguish continuance in opinion from
    obstinacy, confidence of understanding from _peevishness_ of
    affection, a not being convinced from a resolution never to be
    convinced.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Liberty of Prophesying_, § ii. 10.


=PENCIL.= The distinction between ‘pencil’ and paint-brush is quite
modern. The older use of ‘pencil’ (‘penecillus,’ or little tail) was
etymologically more correct than the modern; the brush being so called
because it hung and drooped as does that.

  Heaven knows, they were besmeared and overstained
  With slaughter’s _pencil_, where revenge did paint
  The fearful difference of incensed kings.

          SHAKESPEARE, _King John_, act iii. sc. 1.

    Learning is necessary to him [the heretic], if he trades in
    a critical error; but if he only broaches dregs, and deals
    in some dull sottish opinion, a trowel will serve as well as
    a _pencil_ to daub on such thick coarse colours.--FULLER,
    _Profane State_, b. v. c. 10.

    The first thing she did after rising was to have recourse to
    the _red-pot_, out of which she laid it on very thick with a
    _pencil_, not only on her cheeks, chin, under the nose, above
    the eyebrows and edges of the ears, but also on the inside of
    her hands, her fingers, and shoulders.--_The Lady’s Travels
    into Spain_, Letter 8.


=PENITENTIARY.= It is curious that this word has possessed three
entirely independent meanings, namely penitent, ordainer of penances in
the Church, and place for penitents; only the last is current now.

    So Manasseh in the beginning and middle of his reign filled the
    city with innocent blood, and died a _penitentiary_.--JACKSON,
    _Christ’s Session at God’s Right Hand_, b. ii. c. 42.

    ’Twas a French friar’s conceit that courtiers were of
    all men the likeliest to forsake the world and turn
    _penitentiaries_.--HAMMOND, _The Seventh Sermon_, _Works_, vol.
    iv. p. 517.

    _Penitentiary_, a priest that imposes upon an offender what
    penance he thinks fit.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.


  =PENSIVE=,   }
  PENSIVENESS. }

He is ‘pensive,’ according to our present estimate of the word, in
whom a certain mild and meditative sadness finds place; and in thus
attaching to the word this meaning of a thoughtful sadness we are truer
to its etymology than were our ancestors, when they used it, as they
often did, to express the sharpest anguish of grief. Thus, in my first
quotation, by ‘the pensive court’ is meant the Court of David, which
has just received tidings of the slaughter by Absalom of all the king’s
sons.

  The _pensive_ court in doleful dumps did rue
  This dismal case.

          FULLER, _Poem on David’s hainous Sin._

  Great is the wit of _pensiveness_, and when the head is racked
  With hard misfortune sharp forecast of practice entereth in.

          GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. vi.

    What is care and thought? a plain token of diffidence and
    distrust of God. It is an unfaithful care and _pensiveness_ of
    the mind for meat, drink, clothing.--BECON, _Works_, vol. iii.
    p. 611.


=PENURY.= This expresses now no more than the _objective_ fact of
extreme poverty; an ethical _subjective_ meaning not lying in it,
as would sometimes of old. This is now retained only in ‘penurious,’
‘penuriousness.’

    God sometimes punishes one sin with another; pride
    with adultery, drunkenness with murder, carelessness
    with irreligion, idleness with vanity, _penury_ with
    oppression.--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Faith and Patience of the
    Saints_.


[=PERSEVERANCE.= This word frequently occurs in literature of the
sixteenth and seventeenth century in the sense of perception,
discernment. ‘Perseverance’ = discernment should be carefully
distinguished from ‘perseverance’ (French _perseverance_, Latin
_perseverantia_) = persistency, constancy. The former in many texts is
spelt with a _c_ instead of an _s_, as ‘perceverance,’ ‘perceyverance,’
‘perceiverance.’ This spelling gives the key to the etymology; the
word is a derivative from Old French _percevoir_, _percever_ = Latin
_percipere_, to perceive. For a good collection of illustrative
passages see _Notes and Queries_ (1st S. vii. 400.)]

  If the dead have anie _perceverance_.

          GOLDING (see _N. and Q._)

    She had more _perceverance_ of the Hebrues law.--LANGLEY’S
    _Polidore Vergile_ (see _N. and Q._)

    For his dyet he [Ariosto] was verie temperate, and a great
    enemie of excesse and surfetting, and so carelesse of delicates
    as though he had no _perseverance_ in the tast of meates.--Sir
    J. HARINGTON, _Life of Ariosto_, p. 418.

    He [Æmilius Paulus] suddenly fell into a raving (without
    any _perseverance_ of sickness spied in him before, or any
    change or alteration in him [πρὶν αἰσθέσθαι καὶ νοῆσαι τὴν
    μεταβολήν]), and his wits went from him in such sort that he
    died three days after.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 221.


=PERSON.= We have forfeited the full force of the statement, ‘God is
no respecter of _persons_;’ from the fact that ‘person’ does not mean
for us now all that it once meant. ‘Person,’ from ‘persona,’ the mask
constantly worn by the actor of antiquity, is by natural transfer the
part or _rôle_ in the play which each sustains, as πρόσωπον is in
Greek. In the great tragi-comedy of life each sustains a ‘person;’
one that of a king, another that of a peasant; one must play Dives,
another Lazarus. This ‘person’ God, for whom the question is not _what_
‘person’ each sustains, but _how_ he sustains it, does not respect.

  _King._ What, rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
  The immediate heir of England! was this easy?
  May this be washed in Lethe, and forgotten?

  _Chief Justice._ I then did use the _person_ of your father;
  The image of his power lay then in me.

          SHAKESPEARE, _2 Henry IV._, act v. sc. 2.

    Cæsar also is brought in by Julian attributing to himself the
    honour (if it were at all an honour to that _person_ which he
    sustained), of being the first that left his ship and took
    land.--MILTON, _History of England_, b. ii.

                                  Her gifts
  Were such as under government well seemed;
  Unseemly to bear rule, which was thy part
  And _person_, hadst thou known thyself aright.

          Id., _Paradise Lost_, x. 153.

    Certain it is, that no man can long put on a _person_ and act a
    part but his evil manners will peep through the corners of his
    white robe, and God will bring a hypocrite to shame even in the
    eyes of men.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Apples of Sodom_.


=PERSPECTIVE.= ‘Telescope’ and ‘microscope’ are both as old as Milton;
but for a long while ‘perspective’ (glass being sometimes understood,
and sometimes expressed) did the work of these. It is sometimes
written ‘prospective.’ Our present use of ‘perspective’ hardly dates
farther back than Dryden.

                      A guilty conscience
  Is a black register, wherein is writ
  All our good deeds and bad, a _perspective_
  That shows us hell.

          WEBSTER, _Duchess of Malfi_, act iv. sc. 2.

    While we look for incorruption in the heavens, we find
    they are but like the earth, durable in their main bodies,
    alterable in their parts; whereof, beside comets and new
    stars, _perspectives_ begin to tell tales; and the spots that
    wander about the sun, with Phaeton’s favour, would make clear
    conviction.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Hydriotaphia_.

    Look through faith’s _perspective_ with the magnifying
    end on invisibles (for such is its frame, it lesseneth
    visibles), and thou wilt see sights not more strange than
    satisfying.--WHITLOCK, _Zootomia_, p. 535.

  A tiny mite, which we can scarcely see
  Without a _perspective_.

          OLDHAM, _Eighth Satire of M. Boileau_.


=PERT.= This word had once the meaning of brisk, lively, nimble; now it
is this with a very distinct subaudition of sauciness and impertinence
as well.

  Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
  Awake the _pert_ and nimble spirit of youth.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act i. sc. 1.

  And on the tawny sands and shelves
  Trip the _pert_ faeries and the dapper elves.

          MILTON, _Comus_, 117.


=PESTER.= There is no greater discomfort or annoyance than extreme
straitness or narrowness of room; out of which in Greek the
word στενοχωρία, signifying this, has come to have a secondary
signification of trouble or anguish. [In English, ‘to pester’ bears
witness to the same fact, having first the meaning of to encumber or
clog, then the second meaning of painfully cooping-up in a narrow and
confined space, and lastly the meaning of to vex or annoy, which sense
it still retains.]

    Now because the most part of the people might not possibly have
    a sight of him, they gat up all at once into the theatre, and
    _pestered_ it quite full.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1055.

    They within, though _pestered_ with their own numbers, stood to
    it like men resolved, and in a narrow compass did remarkable
    deeds.--MILTON, _History of England_, b. ii.

    The calendar is filled, not to say _pestered_ with them [that
    is, with Saints’ Days], jostling one another for room, many
    holding the same day in copartnership of festivity.--FULLER,
    _Worthies of England_, c. 3.


  =PHYSICAL=, }
  PHYSICALLY. }

Though ‘physical’ has not dissociated itself from ‘physics,’ it has
from ‘physic’ and ‘physician,’ being used now as simply the equivalent
for ‘natural’ which the Greek language has supplied us; but it was not
always so.

  Is Brutus sick? and is it _physical_
  To walk unbracéd and suck up the humours
  Of the dank morning?

          SHAKESPEARE, _Julius Cæsar_, act ii. sc. 1.

    Attalus, surnamed Philometer (to say, lover of his mother),
    would plant and set _physical_ herbs, as helleborum.--NORTH,
    _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 739.

    And for physic, he [Lord Bacon] did indeed live
    _physically_,[21] but not miserably.--RAWLEY, _Life of Lord
    Bacon_.


=PLACARD.= Formerly used often in the sense of a license or permission,
the ‘placard’ being properly the broad tablet or board on which this,
as well as other edicts and ordinances, was exposed.

  Then for my voice I must (no choice)
  Away of force, like posting horse,
  For sundry men had _placards_ then
      Such child to take.

          TUSSER, _Author’s Life_.

    Others are of the contrary opinion, and that Christianity gives
    us a _placard_ to use these sports; and that man’s charter of
    dominion over the creatures enables him to employ them as well
    for pleasure as necessity.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. iii. c. 13.


=PLANTATION.= We still ‘plant’ a colony, but a ‘plantation’ is now of
trees only; and not of men. There was a time when ‘The Plantations’
was the standing name by which our transatlantic colonies were known.
One of Bacon’s state-papers has this title, ‘Certain Considerations
touching the _Plantation_ in Ireland.’

    It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people
    and wicked condemned men to be the people with whom you plant:
    and not only so, but it spoileth the _plantation_.--Lord BACON,
    _Essays_, 33.

    _Plantations_ make mankind broader, as generation makes it
    thicker.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. iii. c. 16.


=PLATFORM.= This word has lost much of its meaning, that is in
England; for it is very far from having so done in America. The only
‘platforms’ which we know of here are structures of boards erected to
serve a temporary need. But a ‘platform’ was once a scheme or pattern
on which, as on a ground-plan, other things, moral or material, might
be disposed. Statesmen had their ‘platform’ of policy; Churches their
‘platform’ of doctrine and discipline; and so is it still in America,
where the word is in constant use.

    They, [the courtiers of Dionysius] were every one occupied
    about drawing the _platform_ of Sicilia, telling the nature
    of the Sicilian Sea, and reckoning up the havens and places
    looking towards Africk.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 456.

    The _platform_ of this Tabernacle was by God delivered to
    Moses on the Mount, with a strict charge to make all things
    conformable thereunto.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_,
    b. iv. c. 4.


  =PLAUSIBLE=,  }
  PLAUSIBLY,    }
  PLAUSIBILITY. }

That is ‘plausible’ now which presents itself as worthy of applause;
yet always with a subaudition, or at least a suggestion, that it is
not so really; it was once that which obtained applause, with at least
the _primâ facie_ likelihood that the applause which it obtained was
deserved.

    This John Bishop of Constantinople, that assumed to himself
    the title of Universal Bishop or Patriarch, was a good man,
    given greatly to alms and fasting, but too much addicted to
    advance the title of his see; which made a _plausible_ bishop
    seem to be Antichrist to Gregory the Great.--HACKET, _Life of
    Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p. 66.

  The Romans _plausibly_ did give consent
  For Tarquin’s everlasting banishment.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Lucrece_, 1854.

    He was no sooner in sight than every one received him
    _plausibly_, and with great submission and reverence.--STUBBES,
    _Anatomy of Abuses_, p. 17.

    Being placed in the upper part of the world, [he] carried on
    his dignity with that justice, modesty, integrity, fidelity,
    and other gracious _plausibilities_, that in a place of
    trust he contented those whom he could not satisfy, and in
    a place of envy procured the love of those who emulated his
    greatness.--VAUGHAN, _Life and Death of Dr. Jackson_.


  =POACH=, }
  POACHER. }

A ‘poacher’ is strictly speaking an intruder; one who intrudes or
‘poaches’ into land where he has no business; the fact that he does so
with intention of spoiling the game is superadded, not lying in the
word.

    Pocher le labeur d’autruy. To _poch_ into, or incroach upon
    another man’s imployment, practise or trade.--COTGRAVE.

    So that, to speak truly, they [the Spaniards] have rather
    _poached_ and offered at a number of enterprises, than
    maintained any constantly.--Lord BACON, _Notes of a Speech
    concerning a War with Spain_.

    It is ill conversing with an ensnarer, delving into the
    bottom of your mind, to know what is hid in it. I would ask
    a casuist if it were not lawful for me not only to hide my
    mind, but to cast something that is not true before such a
    _poacher_.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p.
    113.


  =POLITE=, }
  POLITELY. }

Between ‘polite’ and ‘polished’ this much of difference has now grown
up and established itself, that ‘polite’ is always employed in a
secondary and tropical sense, having reference to the polish of the
mind, while it is free to use ‘polished’ in the literal and figurative
sense alike.

    _Polite_ bodies, as looking-glasses.--CUDWORTH, _Intellectual
    System_, p. 731.

    _Polite_; well-polished, neat.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.

    In things artificial seldom any elegance is wrought without a
    superfluous waste and refuse in the transaction. No marble
    statue can be _politely_ carved, no fair edifice built, without
    almost as much rubbish and sweeping.--MILTON, _Reason of Church
    Government_, b. i. c. 7.


  =POLITICS=, }
  POLITICIAN. }

At the present ‘politics’ are always _things_, but were sometimes
_persons_ as well in times past. ‘Politician’ too had an evil
subaudition. One so named was a trickster or underhand self-seeker and
schemer in politics, or it might be, as it is throughout in the sermon
of South, quoted below, in the ordinary affairs of life. Fuller calls
his Life of the wicked usurper Andronicus, ‘The Unfortunate Politician.’

    It did in particular exasperate Tacitus, and other _politicks_
    of his temper, to see so many natural Romans renounce their
    name and country for maintenance of Jewish religion.--JACKSON,
    _The Eternal Truth of Scriptures_, b. i. c. 20.

    Let them [spiritual persons] have the diligence and craft
    of fishers, the watchfulness and the care of shepherds, the
    prudence of _politics_, the tenderness of parents.--Bishop
    TAYLOR, _Life of Christ_, part ii. § 12.

    If this arch-_politician_ [the Devil] find in his pupils any
    remorse, any feeling or fear of God’s future judgment, he
    persuades them that God hath so great need of men’s souls that
    He will accept them at any time and upon any conditions.--Sir
    W. RALEIGH, _History of the World_, b. i. c. 7, § 9.

  Why, look you, I am whipped and scourged with rods,
  Nettled and stung with pismires, when I hear
  Of this vile _politician_ Bolingbroke.

          SHAKESPEARE, _1 Henry IV._, act i. sc. 3.

  A _politician_ is the devil’s quilted anvil;
  He fashions all sins on him and the blows
  Are never heard.

          WEBSTER, _Duchess of Malfi_, act iii. sc. 2.

    The _politician_, whose very essence lies in this, that he
    is a person ready to do anything that he apprehends for his
    advantage, must first of all be sure to put himself in a state
    of liberty, as free and large as his principles, and so to
    provide elbow-room enough for his conscience to lay about it,
    and have its full play in.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol. i. p.
    324.


  =POMP=,    }
  POMPOUS,   }
  POMPOUSLY. }

‘Pomp’ is one of the many words which Milton employs with a strict
classical accuracy, so that he is only to be perfectly understood when
we keep in mind that a ‘pomp’ with him is always πομπή, a procession.
He is not, however, singular here, as he often is, in the stricter
use of a word. It is easy to perceive how ‘pomp’ obtained its wider
application. There is no such favourable opportunity for the display of
state and magnificence as a procession; this is almost the inevitable
form which they take; and thus the word first applied to the most
frequent display of these, came afterwards to be transferred to every
display. In respect to ‘pompous’ and ‘pompously’ there is something
else to note. There is in them always now the suggestion of that which
is more in show than in substance, or, at any rate, of a magnificence
which, if real, is yet vaingloriously and ostentatiously displayed.
But they did not convey, and were not intended to convey, any such
impression once.

    [Antiochus] also provided a great number of bulls with gilt
    horns, the which he conducted himself with a goodly _pomp_
    and procession to the very gate of the city [ἄχρι τῶν πυλῶν
    ἐπόμπευσε].--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 417.

  With goddess-like demeanour forth she went,
  Not unattended; for on her, as queen,
  A _pomp_ of winning Graces waited still.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, viii. 59.

  The planets in their stations listening stood,
  While the bright _pomp_ ascended jubilant.

          Id., _ib._ vii. 563.

  What _pompous_ powers of ravishment were here,[22]
  What delicate extremities of pleasure.

          BEAUMONT, _Psyche_, can. xv. st. 299.

    All expresses related that the entertainment [of Prince Charles
    at Madrid] was very _pompous_ and kingly.--HACKET, _Life of
    Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 119.

    He [Hardecnute] gave his sister Gunildis, a virgin of rare
    beauty, in marriage to Henry the Alman Emperor; and to send her
    forth _pompously_, all the nobility contributed their jewels
    and richest ornaments.--MILTON, _History of England_, b. vi.


  =POPULAR=,  }
  POPULARITY. }

He was ‘popular’ once, not who had acquired, but who was laying himself
out to acquire, the favour of the people. ‘Popularity’ was the wooing,
not, as now, the having won, that favour; exactly the Latin ‘ambitio.’
The word, which is passive now, was active then.

    Of a senator he [Manlius] became _popular_, and began to break
    his mind and impart his designs unto the magistrates of the
    commons, finding fault with the nobility.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, 224.

  And oft in vain his name they closely bite,
  As _popular_ and flatterer accusing.

          P. FLETCHER, _Purple Island_, c. 10.

    Divers were of opinion that he [Caius Gracchus] was more
    _popular_ and desirous of the common people’s good will and
    favour than his brother had been before him. But indeed he was
    clean contrary.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p 690.

    Cato the Younger charged Muræna, and indited him in open court
    for _popularity_ and ambition.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_,
    p. 243.

    Harold, lifted up in mind, and forgetting now his former
    shows of _popularity_, defrauded his soldiers their due and
    well-deserved share of the spoils.--MILTON, _History of
    England_, b. vi.


  =PORTLY=,   }
  PORTLINESS. }

There lies in ‘portly’ a certain sense of dignity of demeanour still,
but always connoted with this a cumbrousness and weight, such as
Spenser in his noble _Epithalamion_ (see below) would never have
ascribed to his bride, nor Shakespeare to the swift-footed Achilles
(_Troilus and Cressida_, act iv. sc. 5), or to the youthful Romeo.

    The chief and most _portly_ person of them all was one
    Hasdrubal [_Insignis_ tamen inter ceteros Hasdrubal
    erat].--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 7.

  He [Romeo] bears him like a _portly_ gentleman.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Romeo and Juliet_, act i. sc. 5.

  Rudely thou wrongest my deare hart’s desire,
  In finding fault with her too _portly_ pride;
  For in those lofty lookes is close implide
  Scorn of base things and ’sdeigne of foule dishonor,
  Such pride is praise; such _portlinesse_ is honor.

          SPENSER, _Sonnet 5_.


=PRAGMATICAL.= This is always employed at the present in an ill sense;
the ‘pragmatical’ man is not merely busy, but over-busy, officious,
meddling; nay, more than this, with an assumption of bustling
self-importance. The word’s etymology does not require this ill sense,
which is merely superinduced upon it, and from which it was not indeed
always, but often free in its earlier use.

    It may appear at the first a new and unwonted argument, to
    teach men how to raise and make their fortune; but the handling
    thereof concerneth learning greatly both in honour and in
    substance. In honour, because _pragmatical_ men may not go
    away with an opinion that learning is like a lark, that can
    mount and sing and please herself, and nothing else; but may
    know that she holdeth as well of the hawk, that can soar
    aloft, and also descend and strike upon the prey.--Lord BACON,
    _Advancement of Learning_, b. ii.

    We cannot always be contemplative or _pragmatical_ abroad;
    but have need of some delightful intermissions wherein the
    enlarged soul may leave off her severe schooling.--MILTON,
    _Tetrachordon_.


  =PREPOSTEROUS=, }
  PREPOSTEROUSLY. }

A word nearly or quite unserviceable now, being merely an ungraceful
and slipshod synonym for absurd. But restore and confine it to its old
use and to one peculiar branch of absurdity, the reversing of the true
order and method of things, the putting of the last first, and the
first last, and of what excellent service it would be capable!

    It is a _preposterous_ order to teach first, and to learn
    after.--_The Translators_ [_of the Bible_, 1611] _to the Reader._

    King Asa justly received little benefit by them [physicians],
    because of his preposterous addressing himself to them before
    he went to God (_2 Chron._ xvi. 12).--FULLER, _Worthies of
    England_, c. ix.

    To reason thus, I am of the elect, I therefore have saving
    faith, and the rest of the sanctifying qualities, therefore
    that which I do is good: thus I say to reason is very
    _preposterous_. We must go a quite contrary course, and thus
    reason: my life is good ... I therefore have the gifts of
    sanctification, and therefore am of God’s elect.--HALES,
    _Sermon on St. Peter’s Fall_.

    Some indeed _preposterously_ misplace these, and make us
    partake of the benefit of Christ’s priestly office in the
    forgiveness of our sins and our reconcilement to God, before
    we are brought under the sceptre of his kingly office by our
    obedience.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol. xi. p. 3.


  =PRETEND=,  }
  PRETENCE,   }
  PRETENSION. }

To charge one with ‘pretending’ anything is now a much more serious
charge than it was once. Indeed it was not necessarily, and only by
accident, a charge at all. That was ‘pretended’ which one stretched out
before himself and in face of others: but whether it was the thing it
affirmed itself to be, or, as at present, only a deceitful resemblance
of this, the word did not decide. While it was thus with ‘to pretend,’
there was as yet no distinction recognized between ‘pretence’ and
‘pretension;’ they both signified the act of ‘pretending,’ or the
thing ‘pretended;’ but whether truly or falsely it was left to the
context, or to the judgment of the reader, to decide. ‘Pretence’ has
since followed the fortunes of ‘pretend,’ and has fallen with it; while
‘pretension’ has disengaged itself from being a merely useless synonym
of ‘pretence,’ and, retaining its relation to the earlier uses of the
verb, now signifies a claim put forward which may or may not be valid,
the word leaving this for other considerations to determine. Louis
Napoleon assumed the dictatorship under the ‘pretence’ of resisting
anarchy; the House of Orleans had ‘pretensions’ to the throne of
France. But these distinctions are quite modern.

    Being preferred by King James to the bishopric of Chichester,
    and _pretending_ his own imperfectness and insufficiency to
    undergo such a charge, he caused to be engraven about the seal
    of his bishopric, those words of St. Paul, Et ad hæc quis
    idoneus?--ISAACSON, _Life and Death of Lancelot Andrewes_.

    [The Sabbath] is rather hominis gratiâ quam Dei; and
    though God’s honour is mainly _pretended_ in it, yet it is
    man’s happiness that is really intended by it, even of God
    Himself.--H. MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b. viii. c. 13.

  I come no enemy, but to set free
  From out this dark and dismal house of pain
  Both him and thee, and all the heavenly host
  Of Spirits, that, in our just _pretences_ armed,
  Fell with us from on high.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, ii. 822; cf. vi. 421.

    This is the tree whose leaves were intended for the healing of
    the nations, not for a _pretence_ and palliation for sin.--H.
    MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b. viii. c. 1.

    He [the Earl of Pembroke] was exceedingly beloved in the Court,
    because he never desired to get that for himself which others
    laboured for; but was still ready to promote the _pretences_ of
    worthy men.--CLARENDON, _History of the Rebellion_, b. i. c.
    121.

    It is either secret pride, or base faintness of heart, or dull
    sloth, or some other thing, and not true modesty in us if
    being excellently gifted for some weighty employment in every
    other man’s judgment, we yet withdraw ourselves from it with
    _pretensions_ of unsufficiency.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671, p.
    208.


  =PREVARICATE=, }
  PREVARICATION. }

This verb, often now very loosely used, had once a very definite
meaning of its own. ‘To prevaricate’ is to betray the cause which
one affects to sustain, the prevaricator is the feint pleader, as he
used to be called, and, so far as I know, the words are always so
used by our early writers. We have inherited the word from the Latin
law-courts, which borrowed it from the life. The ‘prævaricator’ being
one who halted on two unequal legs, the name was transferred to him
who, affecting to prosecute a charge, was in secret collusion with
the opposite party, and so managed the cause as to ensure his escape.
Observe in the two following passages the accuracy of use which so
habitually distinguishes our writers of the seventeenth century as
compared with too many of the nineteenth.

    I proceed now to do the same service for the divines of
    England; whom you question first in point of learning and
    sufficiency, and then in point of conscience and honesty,
    as _prevaricating_ in the religion which they profess, and
    inclining to Popery.--CHILLINGWORTH, _Religion of Protestants_,
    Preface, p. 11.

    If we be not all enemies to God in this kind [in a direct
    opposition], yet in adhering to the enemy we are enemies; in
    our _prevarications_, and easy betrayings and surrendering
    of ourselves to the enemy of his kingdom, Satan, we are his
    enemies.--DONNE, _On the Nativity_. Sermon 7.


  =PREVENT=,  }
  PREVENTION. }

One may reach a point before another to help or to hinder him there;
may anticipate his arrival either with the purpose of keeping it _for_
him, or keeping it _against_ him. ‘To prevent’ has slipped by very
gradual degrees, which it would not be difficult to trace, from the
sense of keeping _for_ to that of keeping _against_, from the sense of
arriving first with the intention of helping, to that of arriving first
with the intention of hindering, and then generally from helping to
hindering.

    So it is, that if Titus had not _prevented_ the whole multitude
    of people which came to see him, and if he had not got him away
    betimes, before the games were ended, he had hardly escaped
    from being stifled amongst them.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p.
    321.

    Gentlemen that were brought low, not by their vices, but
    by misfortune, poveri vergognosi as the Tuscan calls them,
    bashful, and could not crave though they perished, he
    _prevented_ their modesty, and would heartily thank those that
    discovered their commiserable condition to him.--HACKET, _Life
    of Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 201.

    That poor man had waited thirty and eight years [at the pool
    of Bethesda], and still was _prevented_ by some other.--Bishop
    TAYLOR, _Life of Christ_, part iii. § 13.

  There he beheld how humbly diligent
  New Adulation was to be at hand;
  How ready Falsehood stept; how nimbly went
  Base pick-thank Flattery, and _prevents_ command.

          DANIEL, _Civil Wars_, b. ii. st. 56.

                  Half way he met
  His daring foe, at this _prevention_ more
  Incensed.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, vi. 129.


=PROBABLE.= Already in the best classical Latin ‘probabilis’ had
passed over into the secondary meaning of ‘probatus;’ thus ‘probabilis
orator’ (Cicero) is an approved orator. ‘Probable’ is often so used by
our scholarly writers of the seventeenth century; though we now use
it only in its original sense of ‘likely.’ On the distinction between
‘probable’ and ‘likely,’ ‘probability’ and ‘likelihood,’ see Garden,
_Dictionary of Philosophical Terms_.

    The Lord Bacon would have rewards given to those men who in
    the quest of natural experiments make _probable_ mistakes.
    An ingenious miss is of more credit than a bungling casual
    hit.--FULLER, _Mixt Contemplations_, i. 26.

    S. Ambrose, who was a good _probable_ doctor, and one as fit to
    be relied on as any man else, hath these words.--Bishop TAYLOR,
    _Doctrine and Practice of Repentance_, Preface.


=PROBATION.= This is strictly speaking = δοκιμή, the process of
proving; as ‘proof’ is = δοκίμιον or δοκιμεῖον, that by which this
proving is carried out; thus toil is the δοκίμιον of soldiers
(Herodian); and we now very properly keep the words apart according to
this rule; but formerly this was not so.

                  He, sir, was lapped
  In a most curious mantle, wrought by the hand
  Of his queen-mother, which for more _probation_
  I can with ease produce.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Cymbeline_, act v. sc. 5.

    Also Philip the Evangelist had three daughters. Neither can it
    help to say that these children were born before his election;
    for this is but a simple saying, and no _probation_.--FRITH,
    _Works_, 1572, p. 325.


=PRODIGIOUS.= This notes little now but magnitude. Truer to its
etymology once (from ‘prodigium’ = prōd + agium from ajo, see Brugmann,
§ 509), it signified the ominous or ominously prophetic.

  Blood shall put out your torches, and instead
  Of gaudy flowers about your wanton necks,
  An axe shall hang, like a _prodigious_ meteor,
  Ready to crop your loves’ sweets.

          BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, _Philaster_, act v. sc. 1.

    Without this comely ornament of hair, their [women’s] most
    glorious beauty appears as deformed, as the sun would be
    _prodigious_ without beams.--FULLER, _The Profane State_, b. v.
    c. 5.

    I began to reflect on the whole life of this _prodigious_
    man.--COWLEY, _On the Government of Oliver Cromwell_.


  =PROMOTE=, }
  PROMOTER,  }
  PROMOTION. }

‘To promote,’ that is, to further or set forward, a ‘promoter,’ a
furtherer, are now words of harmless, often of quite an honourable,
signification. They were once terms of extremest scorn; a ‘promoter’
being a common informer, and so called because he ‘promoted’ charges
and accusations against men (promotor litium: Skinner).

    There lack men to _promote_ the king’s officers when they do
    amiss, and to _promote_ all offenders.--LATIMER, _Last Sermon
    before Edward VI._

  Thou, Linus, that lov’st still to be _promoting_,
  Because I sport about King Henry’s marriage,
  Think’st this will prove a matter worth the carriage.

          Sir J. HARINGTON, _Epigrams_, ii. 98.

    Aristogiton the sycophant, or false _promoter_, was condemned
    to death for troubling men with wrongful imputations.--HOLLAND,
    _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 421.

  His eyes be _promoters_, some trespass to spy.

          TUSSER, _Of an envious and haughty Neighbour_.

    _Promoters_ be those which in popular and penal actions do
    defer the names or complain of offenders, having part of the
    profit for their reward.--COWELL, _The Interpreter_, s. v.

    Covetousness and _promotion_ and such like are that right hand
    and right eye which must be cut off and plucked out, that the
    whole man perish not.--TYNDALE, _Exposition of the Sixth Chap.
    of Matthew_.


=PROPRIETY.= All ‘propriety’ is now mental or moral; where material
things are concerned, we employ ‘property,’ at the first no more than a
different spelling or slightly different form of the same word.

    But some man haply will say, That where private _propriety_ is
    in place, public community is turned out of doors. HOLLAND,
    _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 680.

    He [the good servant] provides good bounds and sufficient
    fences betwixt his own and his master’s estate (Jacob, _Gen._
    xxx. 36, set his flock three days’ journey from Laban’s),
    that no quarrel may arise about their _propriety_, nor
    suspicion that his remnant hath eaten up his master’s whole
    cloth.--FULLER, _The Holy State_, b. i. c. 8.

  Hail, wedded love, mysterious law, true source
  Of human offspring, sole _propriety_
  In Paradise of all things common else.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, iv. 751.

    A _propriety_ is nothing else but _jus ad rem_, when a man
    doth claim such a thing as his own, and has a power to use
    it and dispose of it in a lawful way for his own benefit and
    advantage.--STRONG, _Of the Two Covenants_, b. iii. c. 1.


  =PROSE=, }
  PROSER.  }

‘To prose’ is now to talk or to write heavily, tediously, without
spirit and without animation; but ‘to prose’ was once the antithesis
of to versify, and a ‘proser’ of a writer in metre. In the tacit
assumption that vigour, animation, rapid movement, with all the
precipitation of the spirit, belong to verse rather than to prose, lies
the explanation of the changed uses of the words.

    It was found that whether ought was imposed me by them that
    had the overlooking, or betaken to of mine own choice in
    English or other tongue, _prosing_ or versing, but chiefly this
    latter, the style, by certain vital signs it had, was likely to
    live.--MILTON, _Reason of Church Government_, b. ii.

  And surely Nash, though he a _proser_ were,
  A branch of laurel yet deserves to bear.

          DRAYTON, _On Poets and Poesy_.


=PRUNE.= At present we only ‘prune’ trees; but our earlier authors use
the word where we should use ‘preen,’ which indeed is but another form
of the word. With us only birds ‘preen’ their feathers, while women, as
in the example which follows, might ‘prune’ themselves of old.

    A husband that loveth to trim and pamper his body, causeth his
    wife by that means to study nothing else but the tricking and
    _pruning_ of herself.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 318.


=PUBLICAN.= Formerly one who gathered the taxes, and paid them into the
_publicum_ or treasury; but now--though, as Johnson assures us, ‘in low
language’--a man that keeps a house of public entertainment.

    The late king’s extorting _publicans_ (whereof Ranolf
    Flambard, Bishop of Durham, the principal) were closely
    imprisoned.--FULLER, _Church History_, ii. 3, 13.

    They would not suffer him to take that money out of the
    treasury which was pressed and ready for him, but assigned
    and ordained certain moneys from the _publicans_ and farmers
    of the city’s customs and revenues to furnish him.--HOLLAND,
    _Plutarch_, p. 435.


=PULPIT.= We distinguish now between the ‘pulpit’ and the rostrum; our
ancestors did not so.

  I will myself into the _pulpit_ first,
  And show the reason of our Cæsar’s death.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Julius Cæsar_, act iii. sc. 1.

    He [Cicero] said that those orators who used to strain their
    voices and cry aloud in the _pulpit_ were privy to their own
    weakness and insufficience otherwise.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s
    Morals_, p. 439.


  =PUNCTUAL=, }
  PUNCTUALLY. }

‘This word is now confined to the meagre denoting of accuracy in
respect to time--fidelity to the precise moment of an appointment.
But originally it was just as often and just as reasonably applied to
space as to time. Nor only was it applied to time and space, but it had
a large and very elegant figurative use’ (De Quincey, _Note Book_).
Thus a ‘punctual’ narration was a narration which entered into minuter
_points_ of detail.

        The stars that seem to roll
        ... merely to officiate light
  Round this opacous earth, this _punctual_ spot.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, viii. 19-23.

    Truly I thought I could not be too _punctual_ in describing
    the animal life, it being so serviceable for our better
    understanding the divine.--H. MORE, _Grand Mystery of
    Godliness_, Preface, p. x.

    All curious solicitude about riches smells of avarice; even
    the very disposing of it with a too _punctual_ and artificial
    liberality is not worth a painful solicitude.--COTTON,
    _Montaigne’s Essays_, b. iii. c. 9.

    Every one is to give a reason of his faith; but priests or
    ministers more _punctually_ than any.--H. MORE, _Grand Mystery
    of Godliness_, b. x. c. 12.


=PUNY.= The present use of ‘puny,’ as that which is at once weak and
small, is only secondary and inferential. ‘Puny’ or ‘puisne’ (puis né)
is born after another, therefore younger; and only by inference smaller
and weaker.

    It were a sign of ignorant arrogancy, if _punies_ or freshmen
    should reject the axioms and principles of Aristotle, usual
    in the schools, because they have some reasons against them
    which themselves cannot answer.--JACKSON, _The Eternal Truth of
    Scriptures_, c. i.

    [The worthy soldier] had rather others should make a ladder of
    his dead corpse to scale a city by it, than a bridge of him
    whilst alive for his _punies_ to give him the go-by, and pass
    over him to preferment.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. iv. c. 17.

    He is dead and buried, and by this time no _puny_ among the
    mighty nations of the dead; for though he left this world not
    very many days past, yet every hour, you know, addeth largely
    unto that dark society.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Letter to a Friend_,
    p. 1.


=PURCHASE.= Now always to acquire in exchange for money, to buy; but
much oftener in our old writers simply to acquire, being properly to
hunt, ‘pourchasser;’ and then to take in hunting; then to acquire; and
then, as the commonest way of acquiring is by giving money in exchange,
to buy. The word occurs six times in our Version of the New Testament,
_Acts_ i. 18; viii. 10; xx. 28; _Ephes._ i. 14; _1 Tim._ iii. 13; _1
Pet._ ii. 9, margin; in none of these is the notion of buying involved.
At _Acts_ i. 18, this is especially noteworthy. It is there said: ‘This
man _purchased_ a field with the reward of iniquity.’ There will always
remain certain difficulties in reconciling the different records of
the death of Judas; but if St. Peter had here affirmed that Judas had
_bought_ this field of blood, these difficulties would be seriously
increased, for the chief priests were the actual buyers (_Matt._ xxvii.
7). He affirms no such thing, neither did our Translators understand
him to do so, but simply that Judas made that ominous potter’s field
his own (ἐκτήσατο). The Revised Version has ‘obtained.’

    And therefore true consideration of estate can hardly find
    what to reject, in matter of territory, in any empire, except
    it be some glorious acquists obtained sometime in the bravery
    of wars, which cannot be kept without excessive charge and
    trouble, of which kind were the _purchases_ of King Henry
    VIII., that of Tournay, and that of Bologne.--BACON, _History
    of King Henry VII._

    The _purchases_ of our own industry are joined commonly with
    labour and strife.--Id., _Colours of Good and Evil_, 9.

    Meditation considers anything that may best make us to avoid
    the place and to quit a vicious habit, or master and rectify
    an untoward inclination, or _purchase_ a virtue or exercise
    one.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Life of Christ_, part i. § 5.

    [Men] will repent, but not restore; they will say _Nollem
    factum_, they wish they had never done it; but since it
    is done, you must give them leave to rejoice in their
    _purchase_.--Id., _Sermon preached to the University of Dublin_.

    As it is a happiness for us to _purchase_ friends, so is
    it misery to lose them.--REYNOLDS, _God’s Revenge against
    Murther_, b. v. hist. 21.


=PURSUER.= ‘Pursue’ and ‘pursuer’ are older words in the language than
‘persecute’ and ‘persecutor’--earlier adoptions of ‘persequor’ and
‘persecutor,’ through Old French and not immediately from the Latin.
Besides the meaning which they still retain, they once also covered
the meanings which these later words have, since their introduction,
appropriated as exclusively their own. In Scotch law the prosecutor is
the ‘pursuer,’ ὁ διώκων.

    That first was a blaspheme and _pursuere_.--_1 Tim._ i. 13.
    WICLIF.

    If God leave them in this hardness of heart, they may prove as
    desperate opposites and _pursuers_ of all grace, of Christ and
    Christians, as the most horrible open swine, as we see in Saul
    and Julian.--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 106.


  =QUAINT=, }
  QUAINTLY. }

In ‘quaint,’ which is the Middle English ‘quaynt,’ ‘queynt,’ ‘coint,’
Old French ‘cointe,’ the same word as the Latin ‘cognitum,’ there lies
always now the notion of a certain curiosity and oddness, however
these may be subordinated to ends of beauty and grace, and indeed
may themselves be made to contribute to these ends: pretty after some
bygone standard of prettiness; but all this is of late introduction
into the word, which had once simply the meaning of neat, graceful,
skilful, subtle, knowing.

  O britel joye, O sweete venym _queynte_,
  O monstre that so subtily canst peynte
  Thyn giftes, under hiew of stedfastnesse,
  That thou desceyuest bothe more and lesse.

          CHAUCER, _The Marchaundes Tale_ (Morris, ii. p. 343).

  I grant, my Lord, the damsel is as fair
  As simple Suffolk’s homely towns can yield,
  But in the court be _quainter_ dames than she.

          GREENE, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, sc. 1.

  But you, my lord, were glad to be employed,
  To show how _quaint_ an orator you are.

          SHAKESPEARE, _2 Henry VI._, act iii. sc. 2.

    Whom evere I schal kisse, he it is; holde ye him, and lede ye
    warli, or _queyntly_.--_Mark_ xiv. 44. WICLIF (earlier version).

  A ladder quaintly made of cords.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act iii. sc. 1.


=QUERULOUS.= Not formerly, as now, addicted to the making of
complaints, but quarrelsome.

    There inhabit these regions a kind of people, rude, warlike,
    ready to fight, _querulous_, and mischievous.--HOLLAND,
    _Camden’s Scotland_, p. 39.

    Not _querulous_, or clamorous in his discourse; ‘He shall not
    _strive_ nor cry, neither shall any hear his voice in the
    streets;’ but meek and quiet.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of
    Palestine_, b. iii. c. 6.


=RACE.= Formerly ‘race,’ the Old French ‘raïs,’ the same word as the
Latin ‘radicem,’ was used in the sense of a root.

    A _race_ of ginger.--SHAKESPEARE, _Winter’s Tale_, act iv. sc.
    3.


=RAISIN.= It is conveniently agreed now that ‘raisin’ shall be employed
only of the _dried_ grape, but this does not lie in ‘racemus,’ of
which ‘raisin’ is the French equivalent, nor yet in its earlier uses;
indeed, ‘raisins _of the sun_’ (Sir J. Harington) was a phrase commonly
employed when the dried fruit was intended.

    Nether in the vyneyerd thou schalt gadere _reysyns_ and greynes
    fallynge doun, but thou schalt leeve to be gaderid of pore men
    and pilgryms.--_Lev._ xix. 10. WICLIF.


  =RASCAL=,  }
  RASCALITY. }

The lean unseasonable members of the herd of deer were formerly so
called; then the common people, the _plebs_ as distinguished from
the _populus_; it is only in comparatively modern English that the
word is one of moral contempt. [In Anglo-French the word ‘rascaille’
was used in the sense of a rabble; for references and etymology see
Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of Middle English_.]

    And he smoot of the puple seventi men, and fifti thousandis
    of the _raskeyl_ [Et percussit de populo septuaginta viros et
    quinquaginta millia _plebis_ (Vulg.)].--_1 Kin._ vi. 19. WICLIF.

    The common priests be not so obedient unto their ordinaryes
    that they will pay money except they know why. Now it is not
    expedient that every _rascal_ should know the secretes of
    the very true cause, for many considerations.--TYNDALE, _The
    Practice of Popishe Prelates_.

  Now shall I tel you which ben bestes of chace;
  And ye shall, my dere sones, other bestes all,
  Whereso ye hem finde, _rascall_ hem call.

          JULIANA BERNERS, _The Book of St. Albans_.

    As one should in reproach say to a poor man, Thou _raskall_
    knave, where _raskall_ is properly the hunter’s term
    given to young deer, lean and out of season, and not to
    people.--PUTTENHAM, _Art of English Poesy_, 1811, p. 150.

              Both sorts of seasoned deer,
  Here walk the stately red, the freckled fallow there;
  The bucks and lusty stags among the _rascals_ strewed,
  As sometimes gallant spirits amongst the multitude.

          DRAYTON, _Polyolbion_, song 13.

    The report which these roving hunters had made to their
    countrymen of that pleasant land, did invite the chief heads of
    their clans, with their several _rascalities_, to flock into
    Europe, like beggars dismissed out of prison, invited to a
    solemn banquet.--JACKSON, _A Treatise on the Divine Essence_,
    b. vi. c. 25, § 6.


=RATHER.= This survives for us now only as an adverb, but meets us
often in Middle English as an adjective, as the comparative of ‘rathe,’
quick, swift, early.

    This is he that Y seide of, aftir me is comun a man, which was
    maad bifor me; for he was _rather_ than Y [quia _prior_ me
    erat, Vulg.].--_John_ i. 30. WICLIF.

    If the world hatith you, wite ye that it hadde me in
    hate _rather_ than you [me _priorem_ vobis odio habuit,
    Vulg.].--_John_ xv. 18. WICLIF.

    The Sarazines maden another cytie more far from the see, and
    clepeden it the newe Damyete, so that now no man dwellethe at
    the _rathere_ town of Damyete.--Sir JOHN MANDEVILLE, _Voyage
    and Travaile_, p. 46, Halliwell’s edition.

    Whatsoever thou or such other say, I say that the pilgrimage
    that now is used is to them that do it, a praisable and a good
    mean to come the _rather_ to grace.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs;
    Examination of William Thorpe_.

  The _rather_ lambs been starved with cold.

          SPENSER, _The Shepherd’s Calendar, February_.


=RECEIPT.= At this present the act of receiving, or acknowledgment
of having received; but not seldom once the place for receiving, or
receptacle.

    To conclude, his house was a common _receipt_ for all those
    that came from Greece to Rome.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p.
    446.

    Fountains I intend to be of two natures, the one that
    sprinkleth or spouteth water, the other a fair _receipt_ of
    water, of some thirty or forty foot square, but without fish,
    or slime, or mud.--BACON, _Essays_, 46.


=RECLAIM.= A ‘reclamation’ is still sometimes a calling _out against_;
but ‘to reclaim’ is never, I think, anything now but to call _back
again_; never to disclaim.

    Herod, instead of _reclaiming_ what they exclaimed [_Acts_ xii.
    22], embraced and hugged their praises as proper to himself,
    and thereupon an angel and worms, the best and basest of
    creatures, met in his punishment, the one smiting, the other
    eating him up.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, b. ii.
    c. 8.


=RECOGNIZE.= This verb means now to revive our knowledge of a person or
thing; to reacquaint oneself with it; but in earlier usage to review,
as in my first quotation, to reconnoitre, as in my second.

    In _recognizing_ this history I have employed a little more
    labour, partly to enlarge the argument which I took in hand,
    partly also to assay, whether by any painstaking I might pacify
    the stomachs, or to satisfy the judgments of these importune
    quarrellers.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Epistle Dedicatory [of
    the Second Edition] to the Queen’s Majesty_.

    In quartering either in village, field, or city, he [a
    commander] ought himself to _recognize_ all avenues, whereby
    his enemies may come to him.--MONRO, _His Expedition_, p. 9.


=REDUCE.= That which is ‘reduced’ now is brought back to narrower
limits, or lower terms, or more subject conditions, than those under
which it subsisted before. But nothing of this lies of necessity in the
word, nor yet in the earlier uses of it. According to these, that was
‘reduced’ which was brought back to its former estate, an estate that
might be, and in all the following examples is, an ampler, larger, or
more prosperous one than that which it superseded.

    The drift of the Roman armies and forces was not to bring free
    states into servitude, but contrariwise, to _reduce_ those that
    were in bondage to liberty.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1211.

    There remained only Britain [_i.e._ Britany] to be reunited,
    and so the monarchy of France to be _reduced_ to the ancient
    terms and bounds.--BACON, _History of King Henry VII._

    That he might have these keys to open the heavenly Hades to
    _reduced_ apostates, to penitent, believing, self-devoting
    sinners, for this it was necessary He should put on man, become
    obedient to death, even that servile punishment, the death of
    the cross.--HOWE, _The Redeemer’s Dominion over the Invisible
    World_.

  Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,
  That would _reduce_ these bloody days again.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Richard III._, act v. sc. 5.


=REIGN.= This is now in the abstract what ‘kingdom’ is in the concrete,
but there was no such distinction once between them.

  And for a litel glorie veigne,
  They lesen God, and eke his _reigne_.

          _Romaunt of the Rose_, 448.


=REJOICE.= Formerly used in the sense of to enjoy.

    Then was mad pes on this manere, that he and his puple
    schuld frely _rejoyce_ all the lond of the other side of
    Seyne.--CAPGRAVE, _Chronicle of England_, p. 112.

    In special he [Constantine] assigned and bequathe the lordschip
    of the west parte, which was Rome, to his eeldist sone
    Constantyn, which sone _rejoiced_ the same parte so to him
    devysid, and that thorugh al his liif.--PECOCK, _Repressor_, c.
    xiii.


  =RELIGION=, }
  RELIGIOUS.  }

Not, as too often now, used as equivalent for godliness; but like
θρησκεία, for which it stands _Jam._ i. 27, it expressed the outer form
and embodiment which the inward spirit of a true or a false devotion
assumed. In the Middle Ages a ‘religion’ was a monastic Order, and they
were ‘religious’ who had entered into one of these.

    We would admit and grant them, that images used for no
    _religion_, or superstition rather, we mean of none
    worshipped, nor in danger to be worshipped of any, may be
    suffered.--_Homilies; Against Peril of Idolatry._

  By falsities and lies the greatest part
  Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
  God their Creator, and the invisible
  Glory of Him that made them to transform
  Oft to the image of a brute, adorned
  With gay _religions_ full of pomp and gold.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, i. 367.

  _Religiouse_ folk ben fulle covert,
  Seculer folk ben more appert,
  But natheles I wole not blame
  _Religious_ folk, ne hem diffame,
  In what habit that ever thei go;
  _Religioun_ umble and trewe also
  Wole I not blame, ne dispise;
  But I nyl love it in no wise.
  I mene of fals _religious_,
  That stoute ben and malicious,
  That wolen in an abit goo,
  And setten not her herte therto.

          _Romaunt of the Rose_, 6152.

  And thus when that thei were counseilled,
  In black clothes thei them clothe,
  The daughter and the lady both,
  And yolde hem to _religion_.

          GOWER, _Confessio Amantis_, b. viii.


=REMARK.= There are no ‘remarks’ now but verbal ones. ‘To remark’ was
once to point out, to designate.

    They [the publicans and harlots] are moved by shame, and
    punished by disgrace, and _remarked_ by punishments, and
    frighted by the circumstances and notices of all the world,
    and separated from sober persons by laws and an intolerable
    character.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Of Lukewarmness and Zeal_, Serm.
    13, part ii.

  _Officer._ Hebrews, the prisoner Samson here I seek.

  _Chorus._ His manacles _remark_ him; there he sits.

          MILTON, _Samson Agonistes_, 1308.


  =REMONSTRATE=, }
  REMONSTRANCE.  }

Its present sense, namely to expostulate, was only at a late date
superinduced on the word. ‘To remonstrate’ is properly to make _any_
show or representation in regard to some step that has been taken. It
is now only such show or representation as _protests against_ this
step; and always assumes this step to have been distasteful; but this
limitation lies not of necessity in the word.

    Properties of a faithful servant: a sedulous eye, to observe
    all occasions within or without, tending to _remonstrate_ the
    habit within.--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 309.

    It [the death of Lady Carbery] was not (in all appearance) of
    so much trouble as two fits of a common ague; so careful was
    God to _remonstrate_ to all that stood in that sad attendance
    that this soul was dear to Him.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Funeral Sermon
    on Lady Carbery_.

    I consider that in two very great instances it was
    _remonstrated_ that Christianity was the greatest persecution
    of natural justice and equality in the whole world.--Id., _Life
    of Christ_, Preface, § 32.

    When Sir Francis Cottington returned with our king’s oath,
    plighted to the annexed conditions for the ease of the Roman
    Catholics, the Spaniards made no _remonstrance_ of joy, or
    of an ordinary liking of it.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop
    Williams_, part i. p. 145.

    No; the atheist is too wise in his generation to make
    _remonstrances_ and declarations of what he thinks. It is his
    heart and the little council that is held there, that is only
    privy to his monstrous opinions.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol.
    ix. p. 78.


  =REMORSE=,  }
  REMORSEFUL. }

In ‘remorseless’ and in the phrase ‘without remorse,’ we retain a
sense of ‘remorse’ as equivalent with pity, which otherwise has quite
passed away from it. It may thus have acquired this meaning. There is
nothing which is followed in natures not absolutely devilish with so
swift revulsion of mind as acts of cruelty. Nowhere does the conscience
so quickly sting the guilty actor as in and after these; and thus
‘remorse,’ which is the penitence of the natural man, the penitence
not wrought by the spirit of grace, while it means the revulsion of
the mind and conscience against any evil which has been done, came to
mean predominantly revulsion against acts of cruelty, the pity which
followed close on these; and thus pity in general, and not only as in
this way called out.

    King Richard by his own experience grew sensible of the
    miseries which merchants and mariners at sea underwent.
    Wherefore, now touched with _remorse_ of their pitiful case, he
    resolved to revoke the law of wrecks.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b.
    iii. c. 7.

  His helmet, justice, judgment, and _remorse_.

          MIDDLETON, _Wisdom of Solomon_, c. v. 17.

  O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman,
  Valiant, wise, _remorseful_, well accomplished.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act iv. sc. 2.


=REPEAL.= ‘To repeal’ (compare Old French ‘rapeler’) is to recall, and
seldom or never applied now except to some statute or law, but formerly
of far wider use.

  I will _repeal_ thee, or, be well assured,
  Adventure to be banishèd myself.

          SHAKESPEARE, _2 Henry VI._, act iii. sc. 2.

          Whence Adam soon _repealed_
  The doubts that in his heart arose.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, vii. 59.

  Or else Nepenthe, enemy to sadness,
  Repelling sorrows, and _repealing_ gladness.

          SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas, Eden, The Second Week_.


=REPROVE.= Now ‘to rebuke,’ but once equivalent to ‘disprove,’ and
convertible with it.

    As it [the Apology] has been well allowed of and liked of the
    learned and godly, so hath it not hitherto, for ought that
    may appear, been anywhere openly _reproved_ either in Latin
    or otherwise, either by any one man’s private writing, or by
    the public authority of any nation.--JEWEL, _Defence of the
    Apology_.

  _Reprove_ my allegation if you can;
  Or else conclude my words effectual.

          SHAKESPEARE, _2 Henry VI._, act iii. sc. 1.




=REQUIRE.= This has now something almost imperative in it; being less
to request or to entreat than to command; but it was not so always.

    We do instantly _require_ and desire the Blessed Virgin Mary
    with all the holy company of heaven, continually to pray for
    us.--_Will of Henry VIII._

  Lord of his fortune he salutes thee, and
  _Requires_ to live in Egypt.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Antony and Cleopatra_, act iii. sc. 12.


  =RESENT=,   }
  RESENTMENT. }

When first introduced into the language (this was in the seventeenth
century; ‘vox nova in nostrâ linguâ:’ Junius), ‘to resent’ meant to
have a sense or feeling of that which had been done to us; but whether
a sense of gratitude for the good, or of enmity for the evil, the word
itself did not decide, and was employed in both meanings. It has fared
not otherwise with ‘ressentiment’ in French. Of this Génin, _La Langue
de Molière_, writes, ‘Ce mot, dont l’usage a déterminé l’acception en
mauvaise part, ne signifiait jadis que _sentiment_ avec plus de force.’
Must we conclude from the fact that the latter is now the exclusive
employment of it, that our sense of injuries is much stronger and more
lasting than our sense of benefits?

  ’Tis by my touch alone that you _resent_
  What objects yield delight, what discontent.

          BEAUMONT, _Psyche_, can. iv. st. 156.

    Perchance as vultures are said to smell the earthliness of
    a dying corpse; so this bird of prey [the evil Spirit which
    personated Samuel] _resented_ a worse than earthly savour in
    the soul of Saul, an evidence of his death at hand.--FULLER,
    _The Profane State_, b. v. c. 4.

    The judicious prelate will prefer a drop of the sincere milk
    of the word before vessels full of traditionary pottage,
    _resenting_ of the wild gourd of human invention.--Id., _A
    Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, b. iii. c. 1.

    I _resented_ as I ought the news of my mother-in-law’s
    death.--SANCROFT, _Variorum Shakespeare_, vol. i. p. 518.

    Sadness does in some cases become a Christian, as being an
    index of a pious mind, of compassion, and a wise, proper
    _resentment_ of things.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Sermon 23_, part ii.

    The Council taking notice of the many good services performed
    by Mr. John Milton, their Secretary for foreign languages,
    particularly for his book in vindication of the Parliament
    and people of England against the calumnies and invectives of
    Salmasius, have thought fit to declare their _resentment_ and
    good acceptance of the same, and that the thanks of the Council
    be returned to Mr. Milton.--_Extract from ‘The Council Book,’_
    1651, June 18.


  =RESIDENCE=, }
  RESIDENT.    }

It will be seen from the quotations which follow that ‘residence’ in
the seventeenth century meant something quite different from ordinary
place of habitation, which is all the meaning which now it has.

    Separation in it is wrought by weight, as in the ordinary
    _residence_ or settlement of liquors.--BACON, _Natural
    History_, § 302.

    Of waters of a muddy _residence_ we may make good use and
    quench our thirst, if we do not trouble them; yet upon any
    ungentle disturbance we drink down mud, instead of a clear
    stream.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Sermon on the Gunpowder Treason_.

    The inexperienced Christian shrieks out whenever his vessel
    shakes, thinking it always a danger that the watery pavement is
    not stable and _resident_ like a rock.--Id., _Sermon 11_, part
    3.


  =RESTIVE=,   }
  RESTIVENESS. }

Any one now invited to define a ‘restive’ horse would certainly put
into his definition that it was one with _too much_ motion; but in
obedience to its etymology ‘restive’ would have once meant one with
_too little_; determined to stand still when it ought to go forward.
[It is the Old French _restif_, stubborn, drawing backward (see
Cotgrave), from _rester_, Latin _restare_, to stand still.] Immobile,
lazy, stubborn, are the three stages of meaning which the word went
through, before it reached the fourth and present.

    Bishops or presbyters we know, and deacons we know, but what
    are chaplains? In state perhaps they may be listed among the
    upper serving-men of some great man’s household, the yeoman
    ushers of devotion, where the master is too _resty_ or too rich
    to say his own prayers, or to bless his own table.--MILTON,
    _Iconoclastes_, c. xxiv.

    _Restive_, or _Resty_, drawing back instead of going forward,
    as some horses do.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.

    Nothing hindereth men’s fortunes so much as this: Idem manebat,
    neque idem decebat; men are where they were, when occasions
    turn. From whatsoever root or cause this _restiveness_ of
    mind proceedeth, it is a thing most prejudicial.--BACON,
    _Advancement of Learning_, b. ii.

    The snake, by _restiness_ and lying still all winter, hath a
    certain membrane or film growing over the whole body.--HOLLAND,
    _Pliny_, part i. p. 210.


  =RETALIATE=, }
  RETALIATION. }

It has fared with ‘retaliate’ and ‘retaliation’ as it has with
‘resent’ and ‘resentment,’ that whereas men could once speak of the
‘retaliation’ of benefits as well as of wrongs, they only ‘retaliate’
injuries now.

    Our captain would not salute the city, except they would
    _retaliate_.--_Diary of Henry Teonge_, Aug. 1, 1675.

    [The king] expects a return in specie from them [the
    Dissenters], that the kindness which he has graciously
    shown them may be _retaliated_ on those of his own
    persuasion.--DRYDEN, _The Hind and the Panther_, Preface.

    His majesty caused directions to be sent for the enlargement
    of the Roman priests, in _retaliation_ for the prisoners that
    were set at liberty in Spain to congratulate the prince’s
    welcome.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 166.


=REVOKE.= This has now a much narrower range of meaning than the Latin
‘revocare;’ but some took for granted once that wherever the one word
could have been used in Latin, the other might be used in English.

                            The wolf, who would not be
  _Revokëd_ from the slaughter for the sweetness of the blood,
  Persisted sharp and eager still, until that as he stood,
  Fast biting on a bullock’s neck, she turned him into stone.

          GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. xi.

  Her knees _revoked_ their first strength, and her feet
  Were borne above the ground with wings to greet
  The long-grieved queen with news her king was come.

          CHAPMAN, _The Odyssey of Homer_, b. xxiii. l. 5.


=RIG.= A somewhat vulgar word, with the present use of which, however,
we are probably all familiar from its occurrence in _John Gilpin_:

  ‘He little guessed when he set out
    Of running such a _rig_.’

But a ‘rig’ in its earlier use was not so often a strange uncomely
_feat_, as a wanton uncomely _person_.

    Let none condemn them [the girls] for _rigs_ because thus
    hoyting with the boys, seeing the simplicity of their age was
    a patent to privilege any innocent pastime.--FULLER, _A Pisgah
    Sight of Palestine_, b. iv. 6.


[=RIPPLE.= It is now in literary English a poetical word, and nothing
is ‘rippled’ but the surface of the water. This is probably a distinct
word from the ‘ripple’ of the Whitby dialect, which means to scratch
slightly as with a pin upon the skin (see Robinson’s ‘Glossary,’
English Dialect Society, 1876). This is precisely the meaning of
‘ripple’ in the citation from Holland below. For cognates of this
‘ripple’ to scratch see Skeat’s ‘Dictionary’ (_s. v._ ‘rip’).]

    On a sudden an horseman’s javelin, having slightly _rippled_
    the skin of his [Julian’s] left arm, pierced within his short
    ribs, and stuck fast in the nether lappet or fillet of his
    liver.--HOLLAND, _Ammianus_, p. 264.


=ROGUE.= There was a time when ‘rogue’ meant no more than wandering
mendicant. What of dishonesty is implied now in the word was afterwards
superinduced upon it; as has also been the case with ‘tramp’ and
‘vagabond.’

                      Mine enemy’s dog,
  Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
  Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,
  To hovel thee with swine and _rogues_ forlorn
  In short and musty straw?

          SHAKESPEARE, _King Lear_, act iv. sc. 7.

    _Rogue_ signifieth with us an idle sturdy beggar, that,
    wandering from place to place without passport, after he hath
    been by justices bestowed upon some certain place of abode,
    or offered to be bestowed, is condemned to be so called; who
    for the first offence is called a _rogue_ of the first degree,
    and punished by whipping, and boring through the gristle of
    the right ear with a hot iron an inch in compass, and for
    the second offence is called a _rogue_ of the second degree,
    and put to death as a felon, if he be above eighteen years
    old.--COWELL, _The Interpreter_, s. v.

    The third sort of those that live unprofitably and without a
    calling are our idle sturdy _rogues_ and vagrant towns-end
    beggars. I mean such as are able to work, yet rather choose to
    wander abroad the country, and to spend their days in a most
    base and ungodly course of life.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671,
    vol. i. p. 197.


=ROMANTIC.= It is much rarer to find words which in lapse of time have
mended their position than those which have seen theirs grow worse. But
such there are, and this is one of them. Who would have expected two
centuries ago that ‘romantic’ would have held the place of honour which
now it does; would have divided with ‘classical’ the whole world of
modern literature?

    Can anything in nature be imagined more profane and impious,
    more absurd, and indeed _romantic_, than such a persuasion
    [namely that whenever in Scripture the Covenant is mentioned,
    the Scotch Covenant was intended]? and yet, as impious and
    absurd as it was, it bore down all before it, and overturned
    the equallest and best framed government in the world.--SOUTH,
    _Sermons_, 1737, vol. vi. p. 42.


=ROOM.= In certain connexions we still employ ‘room’ for place, but in
many more it obtains this meaning no longer. Thus one who accepts the
words, ‘When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in
the highest _room_’ (_Luke_ xiv. 8), according to the present use of
‘room,’ will probably imagine to himself guests assembling in various
apartments, some more honourable than other; and not, as indeed the
meaning is, taking higher or lower _places_ at one and the same table.

  In Clarence, Henry, and his son, young Edward,
  And all the unlooked-for issue of their bodies,
  To take their _rooms_, ere I can place myself?

          SHAKESPEARE, _3 Henry VI._, act iii. sc. 2.

    If he have but twelve pence in’s purse, he will give it for
    the best room in a playhouse.--Sir T. OVERBURY, _Characters: A
    Proud Man_.


  =RUFFIAN=, }
  RUFFIANLY. }

The Old French ‘ruffien,’ the Italian ‘ruffiano,’ the Spanish ‘rufian,’
all signify the setter-forward of an infamous traffic between the
sexes; nor will the passages quoted below leave any doubt that this
is the proper meaning of ‘ruffian’ in English, others being secondary
and derived from it. At the same time the ‘ruffian’ is not merely the
‘leno,’ he is the ‘amasius’ as well. For some instructive English uses
of the word, see Ascham’s _Scholemaster_, Wright’s edit. pp. 44, 215.

    Let young men consider the precious value of their time, and
    waste it not in idleness, in jollity, in gaming, in banqueting,
    in _ruffians’_ company.--_Homilies; Against Idleness._

    Xenocrates, casting but his eye upon Polemon, who was come into
    his school like a _ruffian_, by his very look only redeemed him
    from his loose life.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 112.

    He [her husband] is no sooner abroad than she is instantly at
    home, revelling with her _ruffians_.--REYNOLDS, _God’s Revenge
    against Murther_, b. iii. hist. 11.

    Who in London hath not heard of his [Greene’s] dissolute and
    licentious living; his fond disguising of a Master of Art
    with _ruffianly_ hair, unseemly apparel, and more unseemly
    company?--G. HARVEY, _Four Letters touching Robert Greene_, p.
    7.

    Some frenchified or outlandish monsieur, who hath nothing
    else to make him famous, I should say infamous, but an
    effeminate, _ruffianly_, ugly, and deformed lock.--PRYNNE, _The
    Unloveliness of Love-locks_, p. 27.


=RUMMAGE.= At present so to look for one thing as in the looking to
overturn and unsettle a great many others. It is a sea-term, and
signified at first to dispose with such orderly method goods in the
hold of a ship that there should be the greatest possible room, or
‘roomage.’ The quotation from Phillips shows the word in the act of
transition from its former use to its present.

    And that the masters of the ships do look well to the
    _romaging_, for they might bring away a great deal more than
    they do, if they would take pain in the _romaging_.--HAKLUYT,
    _Voyages_, vol. i. p. 308.

    To _rummage_ (sea-term): To remove any goods or luggage from
    one place to another, especially to clear the ship’s hold of
    any goods or lading, in order to their being handsomely stowed
    and placed; whence the word is used upon other occasions, for
    to rake into, or to search narrowly.--PHILLIPS, _New World of
    Words_.


  =SAD=,   }
  SADLY,   }
  SADNESS. }

This had once the meaning of earnest, serious, sedate. The passage
from Shakespeare quoted below marks ‘sadly’ and ‘sadness’ in their
transitional state from the old meaning to the new; Benvolio using
‘sadness’ in the old sense, Romeo pretending to understand him in the
new. For the etymology of ‘sad’ see Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of Middle
English_.

  O dere wif, o gemme of lustyhede,
  That were to me so _sade_, and eke so trewe.

          CHAUCER, _The Manciples Tale_.

    He may have one year, or two at the most, an ancient and _sad_
    matron attending on him.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b. i.
    c. 6.

  For when I thinke how farre this earth doth us divyde,
  Alas, mesemes, love throws me down, I fele how that I slide.
  But when I think again, Why should I thus mistrust
  So sweet a wight, so _sad_ and wise, that is so true and just?

          EARL OF SURREY, _The Faithful Lover_, p. 33 (ed. 1717).

  In go the sperës _sadly_ in the rest.

          CHAUCER, _The Knightes Tale_.

    Therfor ye, britheren, bifor witynge kepe you silf, lest ye be
    disseyved bi errour of unwise men, and falle awei fro youre
    owne _sadness_ [a propriâ _firmitate_, Vulg.].--_2 Pet._ iii.
    17. WICLIF.

  _Benvolio._ Tell me in _sadness_ who she is you love?

  _Romeo._ What, shall I groan, and tell you?

  _Ben._                                      Groan? why, no;
                But _sadly_ tell me who?

          SHAKESPEARE, _Romeo and Juliet_, act i. sc. 1.


=SAMPLER.= This has now quite dissociated itself in meaning from
‘exemplar,’ of which it is the popular form, as ‘sample’ has done from
‘example;’ not so, however, once.

    Job, the _sawmpler_ of pacience.--_Preparatory Epistles of St.
    Jerome to Wiclif’s Bible._


=SASH.= At present always a belt or girdle _of the loins_; not so,
however, when first introduced from the East. By the ‘sash,’ or ‘shash’
as it was then always spelt, was understood the roll of silk, fine
linen, or gauze, worn about the head; in fact a turban. The word is of
Persian origin.

    _Shash_: Cidaris seu tiara, pileus Turcicus, ut doct. Th. H.
    placet, ab It. Sessa, gausapina cujus involucris Turcæ pileos
    suos adornant.--SKINNER, _Etymologicon_.

    So much for the silk in Judea, called Shesh in Hebrew, whence
    haply that fine linen or silk is called _shashes_, worn at this
    day about the heads of eastern people.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight
    of Palestine_, b. ii. c. 14.

    He [a Persian merchant] was apparelled in a long robe of cloth
    of gold, his head was wreathed with a huge _shash_ or tulipant
    of silk and gold.--HERBERT, _Travels_, 1638, p. 191.


  =SCARCE=, }
  SCARCELY, }
  SCARCITY. }

Now expressing the fact that the thing to which this epithet is applied
is rare, not easily to be come by; but in the time of Chaucer, Wiclif,
and Gower, and till a later day, parsimonious or stingy. For the
derivation see Skeat’s _Dictionary_.

    Ye schul use the richesses the whiche ye han geten by youre
    witte and by youre travaile, in such a maner, that men holde
    yow not _skarse_ ne to sparynge ne fool-large; for right
    as men blamen an avërous man bycause of his _skarsite_ and
    chyncherie, in the same manere is he to blame that spendeth
    over largely.--CHAUCER, _The Tale of Melibœus_.

    A man is that is maad riche in doynge _scarsli_ [parce agendo,
    Vulg.]--_Ecclus._ xi. 18. WICLIF.

    For I seie this thing, he that sowith _scarseli_ schal also
    repe _scarseli_.--_2 Cor._ ix. 6. Id.

  Both free and _scarce_, thou giv’st and tak’st again;
  Thy womb, that all doth breed, is tomb to all.

          DAVISON, _Poetical Rhapsody_, p. 256.


  =SECURE=, }
  SECURELY, }
  SECURITY. }

In our present English the difference between ‘safe’ and ‘secure’ is
hardly recognized, but once it was otherwise. ‘Secure’ (‘securus,’
from sē- + cura) was _subjective_; it was a man’s own sense, well
grounded or not, of the absence of danger; ‘safe’ was _objective_, the
actual fact of such absence of danger. A man, therefore, might _not_
be ‘safe,’ just because he was ‘secure’ (thus see _Judges_ xviii. 7,
10, 27, and _Paradise Lost_, iv. 791). I may observe that our use of
‘secure’ at _Matt._ xxviii. 14, is in fact this early, though we may
easily read the passage as though it were employed in the modern sense.
‘We will _secure_ you’ of our Version represents _ἀμερίμνους_ ὑμᾶς
ποιήσομεν of the original.

  My wanton weakness did herself betray
    With too much play.
  I was too bold; he never yet stood safe
    That stands _secure_.

          QUARLES, _Emblems_, ii. 14.

    We cannot endure to be disturbed or awakened from our
    pleasing lethargy. For we care not to be safe, but to be
    _secure_.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Of Slander and Flattery_.

  Man may _securely_ sin, but safely never.

          BEN JONSON, _The Forest_, xi.

  We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
  But yet we strike not, but _securely_ perish.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Richard II._, act ii. sc. 1.

  He means, my lord, that we are too remiss,
  While Bolingbroke, through our _security_,
  Grows strong and great in substance and in friends.

          Id., _ibid._, act iii. sc. 2.

    The last daughter of pride is delicacy, under which is
    contained gluttony, luxury, sloth, and _security_.--NASH,
    _Christ’s Tears over Jerusalem_, p. 137.

                                How this man
  Bears up in blood; seems fearless! Why ’tis well:
  _Security_ some men call the suburbs of hell,
  Only a dead wall between.

          WEBSTER, _Duchess of Malfi_, act v. sc. 2.


  =SEDITION=, }
  SEDITIOUS.  }

There was an attempt on the part of some scholarly writers at the
beginning of the seventeenth century to keep ‘sedition’ true to its
etymology, and to the meaning which ‘seditio’ bears in the Latin. This
is the explanation of its employment as a rendering of διχοστασίαι,
_Gal._ v. 21, as quoted below; which in our present English would be
more accurately rendered, secessions, dissensions, or divisions; in
exactly which sense ‘seditious’ is there used by our Translators.
So too, when Satan, in the quotation given below, addresses Abdiel
‘seditious Angel,’ this is to find the same explanation, as is clear
from the words which immediately follow. He the one faithful, taking
the Lord’s side, had in so doing divided the ranks of those who adhered
to the fallen Archangel, and separated from them, being therein
‘seditious.’ The quotation from Bishop Andrewes not less evidently
shows how distinct in his mind ‘seditions’ were from those overt acts
of petty treason which we now call by this name; however, they might
often lead to such.

    Whom you find thus magnifying of changes and projecting
    new plots for the people, be sure they are in the way to
    _sedition_. For (mark it) they do _sedire_, that is _seorsim
    ire_, go aside; they have their meetings apart about their new
    alterations. Now of _sedire_ comes _sedition_, side-going. For
    if that be not looked to in time, the next news is, the blowing
    of a trumpet, and Sheba’s proclamation, We have no part in
    David. It begins in Shimei, it ends in Sheba.--ANDREWES, _Of
    the Gunpowder Treason_, Serm. 6.

    Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, ...
    _seditions_ (in R.V. ‘divisions’).--_Gal._ v. 20, 21. (A.V.)

                  Ill for thee, but in wished hour
  Of my revenge, first sought for, thou returnest
  From flight, _seditious_ Angel, to receive
  Thy merited reward.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, vi. 150.


=SEE.= Not always confined as now to the _seat_ or residence of a
bishop; nor indeed did it necessarily involve the notion of a seat _of
authority_ at all.

  At Babiloyne was his sovereyn _see_.

          CHAUCER, _The Monkes Tale_.

  And smale harpers with her gleës
  Saten under hem in _seës_.

          Id., _The Hous of Fame_, b. iii. (Skeat, p. 156).

    The Lord smoot all the fyrst gotun in the loond of Egipte, fro
    the fyrst gotun of Pharao, that sat in his _see_, unto the
    fyrst gotun of the caitiff woman that was in prisoun.--_Exod._
    xii. 29. WICLIF.

  Not that same famous temple of Diane
  Might match with this by many a degree;
  Nor that which that wise King of Jewry framed
  With endless cost to be the Almighty’s _see_.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, iv. 10, 30.


=SEEDSMAN.= Between the ‘seedsman’ and the ‘sower’ there is now a
useful distinction. The one sells the seed; the other scatters it in
the furrow; but the distinction is comparatively modern.

                        The higher Nilus swells
  The more it promises; as it ebbs, the _seedsman_
  Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,
  And shortly comes to harvest.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Antony and Cleopatra_, act ii. sc. 7.


  =SENSUAL=,  }
  SENSUALITY. }

‘Sensual’ is employed now only in an ill meaning, and implies ever a
predominance of sense in quarters where it ought not so to predominate.
Milton, feeling that we wanted another word affirming this predominance
where no such fault was implied by it, and that ‘sensual’ only
imperfectly expressed this, employed, I know not whether he coined,
‘sensuous,’ a word which, if it had rooted itself in the language
at once, might have proved of excellent service. ‘Sensuality’ has
had always an ill meaning, but not always the same ill meaning which
it has now. Any walking by sense and sight rather than by faith was
‘sensuality’ of old.

    Hath not the Lord Jesus convinced thy _sensual_ heart by
    _sensual_ arguments? If thy sense were not left-handed, thou
    mightest with thy right hand bear down thine infidelity; for
    God hath given assurance sufficient by his Son to thy very
    _sense_, if though wert not brutish (_1 John_ i. 1).--ROGERS,
    _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 493.

    There cannot always be that degree of _sensual_, pungent, or
    delectable affections towards religion as towards the desires
    of nature and sense.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Life of Christ_, part ii.
    § 12.

  Far as creation’s ample range extends,
  The scale of _sensual_, mental powers ascends.

          POPE, _Essay on Man_, b. i.

    I do take him to be a hardy captain; but yet a man more meet
    to be governed than to govern; for all his enterprizes be made
    upon his own _sensuality_, without the advice and counsel of
    those that been put in trust by the King’s Majesty.--_State
    Papers_, 1538, vol. iii. p. 95.

    He who might claim this absolute power over the soul to be
    believed upon his bare word, yet seeing the _sensuality_ of man
    and our woful distrust, is willing to allow us all the means
    of strengthening our souls in his promise, by such seals and
    witnesses as confirm it.--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 483.

    A great number of people in divers parts of this realm,
    following their own _sensuality_, and living without knowledge
    and due fear of God, do wilfully and schismatically abstain
    and refuse to come to their own parish churches.--_Act of
    Uniformity_, 1662.


=SERVANT.= A wooer, follower, admirer, lover, not of necessity an
accepted one, was a ‘servant’ in the chivalrous language of two or
three centuries ago.

  _Valentine._ Madam and mistress, a thousand good morrows.

  _Silvia._ Sir Valentine and _servant_, to you two thousand.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act ii. sc. 1.

    ’Tis more than I know if Mr. Freeman be my _servant_.... I
    cannot brag much that he makes any court to me.--_Letters from
    Dorothy Osborne_, Lett. 22 (ed. 1889).


=SERVILITY.= The _subjective_ abjectness and baseness of spirit of one
who is a slave, or who acts as one, is always implied by this word at
the present; while once it did but express the _objective_ fact of an
outwardly servile condition in him of whom it was predicated, leaving
it possible that in spirit he might be free notwithstanding.

    Such _servility_ as the Jews endured under the Greeks and
    Asiatics, have they endured under the Saracen and the
    Turk.--JACKSON, _The Eternal Truth of Scriptures_, b. i. c. 26.

    We are no longer under the _servility_ of the law of Moses, but
    are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.--H. MORE,
    _The Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b. viii. c. 6.

    The same [faith] inclined Moses to exchange the dignities
    and delights of a court for a state of vagrancy and
    _servility_.--BARROW, _Sermon 3, On the Apostles’ Creed_.


[=SHED.= This verb was once in common use in the sense of to separate,
divide, or part. This ‘shed’ is the representative of the O.E.
‘sceādan’ (scādan), the equivalent of the modern German ‘scheiden.’
With these words is connected the modern geographical term ‘watershed,’
i.e. water-divider. ‘To shed’ is still used in the North in the sense
of to divide or separate (Halliwell). From this verb comes the word
‘sheeding,’ the name of a territorial division in the Isle of Man.
Probably our modern ‘shed,’ to scatter, pour, may be the same word as
‘shed,’ to separate, with a development of meaning, but the relation of
the two words has not been satisfactorily made out yet.]

    They say also that the manner of making the _shed_
    [διακρίνεσθαι] of new-wedded wives’ hair with the iron head of
    a javelin came up then likewise.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_,
    p. 22.

    They were never so careful to comb their heads as when they
    should to the battle; for then they did noint their selves with
    sweet oils, and did _shed_ their hair.--Id., _ibid._ p. 45.


=SHEER.= It is curious that Christopher Sly’s declaration that he was
‘fourteen pence on the score for _sheer_ ale’ (_Taming of the Shrew,
Induction_, sc. 2) should have given so much trouble to some of the
early commentators upon Shakespeare. ‘Sheer,’ which is pure, unmixed,
was used of things concrete once, although mostly of things abstract
now.

    They had scarcely sunk through the uppermost course of sand
    above, when they might see small sources to boil up, at the
    first troubled, but afterward they began to yield _sheer_ and
    clear water in great abundance.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1911.

  Thou _sheer_, immaculate, and silver fountain,
  From whence this stream through muddy passages
  Hath held his current.

          SHAKESPEARE, _King Richard II._, act v. sc. 3.

  Thou never hadst in thy house, to stay men’s stomachs,
  A piece of Suffolk cheese, or gammon of bacon,
  Or any esculent, but _sheer_ drink only,
  For which gross fault I here do damn thy license.

          MASSINGER, _A New Way to pay Old Debts_, act iv. sc. 2.


=SHELF.= ‘To shelve’ as to shoal, still remains; but not so, except in
mariners’ charts, ‘shelf’ as = shallow or sandbank. This ‘shelf’ is
quite a distinct word from the ‘shelf’ (of a cupboard).

    I thought fit to follow the rule of coasting maps, where
    the _shelves_ and rocks are described as well as the safe
    channel.--DAVENANT, _Preface to Gondibert_.

  God wisheth none should wreck on a strange _shelf_;
  To Him man’s dearer than t’ himself.

          BEN JONSON, _The Forest_, iii.

  The watchful hero felt the knocks, and found
  The tossing vessel sailed on shoaly ground.
  Sure of his pilot’s loss, he takes himself
  The helm, and steers aloof, and shuns the _shelf_.

          DRYDEN, _Virgil’s Æneid_, b. v.


=SHREW.= There are at the present no ‘shrews’ save female ones; but the
word, like so many others which we have met with, now restrained to
one sex, was formerly applied to both. It conveyed also of old a much
deeper moral reprobation than now or in the Middle English it did. Thus
Lucifer is a ‘shrew’ in _Piers Plowman_, and two murderers are ‘shrews’
in the quotation from Chaucer which follows.

  And thus accorded ben these _schrewes_ twayn
  To sle the thridde, as ye han herd me sayn.

          CHAUCER, _The Pardoneres Tale_.

    If Y schal schewe me innocent, He schal preve me a _schrewe_
    [_pravum_ me comprobabit, Vulg.].--_Job_ ix. 20. WICLIF.

    I know none more covetous _shrews_ than ye are, when ye have
    a benefice.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of William
    Thorpe_.


  =SHREWD=,   }
  SHREWDNESS. }

The weakness of the world’s moral indignation against evil causes a
multitude of words which once conveyed intensest moral reprobation
gradually to convey none at all, or it may be even praise. ‘Shrewd’ and
‘shrewdness’ must be numbered among these.

    An ant is a wise creature for itself; but it is a _shrewd_
    thing in an orchard or garden.--BACON, _Essay 23_.

    Is he _shrewd_ and unjust in his dealings with others?--SOUTH,
    _Sermons_, 1737, vol. vi. p. 106.

    Forsothe the erthe is corupt before God, and is fulfilled with
    _shrewdness_ [iniquitate, Vulg.].--_Gen._ vi. 12. WICLIF.

    The prophete saith: Flee _schrewednesse_ [declinet _a malo_,
    Vulg.], and doo goodnesse; seeke pees, and folwe it.--CHAUCER,
    _The Tale of Melibeus_ (Morris, iii. p. 187).


=SIEGE.= A ‘siege’ is now _the sitting down_ of an army before a
fortified place with the purpose of taking it; and has no other meaning
but this. It had once the double meaning, abstract and concrete, of the
French ‘siège,’ a seat.

    Whanne mannus sone schal come in his _majeste_ and alle hise
    aungels with hym, thanne he schal sitte on the _sege_ of his
    majeste, and alle folkis schulen be gaderid bifor hym.--_Matt._
    xxv. 31. WICLIF.

  A stately _siege_ of soveraine majestye;
  And thereon sat a woman gorgeous gay.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 7, 44.

  Besides, upon the very _siege_ of justice
  Lord Angelo hath to the common ear
  Professed the contrary.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Measure for Measure_, act iv. sc. 2.


=SIGHT.= The use of ‘sight’ to signify a multitude, a great quantity
(that is, to see), has now a touch of vulgarity about it, which once it
was very far from possessing.

    A noble _sighte_ of bookes (nobilissimam librorum
    bibliothecam).--Harleian translation of Higden, vi. 239. (Rolls
    Series, No. 41.)

    Ye are come unto the mounte Sion, and to the citie of the
    livinge God, the celestiall Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
    _sight_ of angels.--_Heb._ xii. 22. TYNDALE.

    Clodius was ever about him in every place and street he went,
    having a _sight_ of rascals and knaves with him.--NORTH,
    _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 722.


  =SILLY=,   }
  SILLINESS. }

A deep conviction of men that he who departs from evil will make
himself a prey, that none will be a match for the world’s evil who is
not himself evil, has brought to pass the fact that a number of words,
signifying at first goodness, signify next well-meaning simplicity; the
notions of goodness and foolishness, with a strong predominance of the
last, for a while interpenetrating one another in them; till at length
the latter quite expels the former, and remains as the sole possessor
of the word. I need hardly mention the Greek ἄκακος, εὐήθης, εὐήθεια:
while the same has happened in regard of the O.E. ‘sǽlig,’ which (the
same word as the German ‘selig’) has successively meant, (1) blissful,
(2) innocent, harmless, (3) weakly foolish.

  Oh God, quod she, so worldly _selynesse_,
  Which clerkes callen fals felicite,
  Imedled is with many a bitternesse.

          CHAUCER, _Troylus and Cryseyde_ (Morris, p. 258).

  O _sely_ woman, ful of innocence.

          CHAUCER, _Legend of Fair Women_, 1252.

    This Miles Forest and John Dighton about midnight (the _silly_
    children lying in their beds) came into the chamber, and
    suddenly lapped them up among the clothes.--Sir T. MORE,
    _History of King Richard III._


  =SINCERE=, }
  SINCERITY. }

The etymology of ‘sincerus’ being uncertain, it is impossible to say
what is the primary notion of our English ‘sincere.’ These words belong
now to an ethical sphere exclusively, and even there their meaning is
not altogether what once it was; but the absence of foreign admixture
which they predicate might be literal once.

    The mind of a man, as it is not of that content or receipt to
    comprehend knowledge without helps and supplies, so again, it
    is not _sincere_, but of an ill and corrupt tincture.--BACON,
    _Of the Interpretation of Nature_, c. xvi.

    The Germans are a people that more than all the world, I think,
    may boast _sincerity_, as being for some thousands of years a
    pure and unmixed people.--FELTHAM, _A brief Character of the
    Low Countries_, p. 59.


=SKELETON.= Now the framework of bones as entirely denuded of the
flesh; but in early English, and there in stricter agreement with the
meaning of the word in Greek, the _dried_ mummy.

    _Scelet_; the dead body of a man artificially dried or tanned
    for to be kept or seen a long time.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s
    Morals; An Explanation of certain obscure Words_.


=SMUG.= One of many words which have been spoilt for poetic use through
being drawn into our serio-comic vocabulary. It still means neat, trim,
being connected with the German ‘schmuck,’ trim, spruce; but seeks to
present the very neatness which it implies in a ridiculous ignoble
point of view. Any such intention was very far from it once.

  And here the _smug_ and silver Trent shall run
  In a new channel, fair and evenly.

          SHAKESPEARE, _1 Henry IV._, act iii. sc. 1.

  Twelve sable steeds, _smug_ as the old raven’s wing,
  Of even stature and of equal pride,
  Sons of the wind, or some more speedy thing,
  To his fair chariot all abreast were tied.

          BEAUMONT, _Psyche_, ix. 176.

    I like the _smugness_ of the Cathedral (Winchester), and
    the profusion of the most beautiful Gothic tombs.--WALPOLE,
    _Letters_, i. 442 (1755).


=SNAIL.= It is curious what different objects men will be content for
long to confuse under a common name. Thus in some provincial dialects
of Germany they have only one name, ‘padde’ (compare our ‘paddock’),
for frog and toad. So too ‘snail’ (cochlea) and ‘slug’ (limax) with us
were both to a comparatively recent period included under the former
name. ‘Slug’ indeed, in the sense of slothful, is an old word in the
language; but only at the end of the seventeenth or beginning of the
eighteenth century was it transferred to that familiar pest of our
gardens which we now call by this name. Indeed up to the present day
in many of our provincial dialects slugs and snails are invariably
both included under the latter name; the snail proper being sometimes
distinguished from the other as the ‘_shell_-snail’ (see Holland’s
_Plutarch_, p. 212). See an interesting discussion in the Philological
Society’s _Transactions_, 1860-1, pp. 102-106.

    There is much variety even in creatures of the same kind. See
    these two _snails_. One hath a house, the other wants it;
    _yet both are snails_, and it is a question whether case is
    the better. That which hath a house hath more shelter, that
    which wants it hath more freedom.--Bishop HALL, _Occasional
    Meditations_.

    _Snails_, a soft and exosseous animal, whereof in the _naked_
    and greater sort, as though she would requite the loss of a
    shell on their back, nature near the head hath placed a flat
    white stone. Of the great grey _snails_ I have not met with any
    that wanted it.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Vulgar Errors_, b. iii. c. 13.


=SNUB.= To check or cut short; now never used save in a figurative
sense and in familiar language; but this was not always so.

    If we neglect them [the first stirrings of corruption] but a
    little, out of a thought that they can do no great harm yet,
    or that we shall have time enough to _snub_ them hereafter,
    we do it to our own certain disadvantage, if not utter
    undoing.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671, vol. ii. p. 241.


  =SOFT=,   }
  SOFTNESS. }

It is not an honourable fact that ‘soft’ and ‘softness’ should now be
terms of slight, almost of contempt, when ethically employed; although
indeed it is only a repetition of what we find in χρηστός, εὐήθης,
‘gutig,’ ‘bonhomie,’ and other words not a few.

    That they speak evil of no man, that they be no fighters, but
    _soft_ [ἐπιεικεῖς], showing all meekness unto all men.--_Titus_
    iii. 2. TYNDALE.

    The meek or _soft_ shall inherit the earth; even as we say, Be
    still and have thy will.--TYNDALE, _Exposition on the Fifth
    Chapter of Matthew_.

    Let your _softness_ [τὸ ἐπιεικὲς ὑμῶν] be known unto all
    men.--_Phil._ iv. 5. CRANMER.


=SONNET.= A ‘sonnet’ now must consist of exactly fourteen lines,
neither more nor less; and these with a fixed arrangement, though
admitting a certain relaxation, of the rhymes; but ‘sonnet’ used often
to be applied to _any_ shorter poem, especially of an amatory kind.

    He [Arion] had a wonderful desire to chaunt a _sonnet_ or hymn
    unto Apollo Pythius.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 343.

    If ye will tell us a tale, or play a jig, or show us a play and
    fine sights, or sing _sonnets_ in our ears, there we will be
    for you.--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 492.


  =SOT=,       }
  SOTTISH,     }
  SOTTISHNESS. }

He only is a ‘sot’ now whose stupor and folly is connected with, and
the result of, excessive drink; but _any_ fool would once bear this
name.

  In Egypt oft has seen the _sot_ bow down,
  And reverence some deified baboon.

          OLDHAM, _Eighth Satire of Boileau_.

    I do not here speak of a legal innocence (none but _sots_ and
    Quakers dream of such things), for as St. Paul says, ‘By the
    works of the law shall no flesh living be justified;’ but I
    speak of an evangelical innocence.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, vol. ii.
    p. 427.

    He [Perseus] commanded those poor divers to be secretly
    murdered, that no person should remain alive that was privy to
    that _sottish_ commandment of his.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1177.

  A leper once he lost, and gained a king,
  Ahaz his _sottish_ conqueror, whom he drew
  God’s altar to disparage and displace
  For one of Syrian mode.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, i. 471.

    _Sottishness_ and dotage is the extinguishing of reason in
    phlegm or cold.--H. MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b.
    viii. c. 14.


[=SPARKLE.= It is probable that ‘to sparkle’ in the sense of to
scatter is not the same word as our modern ‘sparkle,’ the diminutive
of ‘spark,’ a small particle of fire. I think that it is almost
certain that the ‘sparkle’ in the passages given below is a later form
of ‘sparple,’ to scatter, see Trevisa, v. 287 (Rolls Series), and
_Promptorium_. The Middle English ‘sparplen’ is the same word as the
French ‘esparpiller,’ to scatter, disparkle asunder (see Cotgrave);
compare also Italian ‘sparpagliare’ (Florio). For the etymology
of ‘sparple’ see Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of Middle English_ (s. v.
‘disparplen’). For a late use of ‘disparple,’ to scatter, see Davies,
_Suppl. Gloss._]

    The Lansgrave hath _sparkled_ his army without any further
    enterprise.--_State Papers_, vol. x. p. 718.

  Cassandra yet there sawe I how they haled
  From Pallas’ house, with _spercled_ tresse undone.

          SACKVILLE, _Induction to a Mirrour for Magistrates_.

    And awhile chawing all those things in his mouth, he spitteth
    it upon him whom he desireth to kill; who being _sparkled_
    therewith, dieth by force of the poison within the space of
    half an hour.--_Purchas’s Pilgrims_, part ii. p. 1495.


=SPECIOUS.= Like the Latin ‘speciosus,’ it simply signified beautiful
once; it now means always presenting a deceitful appearance of that
beauty which is not really possessed, and is never used in any but an
ethical sense.

  This prince hadde a dowter dere, Asneth was her name,
  A virgine ful _specious_, and semely of stature.

          _Metrical Romance of the Fourteenth Century._

    And they knew him, that it was he which sate for alms at the
    _Specious_ Gate of the temple.--_Acts_ iii. 10. Rheims.

  His mind as pure and neatly kept
  As were his nurseries, and swept
  So of uncleanness or offence
  That never came ill odour thence;
  And add his actions unto these,
  They were as _specious_ as his trees.

          BEN JONSON, _Epitaph on Master Vincent Corbet_.

    Which [almug-trees], if odoriferous, made that passage as sweet
    to the smell as _specious_ to the sight.--FULLER, _Α Pisgah
    Sight of Palestine_, b. iii. c. 2, § 5.


=SPICE.= We have in English a double adoption of the Latin ‘species,’
namely ‘spice’ and ‘species’. ‘Spice,’ the earlier form (Old French
‘espice’), is now limited to certain aromatic drugs, which, as
consisting of various _kinds_, have this name of ‘spices.’ But ‘spice’
was once employed as ‘species’ is now.

    Absteyne you fro al yvel _spice_ [ab omni _specie_ malâ,
    Vulg.]--_1 Thess._ v. 22. WICLIF.

    The _spices_ of envye ben these.--CHAUCER, _The Persones Tale_
    (Morris, p. 304).

    Justice, although it be but one entire virtue, yet is
    described in two kinds of _spices_. The one is named justice
    distributive, the other is called commutative.--Sir T. ELYOT,
    _The Governor_, b. iii. c. 1.


=SPILL.= Nothing appears so utterly and irrecoverably lost as liquid
poured upon the ground; and thus it has come to pass that ‘to
spill,’ the Ο. E. ‘spillan,’ which had once the meaning of to waste,
to squander, to consume, to destroy, and that in any way, is now
restricted to this single meaning.

  O litel child, alas! what is thi gilt,
  That never wroughtest synne as yet, parde?
  Why wil thyn harde fader han the _spilt_?

          CHAUCER, _The Man of Lawes Tale_.

    If the colors ... be not well tempered or not well laid, or be
    used in excess, or never so little disordered and misplaced,
    they disfigure the stuff, and _spill_ the whole workmanship,
    taking away all beauty and good liking from it.--PUTTENHAM,
    _Art of English Poesy_, b. iii. c. 1.

    _Spill_ not the morning, the quintessence of the day, in
    recreations.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. iii. c. 13.


=SPINSTER.= A name that was often applied to women of evil life, in
that they were set to enforced labour of spinning in the Spittle or
House of Correction (it is still called ‘The _Spinning_ House’ at
Cambridge), and thus were ‘spinsters.’ None of our Dictionaries, so far
as I have observed, take note of this use of the word.

    Many would never be indicted _spinsters_, were they spinsters
    indeed, nor come to so public and shameful punishments, if
    painfully employed in that vocation.--FULLER, _Worthies of
    England: Kent_.

  _Geta._     These women are still troublesome;
  There be houses provided for such wretched women,
  And some small rents to set ye a spinning.

  _Drusilla._             Sir,
  We are no _spinsters_, nor, if you look upon us,
  So wretched as you take us.

          BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, _The Prophetess_, act iii. sc. 1.


=SPRUCE.= The exploits of the Teutonic Knights against the Pruzzi,
the stubborn heathen of Lithuania, made Prussia to be very familiar
on the lips of men in the later Middle Ages (see Weigand, _s. v._
Preuszen). This Prussia, Sprutia very often in medieval Latin, appears
now as ‘Pruce’ (so in Chaucer), and now as ‘Spruce’ (see Skeat’s
_Dictionary_); and in this latter form it survives in our _spruce_
fir, which was brought from Northern Europe, in _spruce_ beer, and in
_spruce_, more vaguely applied to a certain neatness and smartness of
outward appearance; one which it is implied had reached us from those
quarters.

    They were apparelled after the fashion of Prussia or
    _Spruce_.--HALL, _Chronicle, Henry VIII._

    Norway in that age, the _sprucest_ of the three kingdoms of
    Scandia, and best tricked up with shipping, sent her fleet of
    tall soldiers to Syria.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. v. c. 22.


=SQUANDER.= The examples which follow will show that ‘to squander’ had
once, if not a different, yet a much wider use than it now, at least
in our classical English, retains. In the northern dialects it is still
used as equivalent to ‘disperse.’

    He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies;
    ... he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other
    ventures he hath, _squandered_ abroad.--SHAKESPEARE, _Merchant
    of Venice_, act i. sc. 3.

    The minister is not to come into the pulpit, as a fencer upon
    the stage, to make a fair flourish against sin, but rather as
    a captain into the field, to bend his forces specially against
    the strongest troops of the enemy, and to _squander_ and break
    through the thickest ranks.--SANDERSON, _Sermon 2, ad Clerum_.

  They charge, recharge, and all along the sea
  They chase and _squander_ the huge Belgian fleet.

          DRYDEN, _Annus Mirabilis_, st. 67.


=STAPLE.= A curious change has come over this word. We should now say,
Cotton is the great ‘staple,’ that is, the established merchandize, of
Manchester; our ancestors would have reversed this and said, Manchester
is the great ‘staple,’ or established mart, of cotton. We make the
goods prepared or sold the ‘staple’ of the place; they made the place
the ‘staple’ of the goods. See Cowell, _The Interpreter_, s. v.

    Men in all ages have made themselves merry with singling out
    some place, and fixing the _staple_ of stupidity and stolidity
    therein.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Nottinghamshire_.

    _Staple_; a city or town, where merchants jointly lay up their
    commodities for the better uttering of them by the great; a
    public storehouse.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.


=STARVE.= This word, the O.E. ‘steorfan,’ the German ‘sterben,’ to die,
is only by comparatively modern use restricted to dying _by cold or by
hunger_; in this restriction of use, resembling the French ‘noyer,’ to
kill _by drowning_, while ‘necare,’ from which it descends, is to kill
by any manner of death. But innumerable words are thus like rivers,
which once pouring their waters through many channels, have now left
dry and abandoned them all, save one, or, as in the present instance it
happens, save two.

  For wele or woo sche wol him not forsake:
  Sche is not wery him to love and serve,
  Theigh that he lay bedred til that he _sterve_.

          CHAUCER, _The Marchaundes Tale_.

  But, if for me ye fight, or me will serve,
  Not this rude kind of battell, nor these armes
  Are meet, the which doe men in bale to _sterve_.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 6, 34.


=STATE.= Used often by our old writers for a raised dais or
platform, on which was placed a chair or throne with a canopy (the
German ‘Thronhimmel’) above it; being the chiefest seat of honour;
thus in Massinger’s _Bondman_, act i. sc. 3, according to the old
stage-direction Archidamus ‘offers Timoleon the _state_.’ But there
is another use of ‘state’ not unfrequent in the seventeenth century,
though altogether unknown in our own. A ‘state’ was a republic, as
contradistinguished from a monarchy. This usage, which the States of
Holland may have contributed to bring about, does not seem to have
lasted very long.

  But for a canopy to shade her head,
  No _state_ which lasts no longer than ’tis stayed,
  And fastened up by cords and pillars’ aid.

          _Beaumont_, PSYCHE, can. xix. st. 170.

    Their majesties were seated as is aforesaid under their
    canopies or _states_, whereof that of the Queen was somewhat
    lesser and lower than that of the King, but both of them
    exceeding rich.--_History of the Coronation of King James II._,
    1687, p. 61.

    When he went to court, he used to kick away the _state_, and
    sit down by his prince cheek by jowl. Confound these _states_,
    says he, they are a modern invention.--SWIFT, _History of John
    Bull_, part ii. c. 1.

    What say some others? A government of _states_ would do much
    better for you than a monarchy.--ANDREWES, _Sermon 6, Of the
    Gunpowder Treason_.

      Dull subjects see too late
  Their safety in monarchal reign;
  Finding their freedom in a _state_
  Is but proud strutting in a chain.

          DAVENANT, _The Dream_.

  Those very Jews, who, at their very best
  Their humour more than loyalty expressed,
  Thought they might ruin him, they could create;
  Or melt him to a golden calf, a _state_.

          DRYDEN, _Absalom and Achitophel_, 66.


=STATIONER.= There was a time when ‘stationer,’ meaning properly no
more than one who had his _station_, that is, in the market-place or
elsewhere, included the bookseller and the publisher, as well as the
dealer in the raw material of books. But when, in the division of
labour, these became separate businesses, the name was restrained to
him who dealt in the latter articles alone.

    _Stacyonere_, or he that sellythe bokys, stacionarius,
    bibliopola.--_Promptorium._

    I doubt not but that the Animadverter’s _stationer_ doth
    hope and desire that he hath thus pleased people in his
    book, for the advancing of the price and quickening the sale
    thereof.--FULLER, _Appeal of Injured Innocence_, p. 38.

    The right of the printed copies (which the _stationer_ takes
    as his own freehold), was dispersed in five or six several
    hands.--OLEY, _Preface to Dr. Jackson’s Works_.

  Quarles, Chapman, Heywood, Wither had applause,
  And Wild, and Ogilby in former days;
  But now are damned to wrapping drugs and wares,
  And cursed by all their broken _stationers_.

          OLDHAM, _A Satire_.


  =STICKLE=, }
  STICKLER.  }

Now to stand with a certain pertinacity to one’s point, refusing
to renounce or go back from it; but formerly to interpose between
combatants and separate them, when they had sufficiently satisfied
the laws of honour. Our present meaning of the word connects itself
with the past in the fact that the ‘sticklers,’ or seconds, as we
should call them now, often fulfilled another function, being ready
to maintain in their own persons and by their own arms the quarrel of
their principals, and thus to ‘stickle’ for it. [The word ‘stickle’
represents the Middle English ‘stightlen,’ to order, arrange; for an
interesting account of its cognates see Skeat’s _Dictionary_.]

    I _styckyll_ betwene wrastellers, or any folkes that prove
    mastries to se that none do other wronge, or I parte folkes
    that be redy to fyght.--PALSGRAVE.

  Betwixt which three a question grew,
  Which should the worthiest be;
  Which violently they pursue,
  And would not _stickled_ be.

          DRAYTON, _Muses’ Elysium, Nymph. 6_.

    The same angel [in Tasso], when half of the Christians are
    already killed, and all the rest are in a fair way of being
    routed, _stickles_ betwixt the remainders of God’s hosts and
    the race of fiends; pulls the devils backwards by the tails,
    and drives them from their quarry.--DRYDEN, _Dedication of
    Translations from Juvenal_, p. 122.

    In ancient times they were wont to employ third persons as
    _sticklers_, to see no treachery nor disorder were used, and to
    bear witness of the combat’s success.--FLORIO, _Montaigne_, ii.
    27.

  The dragon wing of night o’erspreads the earth,
  And, _stickler_-like, the armies separates.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Troilus and Cressida_, act v. sc. 9.

  Our former chiefs, like _sticklers_ of the war,
  First fought to inflame the parties, then to poise;
  The quarrel loved, but did the cause abhor,
  And did not strike to hurt, but make a noise.

          DRYDEN, _On the Death of Oliver Cromwell_.


=STOMACH.= Already in classical Latin ‘stomachus’ had all the uses,
courage, pride, indignation, ill-will, which ‘stomach’ may be seen in
the following quotations to have once possessed, but which at this day
have nearly or quite departed from it.

    And sence we herde therof oure hert hath failed us, neither
    is there a good _stomache_ more in eny man, by the reasone of
    youre commynge.--_Josh._ ii. 11. COVERDALE.

          He was a man
  Of an unbounded _stomach_, ever ranking
  Himself with princes.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Henry VIII._, act iv. sc. 2.

    Arius, discontented that one should be placed before him in
    honour, whose superior he thought himself in desert, became
    through envy and _stomach_ prone unto contradiction, and bold
    to broach that heresy wherein the Deity of our Lord Jesus
    Christ was denied.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. v. § 42.


[=STOUT.= This word is now generally used in the sense of corpulent,
less frequently in the sense of strong, robust. In provincial use
‘stout’ has sometimes the meaning of proud, and this is probably
the original meaning of the word. ‘Stout’ is the same word as the
Old French _estout_, bold, proud, which represents a Germanic base
_stolto_-; compare modern German _stolz_, proud (see Kluge, _s. v._).
In the passages below the word retains its old meaning.]

    Commonly it is seen that they that be rich are lofty and
    _stout_.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, p. 545.

  I _stout_ and you _stout_,
  Who will carry the dirt out?

          _Old Proverb._

              Come all to ruin; let
  Thy mother rather feel thy pride, than fear
  Thy dangerous _stoutness_; for I mock at death
  With as big heart as thou.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Coriolanus_, act iii. sc. 2.


=STOVE.= This word, which was probably introduced from Holland, has
much narrowed its meaning. Bath, hothouse, any room where air or water
was artificially heated, was a ‘stove’ once.

    When a certain Frenchman came to visit Melanchthon, he found
    him in his _stove_, with one hand dandling his child in the
    swaddling-clouts, and the other holding a book and reading
    it.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. ii. c. 9.

    How tedious is it to them that live in _stoves_ and caves
    half a year together, as in Iceland, Muscovy, or under the
    pole!--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part i. sect. 2.

    When most of the waiters were commanded away to their supper,
    the parlour or _stove_ being nearly emptied, in came a company
    of musketeers, shot every one his man, and so proceeded to
    an apothecary’s house, where Wallenstein lay.--_Letters and
    Despatches of Thomas Earl of Strafford_, vol. i. p. 226.


=STREET.= This, one of the words which the Romans left behind them when
they quitted Britain, and which the Saxons learned from the Britons,
is more properly a road or causeway (‘via _strata_’) than a street, in
our present sense of the word; and as late as Coverdale was so used.

    For they soughte them thorow every _strete_, and yet they
    founde them not.--_Josh._ ii. 22. COVERDALE.

    But when one sawe that all the people stode there still, he
    removed Amasa from the _strete_ unto the felde.--_1 Sam._ xx.
    12. COVERDALE.


=SUBLIME.= There is an occasional use of ‘sublime’ by our earlier
poets, a use in which it bears much the meaning of the Greek
ὑπερήφανος, or perhaps approaches still more closely to that of
μετέωρος, high and lifted up, as with pride; which has now quite
departed from it.

  For the proud Soldan, with presumptuous cheer
  And countenance _sublime_ and insolent,
  Sought only slaughter and avengément.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, v. 8, 30.

  Their hearts were jocund and _sublime_,
  Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine.

          MILTON, _Samson Agonistes_, 1669.


=SUE.= One now ‘sues’ or _follows_ another into the courts of law,
being, as in the legal language of Greece, ὁ διώκων, the ‘pursuer;’ but
‘to sue’ was once to follow, without any such limitation of meaning.

    If thou wolt be perfite, go, and sille alle thingis that thou
    hast, and come, and _sue_ me.--_Matt._ xix. 21. WICLIF.

    And anoon thei leften the nettis and _sueden_ hym.--_Mark_ i.
    19. Id.


=SURE.= Used once in the sense of affianced, or, as it would be
sometimes called, ‘hand-fasted.’ See ‘Assure,’ ‘Ensure.’

    The king was _sure_ to dame Elizabeth Lucy, and her husband
    before God.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King Richard III._


  =SUSPECT=, }
  SUSPICION. }

To ‘suspect’ is properly to look under, and out of this fact is derived
our present use of the word; but in looking _under_ you may also look
_up_, and herein lies the explanation of an occasional use of ‘suspect’
and ‘suspicion’ which we find in our early writers.

    Pelopidas being sent the second time into Thessaly, to make
    accord betwixt the people and Alexander, the tyrant of
    Pheres, was by this tyrant (not _suspecting_ the dignity of
    an ambassador, nor of his country) made prisoner.--NORTH,
    _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 927.

    If God do intimate to the spirit of any wise inferiors that
    they ought to reprove, then let them _suspect_ their own
    persons, and beware that they make no open contestation, but be
    content with privacy.--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 330.

    Cordeilla, out of mere love, without the _suspicion_ of
    expected reward, at the message only of her father in distress,
    pours forth true filial tears.--MILTON, _History of England_,
    b. i.


=SYCOPHANT.= The early meaning of ‘sycophant,’ when it was employed
as equivalent to informer, delator, calumniator, ‘promoter’ (which
see), agreed better with its use in the Greek than does our present.
Employing it now in the sense of false and fawning flatterer, we might
seem at first sight to employ it in a sense not merely altogether
unconnected with, but quite opposite to, its former. Yet indeed there
is a very deep inner connexion between the two uses. It is not for
nothing that Jeremy Taylor treats of these two, namely ‘Of Slander and
Flattery,’ in one and the same course of sermons; seeing that, as the
Italian proverb has taught us, ‘He who flatters me before, spatters me
behind.’

    The poor man, that hath nought to lose, is not afraid of the
    _sycophant_ or promoter.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 261.

    He [St. Paul] in peril of the wilderness, that is of wild
    beasts; they [rich men] not only of the wild beast called
    the _sycophant_, but of the tame beast too, called the
    flatterer.--ANDREWES, _Sermon preached at the Spittle_.

    Sanders, that malicious _sycophant_, will have no less than
    twenty-six wain-load of silver, gold, and precious stones
    to be seized into the king’s hands by the spoil of that
    monument.--HEYLIN, _History of the Reformation_, 1849, vol. i.
    p. 20.


=SYMBOL.= The employment of ‘symbol’ in its proper Greek sense of
contribution thrown into a common stock, as in a pic-nic or the like,
is frequent in Jeremy Taylor, and examples of it may be found in other
scholarly writers of the seventeenth century.

    The consideration of these things hath oft suggested, and
    at length persuaded me to make this attempt, to cast in my
    mite to this treasury, my _symbolum_ toward so charitable a
    work.--HAMMOND, _A Paraphrase on the Psalms_, Preface.

    Christ hath finished his own sufferings for expiation of
    the world; yet there are ‘portions that are behind of the
    sufferings’ of Christ, which must be filled up by his body
    the Church; and happy are they that put in the greatest
    _symbol_; for ‘in the same measure you are partakers of the
    sufferings of Christ, in the same shall ye be also of the
    consolation.’--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Faith and Patience of the
    Saints_.

    There [in Westminster Abbey] the warlike and the peaceful,
    the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and the despised
    princes, mingle their dust and pay down their _symbol_ of
    mortality.--Id., _Holy Dying_, c. i. § 2.


=TABLE.= The Latin ‘tabula’ had for one of its meanings picture or
painting; and this caused that ‘table’ was by our early writers used
often in the same meaning.

    The _table_ wherein Detraction was expressed, he [Apelles]
    painted in this form.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b. iii. c.
    27.

    You shall see, as it were in a _table_ painted before your
    eyes, the evil-favouredness and deformity of this most
    detestable vice.--_Homilies: Against Contention._

    Learning flourished yet in the city of Sicyon, and they
    esteemed the painting of _tables_ in that city to be the
    perfectest for true colours and fine drawing, of all other
    places.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 843.


=TAINT.= This and ‘tint’ or ‘teint,’ the one connected more closely
with the French, the other with the Italian form of the word, have
divided off from one another, but own a common origin--‘tingo,’
‘tinctus.’ The fact that discoloration commonly accompanies decay
explains our present use of ‘taint.’

    A most delicate and beautiful young lady, slender of body, tall
    of stature, fair of _taynt_ and complexion.--REYNOLDS, _God’s
    Revenge against Murther_, b. i. hist. 1.

  But in the court be quainter dames than she,
  Whose faces are enrich’d with honour’s _taint_.

          GREENE, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, sc. 1.

  And Nero will be _tainted_ with remorse.

          SHAKESPEARE, _3 Henry VI._, act iii. sc. 1.




=TALENT.= The original meaning, as of ‘talent’ in Old French,
‘talento’ in Italian, ‘talante’ in Spanish, was will, inclination,
from ‘talentum’ (τάλαντον), balance, scales, and then inclination of
balance; thus in Spenser (_Fairy Queen_, iii. 4, 61), ‘maltalent’ is
grudge or ill-will (compare Old French ‘maltalant’ in the _Chanson de
Roland_, 271). It is probably under the influence of the Parable of the
Talents (_Matt._ xxv.) that it has travelled to its present meaning.
Clarendon still employs it very distinctly in its older sense.

    Whoso then wold wel understonde these peines, and bethinke him
    wel that he hath deserved these peines for his sinnes, certes
    he shold have more _talent_ for to sighe and to wepe than for
    to singe and playe.--CHAUCER, _The Persones Tale_.

    The meaner sort rested not there, but creating for their leader
    Sir John Egremond, a factious person and one who had of a long
    time borne an ill _talent_ towards the king, entered into open
    rebellion.--BACON, _History of King Henry VII._

    Though the nation generally was without any ill _talent_ to the
    Church, either in the point of the doctrine or the discipline,
    yet they were not without a jealousy that Popery was not enough
    discountenanced.--CLARENDON, _History of the Rebellion_, b. i.
    c. 194.


=TALL.= [This word occurs in earlier English with a great variety of
meanings. A very common meaning is seemly, fine, elegant; for examples
see Oliphant’s _New English_ (index). In old plays it often meant
valiant, brave, great (Halliwell). In the _Complaint of Mars_ ‘talle’
occurs, apparently in the sense of obedient, docile (see Skeat, _Minor
Poems of Chaucer_, iv. 38). The word in the sense of lofty in stature
may perhaps be distinct from the above ‘tall’; at any rate the modern
sense of tall seems to be the primary one in the Welsh and Cornish
_tal_, high. See Skeat’s _Dictionary_.]

    _Tal_, or semely, Decens, elegans.--_Promptorium._

    He [the Earl of Richmond’s] companions being almost in
    despair of victory were suddenly recomforted by Sir William
    Stanley, which came to succours with three thousand _tall_
    men.--GRAFTON, _Chronicle_.

  _Tamburlaine._ Where are my common soldiers now, that fought
                 So lionlike upon Asphaltis’ plains?

  _Soldier._     Here, my lord.

  _Tamburlaine._ Hold ye, _tall_ soldiers, take ye queens apiece.

          MARLOWE, _Tamburlaine the Great_, part ii. act iv. sc. 4.

    He [Prince Edward] would proffer to fight with any mean person,
    if cried up for a _tall_ man.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. iv. c. 29.


=TARPAULIN.= Not any longer used in the sense of sailor, except in
the shorter form of ‘tar.’ See the quotation from Smollett, _s. v._
‘Companion.’

    The Archbishop of Bordeaux is at present General of the French
    naval forces, who though a priest, is yet permitted to turn
    _tarpaulin_ and soldier.-_-Turkish Spy_, Letter 2.


=TAWDRY.= ‘Tawdry’ laces and such like were cheap and showy articles
of finery bought at St. Etheldrida’s or St. Awdry’s fair; but it is
only in later times that this cheapness, showiness, with a further
suggestion of vulgarity, made themselves distinctly felt in the word.
[The Old English form of ‘Etheldrida’ was ‘Æthelthry̅th,’ which means
noble strength. See Sweet, _Oldest English Texts_, p. 638.]

      Bind your fillets fast,
      And gird in your waist
  For more fineness with a _tawdry_ lace.

          SPENSER, _Shepherd’s Calendar, Fourth Eclogue_.

    Come, you promised me a _tawdry_ lace and a pair of sweet
    gloves.--SHAKESPEARE, _Winter’s Tale_, act iv. sc. 3.


=TEMPER.= What has been said under ‘Humour,’ which see, will also
explain ‘Temper,’ and the earlier uses of it which we meet. The happy
‘temper’ would be the happy mixture, the blending in due proportions,
of the four principal ‘humours’ of the body.

    The exquisiteness of his [the Saviour’s] bodily _temper_
    increased the exquisiteness of his torment, and the ingenuity
    of his soul added to his sensibleness of the indignities
    and affronts offered to him.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of
    Palestine_, vol. i. p. 345.

    Concupiscence itself follows the crasis and temperature of the
    body. If you would know why one man is proud, another cruel,
    another intemperate or luxurious, you are not to repair so much
    to Aristotle’s ethics, or to the writings of other moralists,
    as to those of Galen, or of some anatomists, to find the reason
    of these different _tempers_.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol. ii.
    p. 5.


=TEMPERAMENT.= The Latin ‘temperamentum’ had sometimes very nearly the
sense of our English ‘compromise’ or the French ‘transaction,’ and
signified, as these do, a middle term reached by mutual concession, by
a _tempering_ of the extreme claims upon either side. This same use of
‘temperament’ appears from time to time in such of our writers as have
allowed their style to be modified by their Latin studies.

    Safest, therefore, to me it seems that none of the Council
    be moved unless by death, or just conviction of some crime.
    However, I forejudge not any probable expedient, any
    _temperament_ that can be found in things of this nature, so
    disputable on either side.--MILTON, _The Ready and Easy Way to
    establish a Free Commonwealth_.

    Many _temperaments_ and explanations there would have been, if
    ever I had a notion that it [_Observations on the Minority_]
    should meet the public eye.--BURKE, _Letter to Lawrence_.


=TERMAGANT.= A name at this present applied only to _women_ of fierce
temper and ungoverned tongue, but formerly to men and women alike; and
indeed predominantly to men; ‘Termagant’ in the popular notion being
the name of one of the three gods of the Saracens. [See Mayhew-Skeat,
_Dict. of Middle English_ (_s. v._ ‘Tervagant’).]

    Art thou so fierce, currish, and churlish a Nabal, that even
    when thou mightest live in the midst of thy people (as she told
    Elisha [_2 Kings_ iv. 13]), thou delightest to play the tyrant
    and _termagant_ among them?--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p.
    270.

    This would make a saint swear like a soldier, and a soldier
    like _Termagant_.--BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, _King or No King_.


=THEWS.= It is a remarkable evidence of the influence of Shakespeare
upon the English language, that while, so far as yet has been observed,
every other writer, one single instance excepted, employs ‘thews’ in
the sense of manners, qualities of mind and disposition, his employment
of it in the sense of nerves, muscular vigour, has quite overborne the
other; which, once so familiar in our literature, has now quite passed
away. See a valuable note in Craik’s _English of Shakespeare_, p. 117.

  To alle gode _thewes_ born was she;
  As lyked to the goddes, or she was born,
  That of the shefe she sholde be the corn.

          CHAUCER, _Legend of Good Women_ (Skeat, p. 118).

  For well ye worthy bene forworth and gentle _thewes_.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 1, 33.

  Faire Helena, the fairest living wight,
  Who in all godly _thewes_ and goodly prayse
  Did far excell.

          Id., _ib._, 10, 59.


  =THINK=,    }
  THOUGHT,    }
  THOUGHTFUL. }

Many, as they read or hear in our English Bible these words of our
Lord, ‘Take no _thought_ for your life’ (_Matt._ vi. 25; cf. _1 Sam._
ix. 5), are perplexed, for they cannot help feeling that there is
some exaggeration in them, that He is urging here something which is
impossible, and which, if possible, would not be desirable, but a
forfeiting of the true dignity of man. Or perhaps, if they are able
to compare the English with the Greek, they blame our Translators
for having given an emphasis to the precept which it did not possess
in the original. But neither is the fact. ‘Thought’ is constantly
_anxious_ care in our earlier English, as the examples which follow
will abundantly prove; and ‘to think,’ though not so frequently, is to
take _anxious_ care. To this day they will say in Yorkshire, ‘it was
_thought_ that did for her,’ meaning that it was care that killed her.

  _Cleopatra._ What shall we do, Enobarbus?

  _Enobarbus._                              _Think_ and die.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Antony and Cleopatra_, act iii. sc. 13.

  Yet, for his love that all hath wrought,
  Wed me, or else I die for _thought_.

          SKELTON, _Manerly Margery_.

    He so plagued and vexed his father with injurious indignities,
    that the old man for very _thought_ and grief of heart pined
    away and died.--HOLLAND, _Camden’s Ireland_, p. 120.

    In five hundred years only two queens have died in childbirth.
    Queen Catherine Parr died rather of _thought_.--_Somers’
    Tracts_ (_Reign of Elizabeth_), vol. i. p. 172.

    Harris, an alderman of London, was put in trouble, and died
    of _thought_ and anxiety before his business came to an
    end.--BACON, _History of Henry VII._

  O _thoughtful_ herte, plungyd in dystres.

          LYDGATE, _Lyf of Our Lady_.


=THRIFTY.= The ‘thrifty’ is on the way to be the thriving; yet
‘thrifty’ does not mean thriving now, as once it did. It still
indeed retains this meaning in provincial use; as I have heard a
newly-transplanted tree, which was doing well, described as ‘thrifty.’
See ‘Unthrifty;’ and the quotation from Tusser, _s. v._ ‘Family.’

    No grace hath more abundant promises made unto it than this
    of mercy, a sowing, a reaping, a _thrifty_ grace.--Bishop
    REYNOLDS, _Sermon 30_.


=TIDY.= This, identical with the German ‘zeitig,’ has lost that
reference to _time_ which in ‘noon_tide_,’ ‘even_tide_,’ and some other
compounds still survives.

  Seven eares wexen fette of coren
  On an busk ranc and wel _tidi_.

          _Genesis and Exodus_, 2104.

    Lo an erthetilier abidith preciouse fruyt of the erthe,
    paciently suffrynge til he resseyve tymeful and lateful
    fruit--that is _tidi_ and ripe.--_James_ v. 7. WICLIF.


=TINSEL.= This (the Old French ‘estincelle,’ a spark) is always now
_cheap_ finery, flashing like silver and gold, but at the same time
pretending a value and a richness which it does not really possess.
There lay no such insinuation of pretentious splendour in its earlier
uses. A valuable note in Keightley’s _Milton_, vol. i. p. 126, makes
it, I think, clear that by ‘tinsel’ was commonly meant ‘a _silver_
texture, less dense and stout than cloth of silver;’ yet not always,
for see my first quotation.

    Under a duke, no man to wear cloth of gold _tinsel_.--_Literary
    Remains of King Edward VI._, 1551, 2.

    Every place was hanged with cloth of gold, cloth of silver,
    _tinsel_, arras, tapestry, and what not.--STUBBES, _Anatomy of
    Abuses_, p. 18.

  [He] never cared for silks or sumptuous cost,
  For cloth of gold, or _tinsel_ figurie,
  For baudkin, broidery, cutworks, nor conceits.

          GASCOIGNE, _The Steel Glass_.

  Her garments all were wrought of beaten gold,
  And all her steed with _tinsel_-trappings shone.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, iii. 1, 15.


=TOBACCONIST.= Now the seller, once the smoker, of tobacco.

    Germany hath not so many drunkards, England _tobacconists_,
    France dancers, Holland mariners, as Italy alone hath jealous
    husbands.--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part iii. sect. 3.

    Hence it is that the lungs of the _tobacconist_ are
    rotted.--BEN JONSON, _Bartholomew Fair_.

  But let it be of any truly said,
  He’s great, religious, learned, wise or staid,
  But he is lately turned _tobacconist_,
  Oh what a blur! what an abatement is’t!

          SYLVESTER, _Tobacco Battered_.


=TORY.= It is curious how often political parties have ended by
assuming to themselves names first fastened on them by their
adversaries in reproach and scorn. The ‘Gueux’ or ‘Beggars’ of Holland
are perhaps the most notable instance of all; so too ‘tories’ was a
name properly belonging to the Irish bogtrotters, who during our Civil
War robbed and plundered, professing to be in arms for the maintenance
of the royal cause; and from them transferred, about the year 1680,
to those who sought to maintain the extreme prerogatives of the
Crown. There is an Act of the 6th of Anne with this title: ‘For the
more effectual suppressing _Tories_ and Rapparees; and for preventing
persons becoming _Tories_ or resorting to them.’ For the best account
of the ‘tories’ see Prendergast, _Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland_,
pp. 163-183; and compare Carte’s _Life of the Duke of Ormonde_, vol.
ii. p. 481.

    That Irish Papists who had been licensed to depart this nation,
    and of late years have been transplanted into Spain, Flanders,
    and other foreign parts, have nevertheless secretly returned
    into Ireland, occasioning the increase of _tories_ and other
    lawless persons.--_Irish State Papers_, 24th January, 1656.

    Let such men quit all pretences to civility and breeding.
    They are ruder than _tories_ and wild Americans.--GLANVILLE,
    _Sermons_, p. 212.

    In the open or plain countries the peasants are content to live
    on their labour; the woods, bogs, and fastnesses fostering
    and sheltering the robbers, _tories_, and woodkerns, who are
    usually the offspring of gentlemen, that have either misspent
    or forfeited their estates; who, though having no subsistance,
    yet contemn trade, as being too mean and base for a gentleman
    reduced never so low.--_MS. Account of the State of the County
    of Kildare_, of date 1684, in Trinity College Library, Dublin.

    Mosstroopers, a sort of rebels in the northern part of
    Scotland, that live by robbery and spoil, like the _tories_ in
    Ireland, or the banditti in Italy.--PHILLIPS, _New World of
    Words_, ed. 1706.


=TRADE.= Properly that path which we ‘tread,’ and thus the ever
recurring habit and manner of our life, whatever this may be.

  A postern with a blinde wicket there was,
  A common _trade_ to passe through Priam’s house.

          EARL OF SURREY, _Translation of the Æneid_, b. ii. l. 592.

    For him that lacketh nothing necessary, nor hath cause to
    complain of his present state, it is a great folly to leave his
    old acquainted _trade_ of life, and to enter into another new
    and unknown.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 53.

    Teach a child in the _trade_ of his way, and when he is old, he
    shall not depart from it.--_Proverbs_ xxii. 6. Geneva.

  There those five sisters had continuall _trade_,
  And used to bath themselves in that deceiptful shade.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 12, 30.

  As shepheardes curre, that in darke evenings shade
  Hath tracted forth some salvage beastes _trade_.

          Ib., ii. 6, 39.


=TREACLE.= This at present means only the sweet syrup of molasses, but
was once of far wider reach and far nobler significance, having come
to us from afar, and by steps which are curious to trace. They are
these. The Greeks, in anticipation of modern homœopathy, called a
fancied antidote to the viper’s bite, which was composed of the viper’s
flesh, θηριακά--from θηρίον, a name often given to the viper (_Acts_
xxviii. 5); of this came the Latin ‘theriaca,’ from the Old French form
of which--namely, ‘triacle’--came our ‘triacle’ and ‘treacle.’ See
_Promptorium_, and Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of Middle English_, p. 237.

    For a most strong _treacle_ against these venomous heresies
    wrought our Saviour many a marvellous miracle.--Sir T. MORE, _A
    Treatise on the Passion, Works_, p. 1357.

    There is no more _triacle_ at Galaad, and there is no phisician
    that can heale the hurte of my people.--_Jer._ viii. 22.
    COVERDALE.

    At last his body [Sir Thomas Overbury’s] was almost come by use
    of poisons to the state that Mithridates’ body was by the use
    of _treacle_ and preservatives, that the force of the poisons
    was blunted upon him.--BACON, _Charge against Robert, Earl of
    Somerset_.

    The saints’ experiences help them to a sovereign _treacle_ made
    of the scorpion’s own flesh (which they through Christ have
    slain), and that hath a virtue above all others to expel the
    venom of Satan’s temptations from the heart.--GURNALL, _The
    Christian in Complete Armour_, c. ix. § 2.

    Wonderful therefore is the power of a Christian, who not only
    overcomes and conquers and kills the viper, but like the
    skilful apothecary makes antidote and _triacle_ of him.--HALES,
    _Sermon on Christian Omnipotence_.

    _Treacle_; a physical composition, made of vipers and other
    ingredients.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.


=TREE.= This might once have been used of the dead timber, no less
than of the living growth; this use surviving still in ‘rood_tree_,’
‘axle_tree_,’ ‘saddle_tree_.’

    In a greet hous ben not oneli vessels of gold and of silver,
    but also of _tree_ [lignea, Vulg.] and of erthe.--_2 Tim._ ii.
    20. WICLIF.

    He had a castel of _tre_, which he cleped
    Mategrifon.--CAPGRAVE, _Chronicle of England_, p. 145.

  Take down, take down that mast of gowd,
  Set up a mast of _tree_;
  Ill sets it a forsaken lady
  To sail sae gallantlie.

          _Old Ballad._


=TRIUMPH.= A name often transferred by our early writers to any stately
show or pageantry whatever, not restricted, as now, to one celebrating
a victory. See Bacon’s _Essay_, the 37th, with the heading ‘Of Masks
and _Triumphs_,’ passim.

                    Our daughter,
  In honour of whose birth these _triumphs_ are,
  Sits here, like beauty’s child.

          _Pericles, Prince of Tyre_, act ii. sc. 2.

    You cannot have a perfect palace except you have two several
    sides, the one for feasts and _triumphs_, the other for
    dwelling.--BACON, _Essays_, 45.

  This day to Dagon is a solemn feast,
  With sacrifices, _triumph_, pomp, and games.

          MILTON, _Samson Agonistes_, 1311.


=TRIVIAL.= A ‘trivial’ saying is at present a slight one; it was
formerly an often-repeated one, or one containing an elementary truth;
it might be trite, on the ground of the weight and wisdom which it
contained; as certainly the maxim quoted by Hacket is anything but
‘trivial’ in our sense of the word. Gradually the notion of slightness
was superadded to that of commonness, and thus an epithet once of
honour has become one of dishonour rather. See Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of
Middle English_ (_s. v._ ‘Trivials’).

    Others avouch, and that more truly, that he [Duns Scotus] was
    born in Downe, and thereof they guess him to be named Dunensis,
    and by contraction Duns, which term is so _trivial_ and common
    in schools, that whoso surpasseth others either in cavilling
    sophistry or subtle philosophy is forthwith nicknamed a
    Duns.--STANYHURST, _Description of Ireland_, p. 2.

    Æquitas optimo cuique notissima, is a _trivial_ saying, A
    very good man cannot be ignorant of equity.--HACKET, _Life of
    Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 57.

    These branches [of the divine life] are three, whose names
    though _trivial_ and vulgar, yet, if rightly understood, they
    bear such a sense with them that nothing more weighty can be
    pronounced by the tongue of men or seraphims, and in brief they
    are these, Charity, Humility, and Purity.--H. MORE, _Grand
    Mystery of Godliness_, b. ii. c. 12.


=TRUMPERY.= That which is deceitful is without any worth; and
‘trumpery,’ which was formerly deceit, fraud (tromperie), is now
anything which is worthless and of no account. Was Milton’s use of the
word in his well-known line, ‘Black, white and gray, with all their
_trumpery_’ (_P. L._ iii. 475), our present, or that earlier?

  When truth appeared, Rogero hated more
  Alcyna’s _trumperies_, and did them detest,
  Than he was late enamourèd before.

          Sir J. HARINGTON, _Orlando Furioso_, b. vii.

    Britannicus was now grown to men’s estate, a true and worthy
    plant to receive his father’s empire; which a grafted son by
    adoption now possessed by the injury and _trumpery_ of his
    mother.--GREENWEY, _Tacitus_, p. 182.


=TURK.= It is a remarkable evidence of the extent to which the Turks
and the Turkish assault upon Christendom had impressed themselves
on the minds of men, of the way in which they stood as representing
the entire Mahometan world, that ‘Turk,’ being in fact a national, is
constantly employed by the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries as a religious, designation, as equivalent to, and
coextensive with, Mahometan; exactly as Ἔλλην in the New Testament
means continually not of Greek nationality, but of Gentile religion.

    Have mercy upon all Jews, _Turks_, infidels, and
    heretics.--_Collect for Good Friday._

    It is no good reason for a man’s religion, that he was
    born and brought up in it; for then a _Turk_ would have
    as much reason to be a _Turk_ as a Christian to be a
    Christian.--CHILLINGWORTH, _Religion of Protestants_, part i.
    c. 2.


  =TUTOR=, }
  TUITION. }

The ‘tutor’ of our forefathers was rather a caretaker and guardian than
an instructor: but seeing that one defends another most effectually who
imparts to him those principles and that knowledge whereby he shall be
able to defend himself, our modern use of the word must be taken as a
deeper than the earlier.

    This is part of the honour that the children owe to their
    parents and _tutors_ by the commandment of God, even to be
    bestowed in marriage as it pleaseth the godly, prudent and
    honest parents or _tutors_ to appoint.--BECON, _Catechism_,
    Parker Soc. ed., p. 871.

    What shall become of the lambs under the _tuition_ of
    wolves?--ADAMS, _Sermons_, vol. ii. p. 117.

    _Tutors_ and guardians are in the place of parents; and what
    they are in fiction of law they must remember as an argument
    to engage them to do in reality of duty.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Holy
    Living_, iii. 2.

    As though they were not to be trusted with the king’s brother,
    that by the assent of the nobles of the land were appointed, as
    the king’s nearest friends, to the _tuition_ of his own royal
    person.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King Richard III._, p. 36.

    Afterwards turning his speech to his wife and his son, he
    [Scanderbeg] commended them both with his kingdom to the
    _tuition_ of the Venetians.--KNOLLES, _History of the Turks_,
    vol. i. p. 274.


  =UMBRAGE=,  }
  UMBRAGEOUS. }

‘To take umbrage’ is, I think, the only phrase in which the word
‘umbrage’ is still in use among us, the only one at least in which it
is ethically employed; but ‘umbrage’ in its earlier use coincides in
meaning with the old French ‘ombrage’ (see the quotation from Bacon),
and signifies suspicion, or rather the disposition to suspect; and
‘umbrageous,’ as far as I know, is constantly employed in the sense
of suspicious by our early authors; having now no other but a literal
sense. Other uses of ‘umbrage,’ as those of Fuller and Jeremy Taylor
which follow, must be explained from the classical sympathies of
these writers; out of which the Latin etymology of the word gradually
made itself felt in the meaning which they ascribed to it, namely as
anything slight and _shadowy_. [For the development of meaning of the
French ‘ombrage’ from shadow to suspicion, see Darmesteter, _Vie des
Mots_, p. 77.]

    I say, just fear, not out of _umbrages_, light jealousies,
    apprehensions afar off, but out of clear foresight of imminent
    danger.--BACON, _Of a War with Spain_.

    To collect the several essays of princes glancing on that
    project [a new Crusade], were a task of great pains and small
    profit; especially some of them being _umbrages_ and state
    representations rather than realities, to ingratiate princes
    with their subjects, or with the oratory of so pious a project
    to woo money out of people’s purses.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. v.
    c. 25.

    You look for it [truth] in your books, and you tug hard for
    it in your disputations, and you derive it from the cisterns
    of the Fathers, and you inquire after the old ways; and
    sometimes are taken with new appearances, and you rejoice in
    false lights, or are delighted with little _umbrages_ or peep
    of day.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Sermon preached to the University of
    Dublin_.

    There being in the Old Testament thirteen types and _umbrages_
    of this Holy Sacrament, eleven of them are of meat and
    drink.--Id., _The Worthy Communicant_, c. ii. § 2.

    At the beginning some men were a little _umbrageous_, and
    startling at the name of the Fathers; yet since the Fathers
    have been well studied, we have behaved ourselves with more
    reverence toward the Fathers than they of the Roman persuasion
    have done.--DONNE, _Sermons_, 1640, p. 557.

    That there was none other present but himself when his master
    De Merson was murdered, it is _umbrageous_, and leaves a spice
    of fear and sting of suspicion in their heads.--REYNOLDS,
    _God’s Revenge against Murther_, b. iii. hist. 13.


=UNCOUTH.= Now unformed in manner, ungraceful in behaviour; but once
simply unknown. The change in signification is to be traced to the same
causes which made ‘barbarous,’ meaning at first only foreign, to have
afterwards the sense of savage and wild. Almost all nations regard with
disfavour and dislike that which is outlandish, and generally that
with which they are unacquainted; so that words which at first did but
express this fact of strangeness, easily acquire a further unfavourable
sense.

    The vulgar instruction requires also vulgar and communicable
    terms, not clerkly or _uncouth_, as are all these of the Greek
    and Latin languages.--PUTTENHAM, _Art of English Poesy_, b.
    iii. c. 10.

  Wel-away the while I was so fonde,
  To leave the good that I had in honde
  In hope of better that was _uncouth_;
  So lost the Dogge the flesh in his mouth.

          SPENSER, _The Shepherd’s Calendar, September_.

    ‘_Uncouthe_, unkiste,’ sayde the old famous poete Chaucer;
    which proverb very well taketh place in this our new poete,
    who for that he is _uncouthe_ (as said Chaucer) is unkist;
    and, _unknown_ to most men, is regarded but of a few.--E. K.,
    _Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar_.


=UNEQUAL.= From the constant use made of ‘unequal’ by our early
writers, for whom it was entirely equivalent to unjust, unfair, one
might almost suppose they were influenced by sense association with
‘iniquus’ in their naturalization of ‘inæqualis.’ At any rate they had
no scruple in using it in a sense, which ‘inæqualis’ never has, but
‘iniquus’ continually.

  To punish me for what you make me do
  Seems most _unequal_.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Antony and Cleopatra_, act ii. sc. 5.

  These imputations are too common, sir,
  And easily stuck on virtue when she’s poor:
  You are _unequal_ to me.

          BEN JONSON, _The Fox_, act iii. sc. 1.

    Jerome, a very _unequal_ relator of the opinion of his
    adversaries.--WORTHINGTON, _Life of Joseph Mede_, p. xi.


=UNEASY.= This has lost the sense of ‘difficult,’ and means now
restless or anxious. But the objective signification is to be found in
our Bible and in Shakespeare.

    The town was hard to besiege and uneasy to come unto.--_2
    Macc._ xii. 21. (A.V.)

                      This swift business
  I must _uneasy_ make, lest too light winning
  Make the prize light.

          SHAKESPEARE, _The Tempest_, act i. sc. 2.


=UNHANDSOME.= See ‘Handsome.’

    A narrow straight path by the water’s side, very _unhandsome_
    [οὐ ῥᾳδίαν] for an army to pass that way, though they found not
    a man to keep the passage.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 317;
    cf. p. 378.

    The ships were unwieldy and _unhandsome_.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p.
    1188.


  =UNHAPPY=,   }
  UNHAPPINESS. }

A very deep truth lies involved in the fact that so many words, and I
suppose in all languages, unite the meanings of wicked and miserable,
as the Greek σχέτλιος, our own ‘wretch’ and ‘wretched.’ So, too, it was
once with ‘unhappy,’ although its use in the sense of ‘wicked’ has now
passed away.

    Fathers shall do well also to keep from them [their children]
    such schoolfellows as be _unhappy_, and given to shrewd turns;
    for such as they are enough to corrupt and mar the best natures
    in the world.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 16.

              Thou old _unhappy_ traitor,
  Briefly thyself remember; the sword is out
  That must destroy thee.

          SHAKESPEARE, _King Lear_, act iv. sc. 6.

    The servants of Dionyse, king of Sicily, which although they
    were inclined to all _unhappiness_ and mischief, yet after the
    coming of Plato, perceiving that for his doctrine and wisdom
    the king had him in high estimation, they thus counterfeited
    the countenance and habit of the philosopher.--Sir T. ELYOT,
    _The Governor_, b. ii. c. 14.

    [Man] from the hour of his birth is most miserable, weak, and
    sickly; when he sucks, he is guided by others; when he is grown
    great, practiseth _unhappiness_ and is sturdy; and when old,
    a child again and repenteth him of his past life.--BURTON,
    _Anatomy of Melancholy; Democritus to the Reader_.


=UNION.= The elder Pliny (_H. N._ ix. 59) tells us that the name ‘unio’
had not very long before his time begun to be given to a pearl in which
all chiefest excellencies, size, roundness, smoothness, whiteness,
weight, met and, so to speak, were _united_; and as late as Jeremy
Taylor the word ‘union’ was often employed to designate a pearl of
a rare and transcendent beauty. See Skeat’s _Dictionary_ (_s. v._
‘Onion’).

  And in the cup an _union_ shall he throw,
  Richer than that which four successive kings
  In Denmark’s crown have worn.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, act v. sc. 2.

    Pope Paul II. in his pontifical vestments outwent all his
    predecessors, especially in his mitre, upon which he had laid
    out a great deal of money in purchasing at vast rates diamonds,
    sapphires, emeralds, crysoliths, jaspers, _unions_, and all
    manner of precious stones.--Sir PAUL RYCAUT, _Platina’s History
    of the Popes_, p. 114.

    Perox, the Persian king, [hath] an _union_ in his ear worth an
    hundred weight of gold.--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, mem.
    ii. sect. 3.


  =UNKIND=,   }
  UNKINDNESS. }

‘Unkind’ has quite forfeited now its primary meaning, namely that which
violates the law of kind, thus ‘_unkind_ abominations’ (Chaucer),
meaning incestuous unions and the like; and has taken up with the
secondary, that which does not recognise the duties flowing out of
this kinship. In its primary meaning it moves in a region where the
physical and ethical meet; in its secondary in a purely ethical
sphere. How soon it began to occupy this the passages which follow will
show; for out of a sense that nothing was so unnatural or ‘unkind’ as
ingratitude, the word early obtained use as a special designation of
this vice.

    _Unkynde_ [ingrati, Vulg.], cursid, withouten affeccioun.--_2
    Tim._ iii. 2, 3. WICLIF.

  It is all one to sey _unkinde_,
  As thing whiche doone is againe kinde,
  For it with kinde never stoode
  A man to yelde evill for goode.

          GOWER, _Confessio Amantis_, b. v.

  Whar-for ilk man, bathe lered and lewed,
  Suld thinke on that love that He man shewed,
  And love Hym and thank Hym als he can,
  And elles es he an _unkynd_ man.

          RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 117.

    The most damnable vice and most against justice, in mine
    opinion, is ingratitude, commonly called _unkindness_. He
    is _unkind_ that denieth to have received any benefit, that
    indeed he hath received; he is _unkind_ that dissimuleth; he is
    _unkind_ that recompenseth not; but he is most _unkind_ that
    forgetteth.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b. ii. c. 13.

    God might have made me even such a foule and unreasonable
    beast as this is; and yet was I never so _kynde_ as to thancke
    Him that He had not made me so vile a creature; which thing I
    greatly bewayle, and my _unkindenesse_ causeth me now thus to
    weepe.--FRITH, _Works_, 1573, p. 90.

    We have cause also in England to beware of _unkindnesse_,
    who have had in so fewe yeares the candel of Goddes woorde,
    so oft lightned, so oft put out; and yet will venture by
    our unthankfulnesse in doctrine, and sinfull life, to leese
    againe lighte, candle, candlesticke, and all.--ASCHAM, _The
    Scholemaster_, b. i.


  =UNTHRIFTY=,   }
  UNTHRIFTINESS. }

As the ‘thrifty’ will probably be the thriving, so the ‘unthrifty’ the
unthriving; but the words are not synonymous any more, as once they
were. See ‘Thrifty.’

    What [is it] but this self and presuming of ourselves causes
    grace to be _unthrifty_, and to hang down the head? what but
    our ascribing to ourselves in our means-using, makes them so
    unfruitful?--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 146.

    Staggering, non-proficiency, and _unthriftiness_ of profession
    is the fruit of self.--Id., _Index_.


=UNVALUED.= This and ‘invaluable’ have been usefully desynonymized;
so that ‘invaluable’ means now having a value greater than can be
estimated, ‘unvalued’ esteemed to have no value at all. Yet it was not
so once; though in Shakespeare (see _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 3) our present
use of ‘unvalued’ occasionally obtained.

  Two golden apples of _unvalued_ price.

          SPENSER, _Sonnet 77_.

                          Go, _unvalued_ book,
  Live, and be loved; if any envious look
  Hurt thy clear fame, learn that no state more high
  Attends on virtue than pined envy’s eye.

          CHAPMAN, _Dedication of Poems_.

                    Each heart
  Hath from the leaves of thy _unvalued_ book
  Those Delphic lines with deep impression took.

          MILTON, _An Epitaph on Shakespeare_.


  =USURY=, }
  USURER.  }

This, which is now the lending of money upon inordinate interest, was
once the lending it upon any. The man who did not lend his money for
nothing was then a ‘usurer,’ not he, as now, who makes unworthy profit
by the necessities of the needy or the extravagance of the foolish.
It is true that the word was as dishonourable then as it is now; and
it could not be otherwise, so long as all receiving of interest was
regarded as a violation at once of divine and of natural law. When at
length the common sense of men overcame this strange but deep-rooted
prejudice, the word was too deeply stained with dishonour to be
employed to express the lawful receiving of a measurable interest;
but ‘usury,’ taking up a portion only of its former meaning, was now
restricted to that which still remained under a moral ban, namely the
exacting of an excessive interest for money lent.

    On the other side, the commodities of _usury_ are: first, that
    howsoever _usury_ in some respects hindereth merchandising,
    yet in some other it advanceth it; for it is certain that
    the greatest part of trade is driven by young merchants upon
    _borrowing at interest_; so as if the _usurer_ either call in
    or keep back his money, there will ensue presently a great
    stand of trade.--BACON, _Essay_, 41.

    Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that
    at my coming I might have required mine own with _usury_ [σὺν
    τόκῳ]?--_Luke_ xix. 23. (A.V.)

    Brokers, takers of pawns, biting _usurers_ I will not admit;
    yet because we converse here with men, not with gods, and for
    the hardness of men’s hearts, I will tolerate some kind of
    _usury_.--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy; Democritus to the
    Reader_.


=VARLET.= Littré, dealing with this very word, has truly said,
‘Les mots, soit en changeant de pays, soit en changeant de siècle,
s’ennoblissent ou s’avilissent d’une façon singulière’ (_Hist. de la
Langue Française_, vol. ii. p. 166). There could be no more signal
proof of this than that which the word ‘varlet’ supplies. I continue
to quote his words, ‘_Vaslet_, ou, par une substitution non rare
de l’_r_ à l’_s_, _varlet_, est un diminutif de _vassal_; _vassal_
signifiait un vaillant guerrier, et _varlet_ un jeune homme qui pouvait
aspirer aux honneurs de la chevalerie.’ From this it fell to the use in
which we find it in the passage quoted below from Shakespeare of squire
or attendant, which is also the continually recurring use in the Old
English translation of Froissart. In this sense it survives as ‘valet;’
but not pausing here, ‘varlet’ is now tinged with contempt, and implies
moral worthlessness in him to whom it is applied.

  Call here my _varlet_; I’ll unarm myself.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Troilus and Cressida_, act i. sc. 1.

    Right so there came in a _varlet_; and told Sir Tristram how
    there was come an errant knight into the town with such colours
    upon his shield.--Sir T. MALORY, _Morte d’Arthur_, b. x. c. 56.


=VASSALAGE.= This, like the Old French ‘vasselage,’ had once the
meaning of courage, prowess, superiority. See in explanation the
quotation from Littré under ‘Varlet.’

  And certeynly a man hath most honour
  To deyen in his excellence and flour,
  Thanne whan his name appalled is for age;
  For all forgeten is his _vasselage_.

          CHAUCER, _The Knightes Tale_, 2189 (Clar. Press).

  And Catoun seith is noon so great encress
  Of worldly tresour, as for to live in pees,
  Which among vertues hath the _vasselage_.

          LYDGATE, _Minor Poems_, Halliwell’s ed., p. 176.


=VERMIN.= Now always noxious offensive animals of the _smaller_ kind,
but employed formerly with no such limitation.

    But he shouke of the _vermen_ into the fyre and felt no
    harme.--_Acts_ xxviii. 5. Geneva Version.

    This crocodile is a mischievous four-footed beast, a dangerous
    _vermin_ used to both elements.--HOLLAND, _Ammianus_, p. 212.

    Wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth,
    and _vermin_ [καὶ τὰ θηρία], and worms, and fowls of the
    air.--_Acts_ x. 12. Geneva.

    The Lord rectifies Peter, and frames him to go by a vision of
    all crawling _vermin_ in a clean sheet.--ROGERS, _Naaman the
    Syrian_, p. 42.


=VILIFY.= This now implies a great deal more than to hold morally
cheap, which was all that in the seventeenth century it involved.

    Can it be imagined that a whole people would ever so _vilify_
    themselves, depart from their own interests to that degree as
    to place all their hopes in one man?--MILTON, _Defence of the
    People of England_, c. 7.

    The ears of all men will be filled with deceitful figments and
    gainful lies, the merits of Christ’s passion will be _vilified_
    and maimed.--H. MORE, _The Mystery of Iniquity_, b. ii. c. 7, §
    11.

    The more I magnify myself, the more God _vilifies_ me.--ROGERS,
    _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 469.


  =VILLAIN=, }
  VILLANY.   }

A word whose story, like that of ‘churl,’ is so well known that one
may be spared the necessity of repeating it. It was, I think, with
‘villany’ that there was first a transfer into an ethical sphere,
though it is noticeable how ‘villany’ till a very late day expressed
_words_ foul and disgraceful to the utterer much oftener than _deeds_.

    Pour the blood of the _villain_ in one basin, and the blood
    of the gentleman in another; what difference shall there be
    proved?--BECON, _The Jewel of Joy_.

    We yield not ourselves to be your _villains_ and slaves [non
    _in servitutem_ nos tradimus], but as allies to be protected by
    you.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 935.

    [He] was condemned to be degraded of all nobility, and not only
    himself, but all his succeeding posterity declared _villains_,
    and clowns, taxable and incapable to bear arms.--FLORIO,
    _Montaigne_, b. i. c. 15.

    In our modern language it [foul language] is termed _villany_,
    as being proper for rustic boors, or men of coarsest education
    and employment, who, having their minds debased by being
    conversant in meanest affairs, do vent their sorry passions in
    such strains.--BARROW, _Of Evil-speaking in general_, Sermon 16.


=VIRTUOUS.= Virtue is still occasionally used as equivalent to might or
potency; but ‘virtuous’ has quite abdicated the meaning of valorous or
potent which it once had, and which its etymology justified.

  With this all strengths and minds he moved; but young Deiphobus,
  Old Priam’s son, amongst them all was chiefly _virtuous_.

          CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, xiii. 147.

  Or call up him that left half told
  The story of Cambuscan old,
  Of Camball and of Algarsife,
  And who had Canace to wife,
  That owned the _virtuous_ ring and glass.

          MILTON, _Il Penseroso_.

  Tho lifting up his _vertuous_ staffe on hye
  He smote the sea, which calmèd was with speed.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 12, 26.


  =VIVACIOUS=, }
  VIVACITY.    }

‘Longevity’ is a comparatively modern word. ‘Vivacity,’ which has now
acquired the mitigated sense of liveliness, served instead of it;
keeping in English the original sense which ‘vivacitas’ had in the
Latin.

    James Sands, of Horborn in this county, is most remarkable for
    his _vivacity_, for he lived 140 years.--FULLER, _Worthies of
    England: Staffordshire_.

    Fables are raised concerning the _vivacity_ of the deer; for
    neither are their gestation nor increment such as may afford an
    argument of long life.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Vulgar Errors_.

    Hitherto the English bishops had been _vivacious_ almost to
    wonder. For, necessarily presumed of good years before entering
    on their office in the first year of Queen Elizabeth, it was
    much that but five died for the first twenty years of her
    reign.--FULLER, _Church History of Britain_, b. ix. § 27.


=VOLUBLE.= This epithet always insinuates of him to whom it is now
applied that his speech is freer and faster than is meet; but it once
occupied that region of meaning which ‘fluent’ does at present, without
any suggestion of the kind. Milton (_P. L._ ix. 436) recalls the word,
as he does so many, to its primary meaning.

    He [Archbishop Abbott] was painful, stout, severe against bad
    manners, of a grave and a _voluble_ eloquence.--HACKET, _Life
    of Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 65.


=VOYAGE.= All journeys, those alike by land and by water, were
‘voyages’ once. The word is restricted now to journeys made by water.
‘Voyage’ is the French form of the late Latin ‘viaticum.’

    Holofernes went forth with his chariots and horses to go before
    King Nebuchodonosor in the _voyage_.--_Judith_ ii. 19. (A.V.)

    My life hath not been unexpensive in learning, and _voyaging_
    about.--MILTON, _An Apology for Smectymnuus_.

  This is the poynt, to speken schort and pleyn,
  That ech of yow to schorte with oure weie
  In this _viage_ schal telle tales tweye
  To Caunterburi-ward, I mene it so,
  And homward he schal tellen othere tuo.

          CHAUCER, _Canterbury Tales_, Prologue.


=WAINSCOT.= I transcribe a correction of the brief and inaccurate
notice of this word in my first edition, which a correspondent, with
the best opportunity of knowledge, has kindly sent me: ‘“Wainscot”
is always in the building trade applied to oak only, but not to all
kinds of oak. The wainscot oak grows abroad, chiefly, I think, in
Holland, and is used for wainscoting, or wood lining, of walls of
houses, because it works very freely under the tool, and is not liable
to “cast” or rend, as English oak will do. It is consequently used
for all purposes where expense is no object. Formerly all panelling
to walls was done in wainscot, and was called “wainscoting.” It was
never painted. In modern times it was imitated in deal, and was painted
to represent real wainscot, or of any other colour, while the name
of “wainscoting” adhered to it, though the material was no longer
wainscot. At present, however, the word “wainscot” is always used
to designate the real wainscot oak.’ It will be seen from this very
interesting explanation that within the narrow limits of a particular
trade, the old meaning of ‘wainscot,’ which has everywhere else
disappeared, still survives. It would be curious to trace how much in
this way of earlier English within limited technical circles lives on,
having everywhere else died out. For a further account of ‘wainscot,’
see Skeat’s _Dictionary_, p. 833.

    A wedge of _wainscot_ is fittest and most proper for cleaving
    of an _oaken_ tree.--Sir T. URQUHART, _Tracts_, p. 153.

    Being thus arrayed, and enclosed in a chest of _wainscot_, he
    [Edward the Confessor] was removed into the before-prepared
    feretry.--DART, _History of St. Peter’s, Westminster_, c. 3.


=WANT.= Among other differences between ‘carere’ and ‘egere,’ this
certainly is one, that the former may be said of things evil as well
as good, as well of those whose absence is desirable as of those whose
absence is felt as a loss, while ‘egere’ always implies not merely the
absence but the painful sense of the absence. ‘To want,’ which had once
the more colourless use of ‘carere,’ has passed now, nearly though not
altogether, into this latter sense, and is = ‘egere.’

    If he be lost, and _want_, thy life shall go for his life.--_1
    Kings_ xx. 39. Geneva.

    The happy and fortunate _want_ of these beasts [wolves] in
    England is universally ascribed to the politic government of
    King Edgar.--HARRISON, _Description of England_, b. iii. c. 4.

    In a word, he [the true gentleman] is such, that could we
    _want_ him, it were pity but that he were in heaven; and yet I
    pity not much his continuance here, because he is already so
    much in heaven to himself.--CLEMENT ELLIS, _Character of a True
    Gentleman_.

  Friend of my life, which did you not prolong,
  The world had _wanted_ many an idle song.

          POPE, _Lines to Arbuthnot_.


=WENCH.= In Middle English this term (in the older form ‘wenchel’),
like ‘girl,’ ‘coquette,’ ‘slut,’ ‘flirt,’ and so many more, might be
ascribed to either sex; and when afterwards restrained to one, was
rather a word of familiarity, or even of passion, than of slight and
contempt, which now it has grown to be. See Mayhew-Skeat’s _Dict. of
Middle English_.

  And, wretched _wench_, she thinks she has obtained such a thing
  As both to Progne and herself should joy and comfort bring.

          GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. vi.

                        O, ill-starred _wench_,
  Pale as thy smock, when we shall meet at compt
  This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Othello_, act v. sc. 2.

  The tongues of mocking _wenches_ are as keen
  As is the razor’s edge invisible.

          Id., _Love’s Labours Lost_, act v. sc. 2.

    And going in, He saith to them: Why make ye this ado, and
    weepe? The wenche is not dead, but sleepeth.... And holding the
    wenches hand, He saith to her, Talitha Cumi.--_Mark_ v. 39, 41.
    Rheims.


=WHIRLPOOL.= Formerly used in the sense of some huge sea-monster of the
whale kind. Thus in the margin of our Bible, there is on _Job_ xli.
1 (‘Canst thou draw out _leviathan_?’) a gloss, ‘that is, a whale or
_whirlpool_.’ In Harrison’s _Description of England_, b. iii. c. 5,
the ‘thirlepole’ is mentioned with the porpoise and whale as among the
great fishes of the sea. See Wright’s _Bible Word Book_.

    The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes
    that are, among which the whales and _whirlpools_, called
    balænæ, take up in length as much as four acres or arpens of
    land.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 235.

  Great _whirlpooles_ which all fishes make to flee.

          SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 12, 23.

  The ork, _whirlpool_, whale, or huffing physeter.

          SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas, First Day of the Week_.

    About sunset, coming near the Wild Island, Pantagruel spied
    afar off a huge monstrous _physeter_, a sort of whale, which
    some call a _whirlpool_.--RABELAIS, _Pantagruel_, b. iv. c. 33.
    [This creature is suggested by ‘Leviathan descript par le noble
    prophete Moses en la vie du sainct home Job.’]


  =WHISPERER=, }
  WHISPERING.  }

There lay in ‘whisperer’ once, as in the ψιθυριστής of the Greeks,
the ‘susurro’ of the Latins, the suggestion of a slanderer or false
accuser, which has now quite passed away from the word.

    Now this Doeg, being there at that time, what doeth he? Like
    a _whisperer_ or man-pleaser goeth to Saul the king, and told
    him how the priest had refreshed David in his journey, and
    had given unto him the sword of Goliath.--LATIMER, _Sermons_,
    Parker edit., p. 486.

    A _whisperer_ separateth chief friends.--_Prov._ xvi. 28; cf.
    Ecclus. v. 14. (A.V.)

    Kings in ancient times were wont to put great trust in eunuchs.
    But yet their trust towards them hath rather been as to good
    _whisperers_ than good magistrates and officers.--BACON,
    _Essay, 44, Of Deformity_.

    Lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings,
    _whisperings_, swellings, tumults.--_2 Cor._ xii. 20. (A. V.)


=WHITEBOY.= Formerly a cockered favourite (compare Barnes’s use of
‘white son,’ Works, 1572, p. 192), but in later years one of the many
names which the perpetrators of agrarian outrages in Ireland either
assumed to themselves, or had given to them by others.

    His first address was An humble Remonstrance by a
    dutiful son of the Church, almost as if he had said her
    _whiteboy_.--MILTON, _Prose Works_, vol. i. p. 172.

    The Pope was loath to adventure his darlings into danger. Those
    _whiteboys_ were to stay at home with his Holiness, their
    tender father.--FULLER, _Holy War_, i. 13.


=WIFE.= It is a very profound testimony, yielded by language, to the
fact that women are intended to be wives, and only find the true
completion of their being when they are so, that in so many languages
there is a word which, meaning first a woman, means afterwards a wife,
as γυνή, ‘mulier,’ ‘femme,’ ‘weib,’ and our English ‘wife.’ With us
indeed the secondary use of the word has now overborne and swallowed
up the first, which only survives in a few such combinations as
‘mid_wife_,’ ‘fish_wife_,’ ‘hus_wife_,’ and the like; but it was not
always so; nor in our provincial dialects is it so now. An intelligent
correspondent who has sent me a ‘Glossary of Words used in Central
Yorkshire’ writes as follows: ‘In rural districts a grown woman is a
young wife, though she be unmarried.’

  And with that word upstart this olde _wife_.

          CHAUCER, _The Wife of Bath’s Tale_.

    Like as a _wife_ with childe, when hir travaile commeth upon
    her, is ashamed, crieth, and suffreth the payne, even so are
    we, O Lorde, in thy sight.--_Isai._ xxvi. 17. COVERDALE.


=WIGHT.= The best discussion on this interesting word is in Grimm’s
_Teutonic Mythology_, pp. 439-442, who has a chapter [ch. xvii.], ‘On
_Wights_ and Elves.’ ‘Wight’ has for us lost altogether its original
sense of a preternatural or supernatural being, and is used, but always
slightingly, of men. It is easy to see how, with the gradual contempt
for the old mythology, the dying-out of the superstitions connected
with it, words such as ‘elf’ and ‘wight’ should have lost their weight
and honour as well.

  I crouche thee from elves and from _wights_.

          CHAUCER, _The Miller’s Tale_.

    The poet Homer speaketh of no garlands and chaplets but due to
    the celestial and heavenly _wights_.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i.
    p. 456.

    A black horse cometh, and his rider hath a balance, and a voice
    telleth among the four _wights_ that corn shall be dear [_Rev._
    vi. 6].--BROUGHTON, _Of Consent upon Apocalypse_.

    When the four _wights_ are said to have given glory, honour,
    and thanks to Him that sate upon the throne [_Rev._ v. 14],
    what was their ditty but this?--MEDE, _Sermons_.


  =WILFUL=, }
  WILFULLY. }

‘Wilful’ and ‘willing,’ ‘wilfully’ and ‘willingly,’ have been
conveniently desynonymized by later usage in our language; so that
in ‘wilful’ and ‘wilfully’ there now lies ever the sense of will
capriciously exerted, deriving its motives merely from itself; while
the examples which follow show there was once no such implication of
_self_-will in the words.

    Alle the sones of Israel halewiden _wilful_ thingis to the
    Lord.--_Exod._ xxxv. 29. WICLIF.

    A proud priest may be known when he denieth to follow Christ
    and his apostles in _wilful_ poverty and other virtues.--FOXE,
    _Book of Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe_.

    Fede ye the flok of God, that is among you, and purvey ye, not
    as constreyned, but _wilfulli_.--_1 Pet._ v. 2. WICLIF.

    And so, through his pitiful nailing, Christ shed out _wilfully_
    for man’s life the blood that was in his veins.--FOXE, _Book of
    Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe_.


=WINCE.= Now to shrink or start away as in pain from a stroke or touch;
but, as far as I know, used always by our earlier authors in the sense
of to kick.

    Poul, whom the Lord hadde chosun, long tyme _wynside_ agen the
    pricke.--WICLIF, _Prolog on the Dedis of Apostlis_.

    For this flower of age, having no forecast of thrift, but set
    altogether upon spending, and given to delights and pleasures,
    _winseth_ and flingeth out like a skittish and frampold
    horse in such sort that it had need of a sharp bit and short
    curb.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 14.


  =WIT=, }
  WITTY. }

The present meaning of ‘wit’ as compared with the past, and the period
when it was in the act of transition from one to the other, cannot
be better marked than in the quotation from Bishop Reynolds which is
given below. It is a protest, an impotent one, as such invariably
are, against a change in the word’s meaning, going on before his
eyes. Cowley’s Ode, _Of Wit_, is another very important document,
illustrating the history of the word.

    Who knew the _wit_ of the Lord, or who was his
    counselour?--_Rom._ xi. 34. WICLIF.

    I take not _wit_ in that common acceptation, whereby men
    understand some sudden flashes of conceit whether in style
    or conference, which, like rotten wood in the dark, have
    more shine than substance, whose use and ornament are,
    like themselves, swift and vanishing, at once both admired
    and forgotten. But I understand a settled, constant, and
    habitual sufficiency of the understanding, whereby it is
    enabled in any kind of learning, theory, or practice, both to
    sharpness in search, subtilty in expression, and despatch in
    execution.--REYNOLDS, _Passions and Faculties of the Soul_, c.
    xxxix.

  For the world laghes on man and smyles,
  Bot at the last it him bygyles;
  Tharfor I hald that man noght _witty_
  That about the world is over bysy.

          RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 1092.

    I confess notwithstanding, with the _wittiest_ of the school
    divines, that if we speak of strict justice God could no way
    have been bound to requite man’s labours in so large and ample
    manner.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. i. c. 11.


=WITCH.= This was not restrained formerly, as it now is, to the
_female_ exerciser of unlawful magical arts, but would have been as
freely applied to Balaam or Simon Magus as to her whom we call ‘the
Witch of Endor.’ ‘She-witch’ was not uncommon in our Elizabethan
literature, when such was intended. In the dialect of Northumbria
‘witches’ are of both sexes still (Atkinson).

    There was a man in that citee whos name was Symount, a
    _witche_.--_Acts_ viii. 9. WICLIF.

    Item, he is a _witch_, asking counsel at soothsayers.--FOXE,
    _Book of Martyrs; Appeal against Boniface_.

    Then the king commanded to call together all the soothsayers,
    charmers, _witches_, and Caldees, for to shew the king his
    dream.--_Dan._ ii. 2. COVERDALE.

    Who can deny him a wisard or _witch_, who in the reign of
    Richard the Usurper foretold that upon the same stone where he
    dashed his spur riding toward Bosworth field he should dash his
    head in his return?--COTTA, _The Trial of Witchcraft_, p. 49.


=WIZARD.= A title not necessarily used in times past with any
dishonourable subaudition of _perverted_ wisdom on his part to whom it
was given, as is now the case.

    Then Herod, calling the _wisards_ privily, did narrowly search
    of them the time of the star’s appearing.--_Matt._ ii. 7. Sir
    J. CHEKE.

  When Jeremy his lamentation writ,
  They thought the _wizard_ quite out of his wit.

          DRAYTON, _Elegies, To Mr. G. Sandys_.

  See how from far upon the eastern road
  The star-led _wizards_ haste with odours sweet.

          MILTON, _On the Nativity_.


=WOMB.= This is now only the ὑστέρα, but once could be ascribed to both
sexes, having as wide a meaning as the κοιλία of the Greeks.

    And he coveitide to fille his _wombe_ of the coddis that the
    hoggis eeten, and no man gaf hym.--_Luke_ xv. 16. WICLIF.

  Of this matere, o Paul, wel canstow trete;
  Mete unto _wombe_, and _wombe_ eek unto mete.

          CHAUCER, _Pardoneres Tale_ (Clar. Press).

    _Falstaff._ An I had but a belly of any indifferency, I were
    simply the most active fellow in Europe. My _womb_, my _womb_,
    my _womb_ undoes me.--SHAKESPEARE, _2 Henry IV._, act iv. sc. 3.


=WORM.= This, which designates at present only smaller and innoxious
kinds of creeping and crawling things, once, as the German ‘wurm,’ was
employed of all the serpent kind; and indeed in some of our northern
dialects all snakes and serpents are ‘worms’ to the present day. In
‘blind_worm_,’ ‘slow_worm_,’ ‘hag_worm_,’ we have tokens of the earlier
use.

    There came a _viper_ out of the heat and leapt on his hand.
    When the men of the country saw the _worm_ hang on his hand,
    they said, This man must needs be a murderer.--_Acts_ xxviii.
    3, 4. TYNDALE.

                        ’Tis slander,
  Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
  Outvenoms all the _worms_ of Nile.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Cymbeline_, act iii. sc. 4.

  O Eve, in evil hour thou didst give ear
  To that false _worm_, of whomsoever taught
  To counterfeit man’s voice.

          MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, ix. 1067.


=WORSHIP.= At present we ‘worship’ none but God; there was a time when
the word was employed in so much more general a sense that it was not
profane to say that God ‘worshipped,’ that is honoured, man. This, of
course, is the sense of the word in the Marriage Service, ‘with my body
I thee _worship_.’

    If ony man serve me, my fadir schal _worschipe_ hym.--_John_
    xii. 26. WICLIF.

  But I yow pray and charge upon your lyf,
  That what wyf that I take, ye me assure
  To _worschippe_ whil that hir lif may endure.

          CHAUCER, _The Clerkes Tale_, 108.

    Man, that was made after the image and likeness of God, is full
    worshipful in his kind; yea, this holy image that is man God
    _worshippeth_.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of William
    Thorpe_.


=WRETCHED.= What has been observed on ‘Unhappy’ explains and accounts
also for the use of ‘wretched’ as = wicked. ‘Wretch’ still continues
to cover the two meanings of one miserable and one wicked, though
‘wretched’ does so no more.

    Nero regned after this Claudius, of alle men _wrechidhest_,
    redy to alle maner vices.--CAPGRAVE, _Chronicle of England_, p.
    62.

    To do evil gratis, to do evil for good, is the _wretchedest_
    wickedness that can be.--ANDREWES, _Of the Conspiracy of the
    Gowries_, serm. 4.


=YOUNKER.= Now, as far as it is used at all, equivalent to ‘youngster;’
but the ‘younker’ of our Elizabethan and earlier literature was much
more nearly the German ‘junker,’ or Jung Herr, the young lord,--or
perhaps ‘squire’ would be nearer the mark,--or youthful gallant. [We
borrowed the word from the Dutch ‘jonker’ or ‘jonkheer’ (= ‘jong’ young
+ ‘heer’ gentleman). See Skeat’s _Dictionary_.]

    Yf some of them can get a fox tale or two, or that he may have
    a capons feder or a goose feder, or any long feder on his
    cap, than he is called a _yonker_.--BOORDE, _The Boke of the
    Introduction of Knowledge_, 1547.

  How like a _younker_ or a prodigal
  The scarfèd bark puts from her native bay,
  Hugged and embracèd by the strumpet wind.

          SHAKESPEARE, _Merchant of Venice_, act ii. sc. 6.

  See how the morning opes her golden gates,
  And takes her farewell of the glorious sun!
  How well resembles it the prime of youth,
  Trimmed like a _younker_, prancing to his love.

          Id., _3 Henry VI._, act ii. sc. 1.

    Venus loved the _younker_ Adonis better than the warrior
    Mars.--DODOEN, _History of Plants_, p. 656.

    As Rehoboam’s _yonkers_ carried that weighty business of his
    kingdom and overthrew it, so do the unruly and rebellious
    humours of most youth miscarry this.--ROGERS, _Matrimonial
    Honour_, p. 31.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] [For early instances and uses of the verb _actuate_ see N.E.D.]

[2] Deabus _artificibus_ similes, as S. WALKER (_Criticisms on
Shakespeare_, vol. i. p. 96) gives it well.

[3] [The word is a derivative of O. Fr. _artillier_ = Late Lat.
_articularius_, a form of doubtful origin. Dr. Murray hesitates between
_articulum_, dimin. of _ars_, _artem_, and _articulus_, joint, see
N.E.D.]

[4] [_Assassins_ is the rendering adopted in R.V.]

[5] [_Astonish_ represents an O. Fr. *_estonnir_, _estonniss_-,
used for _estoner_, Late Lat. *_ex-tonare_, to stupefy as with a
thunderbolt.]

[6] [Of course the words _authentic_ and _author_ (_authority_) are
entirely unrelated: αὐθεντικός is from αὐθέντης (= αὐτο- self + ἑντης),
whereas _author_ is O. Fr. _autor_, Lat. _auctorem_, cp. _augēre_, to
make, to grow.]

[7] [See however on this point N.E.D.]

[8] ‘Non grati victima sacri.’

[9] ‘_Rough_ Clifford’ he is called a few lines before.

[10] ‘Concealers be such as find out concealed lands, that is such
lands as privily are kept from the king by common persons, having
nothing to shew for them.’--COWELL, _The Interpreter_, s. v.

[11] [This story rests on the sole authority of Gifford, the editor of
Ben Jonson. For further information see N.E.D.]

[12] [This is a gloss on Spenser’s line, ‘Nor in all Kent nor in
Christendome,’ which repeats a very common proverbial saying.]

[13] [It has been revived; for examples see N. E. D.]

[14] [The words _deal_ and _dole_ probably owe their difference of form
to an original slight variation of suffix (-_li_, -_lo_), see Kluge
(s. v. _teil_).]

[15] Vinegar.

[16] ‘Qui se _harlotos_ appellant’ are the important words in Henry
the Third’s letter to the Sheriff of Oxfordshire, requiring their
dispersion.

[17] For the cognates of ‘loiter’ see Franck’s Dutch Etym. Dict. (s. v.
_leuteren_).

[18] One would willingly know a little more of this phrase ‘lucid
interval,’ which had evidently about the time of the first of my
quotations recently come into the language, but from what quarter,
whether from the writings of physicians or naturalists, or from what
other source, I am unable to say. Of its recent introduction I find
evidence in the following passage:--‘The saints have their _turbida
intervalla_, their ebbing and flowing, their full and their wane; but
yet all their cloudings do but obscure their graces, not extinguish
them. All the goodness of other men that seem to live, are but _lucida
intervalla_, they are good but by fits.’ (PRESTON, _Description of
Spiritual Death and Life_, 1636, p. 73.) No one would have used this
Latin phrase in a sermon had ‘lucid interval’ been already familiar in
English, or had ‘lucidum intervallum’ not already somewhere existed.
The word ‘interval,’ it may be here remarked, was only coming into use
at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Holland in his _Pliny_
uses, but using explains it; while Chillingworth still regards it as
Latin, and writes ‘intervalla.’

[19] Edward, George, Richard, and Edmund.

[20] ‘Taryinge, _morosus_.’--Catholicon.

[21] There is allusion here to the Latin proverb Medice vivere est
misere vivere.

[22] In heaven.




    Transcriber’s Notes

    Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
    Variations in spelling and punctuation from the various sources
    cited have been left unchanged.

    Italics are represented thus _italic_, bold is represented thus
    =bold=.



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SELECT GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH WORDS USED FORMERLY IN SENSES DIFFERENT FROM THEIR PRESENT ***


    

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