partie d
’une hotte qui s’appuie sur le dos de celui qui la porte’ (Hatzfeld).
=dotes,= endowments, good qualities. B. Jonson, Sil. Woman, ii. 2 (Cler.); Underwoods, c. 25. L. _dotes_, pl. of _dos_, an endowment.
=dottrel, dotterel,= a pollarded tree; also used attrib.; ‘Old dotterel trees’, Ascham, Scholemaster, bk. ii (ed. Arber, p. 137); ‘A long-set dottrel’, Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, iv. 465. ‘Dotterel’ is used in this sense near Oxford, and in the south Midlands (EDD).
=double reader,= a lawyer who is going through a second course of reading; ‘I am a bencher, and now double reader’, B. Jonson, Magnetic Lady, iv. 1 (Practice); ‘Men came to be _single readers_ at 15 or 16 years standing in the House [Inn of Court] and _read double_ about 7 years afterwards’, Sir W. Dugdale, Orig. Jur., 209 (Glossary to Jonson).
=doubt,= i.e. _’doubt_, a shortened form of _redoubt_, a fortification. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xii. 286.
=doucepere,= an illustrious knight or paladin. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 10. 31; orig. only used in the pl.: ME. _dozepers_ (_douzepers_), the twelve peers or paladins of Charlemagne. Anglo-F. _li duze per_ (Ch. Rol. 3187). See NED. (s.v. Douzepers).
=dough;= see =dow.=
=dought,= to make afraid, Fletcher, Bonduca, i. 2 (Suctonius). See =dout.=
=douse,= to strike violently; ‘To death with daggers _doust_’ (also wrongly, _dounst_, in ed. 1587), Mirror for Magistrates, Henry VI, st. 4. In prov. use in the north country (EDD.).
=douse,= a sweetheart. Tusser, Husbandry, § 10. 7. F. _douce_, fem. of _doux_, sweet; L. _dulcis_.
=dout,= fear; Spenser, F. Q. iii. 12. 37. OF. _doute_, fear.
=dow,= to thrive; ‘He’ll never dow’ (i.e. he’ll never do well), Ray, North C. Words, 13; spelt _dough_, to be in health, Heywood, The Fair Maid, ii. 1 (Clem). ‘Dow’ is in prov. use in the north, meaning to thrive, prosper, also, to recover from sickness (EDD.). ME. _dowe_, pr. s. 1 p., am able to do (Wars Alex. 4058). OE. _dugan_, to be able, to be vigorous (see Wright, OE. Gram. § 541).
=dowcets,= the testicles of a deer. Beaumont and Fl., Philaster, iv. 2 (1 Woodman); B. Jonson, Sad Sheph., i. 6. In old cookery books _dowset_ was the name of a sweet dish. F. _doucet_, dimin. of _doux_, sweet. See NED. (s.v. Doucet), and cp. =dulcet.=
=dowe,= ‘dough’. Lyly, Endimion, i. 2 (Tellus); ‘A lytell leven doth leven the whole lompe of dowe’, Tyndale, Gal. v. 9.
=dowl=(=e,= soft fine feathers. Tempest, iii. 3. 65 (see W. A. Wright’s note). In prov. use in the S. Midlands for down or fluff (EDD.). ME. _doule_, a down-feather (Plowman’s Tale, st. 14). See Notes on Eng. Etym.
=dowle,= see =dool.=
=dowsabell,= a sweetheart. A name, used as a term for a sweetheart. Com. of Errors, iv. 1. 110; London Prodigal, iv. 2. 73. F. _douce-belle_, L. _dulcibella_, sweet and fair.
=doxy,= a vagabond’s mistress. (Cant.) Winter’s Tale, iv. 2. 2; Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1 (Prigg). See Harman, Caveat, p. 73; where the sing. form is _doxe_.
=drabler, drabbler,= an additional piece of canvas, laced to the bottom of a bonnet of a sail. Greene, Looking Glasse, iv. 1 (1328); p. 134, col. 2; Heywood, Fortune by Land and Sea, iv. 1 (Y. Forrest); vol. vi, p. 416. From _drabble_, to wet; from its position. Cp. E. Fris. _drabbeln_, to stamp about in the water (Koolman). See EDD. (s.v. Drabble).
=dragon,= the name of a stage in the fermentation for producing the elixir. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Surly).
=drake,= a dragon. Peele, An Eclogue Gratulatory, ed. Dyce, p. 563. ‘_Drake_, dragon’, Levins, Manipulus. OE. _draca_, L. _draco_, Gk. δράκων.
=drane,= a drone. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 2, § 3; Skelton, Against the Scottes, 172. ME. _drane_, ‘fucus’ (Prompt.). The pronunc. of drone in Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall (EDD.). OE. _drān_ (_drǣn_).
=drapet,= a cloth, a covering. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 9. 27. Cp. Ital. _drappetto_, dimin. of _drappe_, cloth.
=drasty,= worthless, rubbishy; ‘Drasty sluttish geere’, Hall, Sat. v. 2. 49; ‘Drasty ballats’, Return from Parnassus, i. 2 (Judicioso). In several places the _s_ has been misprinted as _f_; the error originated with Thynne, who, in 1532, twice substituted _drafty_ for _drasty_ in the Prologue to Melibeus: ‘Thy drasty spectre’ (C. T. B. 2113); ‘Thy drasty ryming’ (id. 2120); see NED. OE. _dræstig_, ‘feculentus’ (Voc. 238. 20).
=draw-cut,= done by drawing _cuts_ or lots. Stanyhurst, tr. of Virgil, Aeneid i, 515. See =cut= (1).
=drawer,= a waiter at a tavern. Merry Wives, ii. 2. 165; Romeo, iii. 1. 9. One who _draws_ liquor for guests.
=drawer-on,= an incitement to appetite. Massinger, Guardian, ii. 3 (Cario).
=drawlatch,= lit. one who lifts a latch; a sneaking thief. Jacob and Esau, ii. 3 (Esau).
=dray,= a squirrel’s nest. Drayton, Quest of Cynthia, st. 51; [The squirrel] ‘Gets to the wood, and hides him in his dray’, W. Browne, Brit. Pastorals, bk. i, song 5. A prov. word in general use (EDD.).
=drazel,= a slattern, slut. Butler, Hud. iii. 1. 987. The word is in use in the south of England, in Sussex and Hampshire, see EDD. (s.v. Drazil).
=dread,= an object of reverence or awe. Milton, Samson, 1473; ‘Una, his deare dreed’, Spenser, F. Q. i. 6. 2.
=drent,= drowned. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 49; v. 7. 39. ME. _dreint_ (_dreynt_), pp. of _drenchen_, to drown (Chaucer, Bk. Duchess, 148).
=drere,= grief, sorrow, gloom. Spenser, F. Q. i. 8. 40; ii. 12. 36. Hence, _drerihed_, sadness, id., Muiopotmos, 347; _dreriment_, Shep. Kal., Nov., 36.
=dresser.= The signal for the servants to take in the dinner was the cook’s knocking on the dresser, thence called the cook’s drum (Nares); ‘When the dresser, the cook’s drum, thunders’, Massinger, Unnat. Combat, iii. 1 (Steward); ‘The dresser calls in (_Knock within, as at dresser_)’, Heywood, Witches of Lancs., iii. 1 (Seely); vol. iv, p. 206; ‘Hark! they knock to the dresser’, Brome, Jovial Crew, iv. 1 (end).
=dretched,= _pp._, vexed or disturbed by dreams. Morte Arthur, leaf 402. 31; bk. xx, c. 5. OE. _dreccan_, to vex.
=dretchyng of swevens,= vexation by dreams. Morte Arthur, leaf 430*. 7; bk. xxi, c. 12.
=drib,= to let fall in drops or driblets, to dribble out. Dryden, Prologue to The Loyal Brother, 22. Cp. prov. ‘drib’, a drop, a small quantity of liquid (EDD.).
=dricksie,= decayed; as timber; ‘A drie and dricksie oak’, Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, bk. iii, c. 19; p. 252. See _Droxy_ in EDD.; and _Drix_ in NED.
=drink,= to smoke tobacco. Middleton, Roaring Girl, ii. 1 (Laxton). A common expression. See Nares.
=drivel,= a drudge, a servant doing menial work; ‘A Drudge, or driuell’, Baret (1580); Spenser, F. Q. iv. 2, 3; ‘A dyshwasher, a dryvyll’, Skelton, Against Garnesche, 26. Spelt _drevil_, Tusser, Husbandry, § 113. 12. ME. _drivil_, a drudge, a menial (see Prompt. EETS., note no. 588); cp. Du. _drevel_, ‘a scullion, or a turnspit’ (Hexham). See NED.
=droil,= a drudge, a menial. Beaumont and Fl., Wit at Several Weapons, ii. 1. 19; Brome, New Acad. ii, p. 40 (Nares). See Prompt. EETS. (note no. 588).
=droil,= to drudge. Spelt _droyle_, Spenser, Mother Hubberd, 157. Hence _droil_, drudgery, Shirley, Gentlemen of Venice, i. 2.
=drollery,= a puppet-show; a puppet; a caricature. Tempest, iii. 3. 21; Fletcher, Valentinian, ii. 2 (Claudia); Wildgoose Chase, i. 2. 21; 2 Hen. IV, ii. 1. 156. F. _drôlerie_, ‘waggery; a merry prank’; _dróle_, ‘a good fellow, boon companion, merry grig, pleasant wag; one that cares not which end goes forward or how the world goes’ (Cotgr.).
=dromound,= a large ship, propelled by many oars. Morte Arthur, leaf 82, back, 30; bk. v, c. 3 (end). Anglo-F. _dromund_ (Rough List), OF. _dromon_, Med. L. _dromō_ (Ducange), Byzant. Gk. δρόμων, a large ship; cogn. with Gk. δρόμος, a racing, a course.
=drone,= to smoke (a pipe); ‘Droning a tobacco-pipe’, B. Jonson, Sil. Woman, iv. 1; Ev. Man out of Humour, iv. 3.
=dronel, dronet,= a drone; ‘That dronel’, Appius and Virginia, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 151; ‘Like vnto dronets’, Stubbes, Anat. Abuses, To Reader (ed. Furnivall, p. xi).
=dropshot:= phr. _at dropshot_; ‘I’ll do no more at dropshot’ (i.e. I’ll do no more in the character of an eaves-dropper, or where one can be _shot_ with _drops_), Beaumont and Fl., Mad Lover, iii. 6 (end).
=drossel,= a slattern, a slut. Warner, Albion’s England, bk. ix, ch. 47, st. 12. A north Yorkshire word (EDD.). See =drazel.=
=drouson;= ‘Boiling oatemeale . . . with barme or the dregges and hinder ends of your beere barrels makes an excellent pottage . . . of great vse in all the parts of the West Countrie . . . called by the name of drouson potage’, Markham, Farewell, 133 (EDD.); ‘Drowsen broath’, London Prodigal, ii. 1. 42. OE. _drōsna_, lees, dregs.
=droye,= a servant, a drudge. Spelt _droie_; Tusser, Husbandry, § 81. 3; Stubbes, Anat. Abuses (ed. Furnivall, 78).
=droye,= to drudge, Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 664.
=druggerman,= a ‘dragoman’, interpreter. Dryden, Don Sebastian, ii. 1 (Emperor); [Pope, Donne’s Sat. iv. 83]. See Dict. (s.v. Dragoman); also Stanford.
=drum:= phr. _Jack Drum’s entertainment_, ill-treatment, esp. by turning a man out of doors, Heywood, ii. 2 (Sencer). _To sell by the drum_, to sell by auction; in North’s Plutarch, Octavius, § 11 (in Shak. Plut., p. 255, n. 3); hence, _by the dromme_ (by the drum), in public, Warner, Albion’s England, bk. ix, c. 53, st. 31.
=drumble,= to be sluggish, Merry Wives, iii. 3. 156; a sluggish, stupid person, Appius and Virginia, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 118. A dull, inactive person is called a ‘drummil’ in Warwickshire. A person moving lazily about is said to ‘drumble’ in Cornwall (EDD.). Norw. _drumla_, to be drowsy; Swed. _drummel_, a blockhead.
=drumslade, dromslade,= a drum; ‘Dromslade, suche as Almayns use in warre, _bedon_’, Palsgrave. Also spelt _drumslet_; Golding, Metam. xii. 481; fol. 149, bk. (1603). Du. _trommelslag_ (G. _trommelschlag_), the beat of a drum.
=drumsler,= a drummer. Kyd, Soliman, ii. 1. 224, 241. A form corrupted from _drumslager_, once in use to mean ‘drummer’. Du. _trommelslager_, a drummer (Sewel). See above.
=dry-fat,= a cask, case, or box for holding dry things, not liquids; ‘A dry-fat of new books’, Beaumont and Fl., Elder Brother, i. 2 (Brisae); _dry-vat_, Dekker, Shoemakers’ H., v. 2 (Firk). See Dict. (s.v. Vat).
=dry-foot:= phr. _to draw_ or _hunt dry-foot_, to track game by the mere scent of the foot. Com. Errors, iv. 2. 39; B. Jonson, Every Man, ii. 2 (Brainworm).
=Du cat-a whee,= God preserve you! Beaumont and Fl., Custom of the Country, i. 2 (Rutilio); Monsieur Thomas, i. 2. 8; _Dugat a whee_, Middleton, A Chaste Maid, i. 1 (Welshwoman). Welsh _Duw cadw chwi_, God preserve you!
=dub,= a stroke, blow; _Lydian dubs_, soft taps, like soft Lydian music; _Phrygian dubs_, hard blows, like loud Phrygian music. Butler, Hudibras, ii. 1. 850.
=ducdame,= a word in the burden of a song. In As You Like It, ii. 5. 56. Doubtless a coined word, and admirably defined by Shakespeare as ‘a Greek invocation to call fools into a circle’; which I accept as it stands.
=duce.= Used in interjectional and imprecatory phrases; ‘I wonder where a duce the third is fled’, Roger Boyle, Guzman, i; ‘Who a duce are those two fellows?’ id., ii; ‘Who a duce is here by our door?’ (Socia), Echard, Plautus (ed. 1694, 13); Centlivre, Busie Body (ed. 1732, 41).
=duce= is the same word as _deuce_, an E. form of F. _deux_, two. The orig. sense of ‘a duce’ was exclamatory, signifying, ‘Oh! ill-luck, the _deuce_!’—two being a losing throw at dice. The form _duce_ came to us immediately from a Low G. dialect—_dûs_, found in MHG.; cp. G. ‘was der Daus!’ (what the deuce!). See Dict. (s.v. Deuce).
=dudder,= to tremble, quake, shake. Ford, Witch of Edmonton, ii. 1 (Cuddy). ‘Dudder’ is a prov. word in various parts of Scotland and England, see EDD. (s.v. Duther). See =dodder.=
=dudgeon,= the hilt of a dagger made of a kind of wood called dudgin (dudgeon). Macbeth, ii. 1. 46. ME. _dojoun_, or masere (Prompt., ed. Way, 436).
=dudgeon,= the same word as the one above, used attrib. in the sense of plain, homely; since a _dudgeon_ was regarded as a common sort of haft; ‘I am plain and dudgeon’, Fletcher, Captain, ii. 1 (Jacomo); ‘I use old dudgeon’, phrase, id., Queen of Corinth, ii. 4 (Conon).
=dudgeon-dagger,= a dagger with a hilt made of ‘dudgeon’. Beaumont and Fl., Coxcomb, v. 1 (Curio); _dudgin dagger_, Kyd, Soliman, i. 3. 160. Shortened to _dudgeon_, Butler, Hudibras, i. 1. 379.
=Dugat a whee;= see =Du cat-a whee.=
=duill,= to grieve, sadden, make sorrowful; ‘It duills me’, B. Jonson, Sad Sheph. ii. 1 (Maudlin). Cp. F. _deuil_, grief. See =dole.=
=duke,= a name for the castle or rook, at chess; ‘Dukes? They’re called Rooks by some’, Middleton, A Game at Chess, Induct. 54; Women beware, ii. 2 (Livia).
=Duke Humphrey, to dine with,= to go without dinner; ‘He may chaunce dine with duke Homphrye tomorrow’, Sir Thos. More, iv. 2. 361. One who had no prospect of a dinner would walk in St. Paul’s, under the pretence of going to see Duke Humphrey’s monument there; on the chance that he might meet there some acquaintance who would invite him. But Duke Humphrey was actually buried at St. Albans (see Stowe’s Survey, ed. Thoms, 125). Cp. Mayne, City Match, iii. 3 (Plotwell and Timothy). See Nares.
=dulcet,= the dowcet of a stag. Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, i. 219. A latinized form; see =dowcets.=
=dumbfounding,= a stupefying; said to mean a rough amusement in which one person struck another hard and stealthily upon the back; ‘That witty recreation, called dumbfounding’, Dryden, Prologue to the Prophetess, 47. See EDD. (s.v. Dumbfounder).
=dummerer;= see =dommerar.=
=dump,= a fit of abstraction or musing; ‘I dumpe, I fall in a dumpe or musyng upon thynges’, Palsgrave; ‘Lethargic dump’, Butler, Hudibras, i. 2. 973; a fit of melancholy, ‘In doleful dump’, id., ii. 1. 85; a plaintive melody or song, Two Gent. iii. 2. 85; used of a kind of dance, ‘The devil’s dump had been danced then’, Fletcher, Pilgrim, v. 4 (Roderigo).
=dunny,= somewhat ‘dun’, or dusky brown. Skelton, El. Rummyng, 400. A north-country word (EDD.). See =donny.=
=Dun’s in the mire= (the horse is stuck in the mire), the name of a rustic game in which the players had to extricate a wooden ‘dun’ (a horse) from an imaginary slough. ‘Dun is in the mire’ became a proverbial phrase, so in Chaucer, Manciple’s Prologue, 5. ‘Dun’s i’ th’ mire’, Fletcher, “Woman-hater, iv. 2 (Pandar). The game is alluded to in Romeo, i. 4. 41. ‘If thou art Dun we’ll draw thee from the mire’, and in Hudibras, iii. 3. 110, ‘Your trusty squire, Who has dragg’d your dunship out o’ th’ mire’. See Brand’s Pop. Antiq. (under ‘Games’), and Gifford’s Ben Jonson, vii. 283 (Nares).
=dun’s the mouse,= the mouse is brown. A jocose phrase of small meaning; sometimes used after another has used the word _done_; Romeo, i. 4. 40; London Prodigal, iv. 1. 16.
=Dunstable, plain= (a proverbial phrase), plain speaking. Witch of Edmonton, i. 2 (Old Carter). Cp. the proverb, ‘As plain as Dunstable highway’, Heywood’s Eng. Proverbs, 69, 136; ‘As plain as Dunstable road’, Fuller, Worthies, i. 114 (NED.). See Nares.
=durance,= confinement. L. L. L. iii. 1. 135; 2 Hen. IV, v. 5. 37; durableness, 1 Hen. IV, i. 2. 49. Cp. ‘As the tailor, that out of seven yards stole one and a half of durance’, i.e. durable cloth, Three Ladies of London, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 344.
=Durandell,= a trusty sword. Greene, Orl. Fur. i. 1. 123. OF. _Durendal_, the name of the sword of Roland (Ch. Rol. 926). See =Durindana.=
=duret,= some kind of dance; ‘Galliards, durets, corantoes’, Beaumont, Masque at Gray’s Inn, stage direction (near the end).
=duretta,= a coarse stuff of a durable quality. Mayne, City Match, i. 5 (Timothy). Also _duretto_ (NED.). Ital. _duretto_, ‘somewhat hard’ (Florio).
=Durindana,= the name of Orlando’s sword. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum. iii. 1 (Bobadil); Beaumont and Fl., Lover’s Progress, iii. 3 (Malfort); _Durindan_, Faithful Friends, ii. 3 (Calveskin). Ital. _Durindana_ (Ariosto); see Fanfani. The Italian name for _Durendal_, by which the famous sword of Roland is known in the old French _Chansons de Geste_. See Gautier’s note on ‘Durendal’ in his ‘Chanson de Roland’, l. 926, p. 90.
=dust,= to hurl, fling, cast with force. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xvi. 544; xxi. 377. See EDD.
=dust-point,= a boys’ game in which ‘points’ were laid in a heap of dust, and thrown at with a stone; ‘Our boyes, laying their points in a heape of dust, and throwing at them with a stone, call that play of theirs Dust-point’, Cotgrave (s.v. _Darde_). Fletcher, Captain, iii. 3 (Clora); Drayton, Muses’ Elysium, Nymph, vi. (Melanthus).
=Dutch widow,= a cant term for a prostitute. Middleton, A Trick to Catch, iii. 3 (Drawer).
=dutt,= to dote; ‘Dutting Duttrell’ (i.e. doting dotterel), Edwards, Damon and Pithias; altered to _doating dottrel_ in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 68; but see Anc. Eng. Drama, i. 88, l. 1.
=dwine,= to pine away; ‘He . . . dwyned awaye’, Morte Arthur, leaf 429*, back, 8; bk. xxi, c. 12; _dwynd_, withered, Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, ii. 567 (ed. Arber, p. 61). In common prov. use in Scotland and the north of England (EDD.). ME. _dwynyn awey_, ‘evanesco’ (Prompt.). OE. _dwīnan_.
=dybell,= (probably) trouble, difficulty; ‘My son’s in Dybell here, in Caperdochy, i’ tha gaol’, 1 Edw. IV (Hobs), vol. i, p. 72. Perhaps the same word as ‘dibles’ (or daibles), an E. Anglian word for difficulties, embarrassments (EDD.).
E
=e-,= prefix, for the more usual _y-_ (AS. _ge-_), prefixed to past participles. Exx. _emixt_, mixed, Mirror for Mag., Bladud, st. 9; _etride_, tried, id., Sabrine, st. 26.
=eager,= keen, sharp, severe. Hamlet, i. 4. 2; Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xi. 231.
=eagre,= a ‘bore’ in a river; an incoming tidal wave of unusual height. Dryden, Threnodia Augustalis, 132; spelt _agar_, Lyly, Galathea, i. 1 (Tyterus). In prov. use in many forms: _aiger_, _ager_, _eager_, _eygre_, _hygre_, &c., in Yorks., Nottingham, Lincoln, and E. Anglia (EDD.). See =higre.=
=eame;= see =eme.=
=ean.= Of ewes: to lamb, bring forth young, to ‘yean’, 3 Hen. VI, ii. 5. 36. Hence, _Eaning-time_, B. Jonson, Sad Shepherd, i. 2 (Robin). ‘To ean’ is in prov. use in various spellings in many parts of England from the north country to Devon (EDD.). ME. _enyn_, ‘feto’ (Prompt. EETS. 150); OE. _ēanian_, to yean. See Brugmann, § 671.
=ear,= to plough. BIBLE, Deut. xxi. 4; 1 Sam. viii. 12; Is. xxx. 24. In prov. use (EDD.). ME. _ere_ (Chaucer, C. T. A. 886), OE. _erian_. See Wright’s Bible Word-Book.
=earn, erne,= to grieve, to be afflicted with poignant sorrow and compassion. Hen. V, ii. 3. 3 (mod. edd. _yearn_); Julius C., ii. 2. 129; _it earns me_, Hen. V, iv. 3. 26; B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, iv. 6 (Overdo); _earne_, to yearn, Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 3; i. 6. 25; i. 9. 18; _erne_, ii. 3. 46. ME. _ȝernen_, to yearn (P. Plowman), OE. _geornan_; see Dict. M. and S., p. 267.
=earth,= a ploughing. Tusser, Husbandry, § 35. 50. In prov. use in Suffolk, Hants., Somerset, see EDD. (s.v. Earth, sb.^{2}). OE. _erð_ for WS. _ierđ_, a ploughing (Sweet), deriv. of _erian_, to plough, ‘to ear’; not the same word as OE. _eorðe_, earth.
=easing,= the eaves of the thatch of a house; ‘Under the easing of the house’, North, tr. of Plutarch, J. Caesar, § 16 (end); ‘_Severonde_, the eave, eaving or easing of a house’, Cotgrave. In gen. prov. use in various spellings, in Scotland and Ireland, and in England, in the north and Midlands to Shropsh. (EDD.). ME. _esynge_, ‘tectum’ (Cath. Angl.). See =evesing.=
=eater,= a servant. B. Jonson, Sil. Woman, iii. 2 (Morose).
=eath,= easy. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 3. 40; Shep. Kal., Sept., 17; spelt _ethe_, id., July, 90. A north-country word, once much used in poetry (EDD.). ME. _ethe_, easy (Cursor M. 597), OE. _ēaðe_, easy, _ēað_ (common in compounds).
=eathly,= easily. Peele, Order of the Garter, ed. Dyce, p. 587. Common in Scottish poetry (EDD.).
=eaths,= easily. Kyd, Cornelia, iii. 1. 130. The _s_ has an adverbial force.
=eccentric,= not concentric with; hence, disagreeing with. Bacon, Essay 23; an orbit not having the earth precisely in the centre (a contrivance in the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, for explaining the phenomena), id. 17.
=eche,= to ‘eke’, to make up a deficiency; ‘To eche it and to draw it out in length’, Merch. Ven. iii. 2. 23 (Qq 3, 4, _eech_). Cp. Northampton dialect, ‘My gown’s too short, I must eche it a bit’, see EDD. (s.v. Eke, vb. 3). ME. _echen_, to increase (Chaucer, Tr. and Cr. i. 887), OE. (Mercian) _ēcan_, WS. _īecan_, to increase.
=edder,= an adder. Morte Arthur, leaf 290. 11; bk. xi, c. 5; Skelton, Philip Sparowe, 78. ME. _eddyr_, an adder (Prompt. EETS. 142).
=edder,= fence-wood, osiers or rods of hazel, used for interlacing the stakes of a hedge at the top; ‘Edder and stake’, Tusser, Husbandry, § 33. 13; _eddered_, bound with edders, Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 126. 7; _edderynge_, id. In gen. prov. use in Scotland and England; for various spellings see EDD.
=eddish, edish,= the aftermath or second crop of grass, clover, &c.; ‘Eddish, eadish, etch, ersh, the latter pasture or grass that comes after mowing or reaping’, Worlidge, Dict. Rust. (A.D. 1681); Tusser, Husbandry, § 18. 4; stubble, ‘Eddish . . . more properly the stubble or gratten in cornfields’, Bp. Kennett (NED.). In gen. prov. use in England (EDD.). OE. _edisc_, ‘pascua’ (Ps. xcix. 3).
=edge,= to urge, encourage, stimulate. Bacon, Essay 41, § 5. The pronunc. of _egg_ (to incite) in use in various parts of England from Lancash. to Cornwall (EDD.). ME. _eggen_, to incite (Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 182), Icel. _eggja_.
=edify,= to build; ‘There was an holy chappell edifyde’, Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 34; Mother Hubberd’s Tale, 660. F. _edifier_, to edifie, build (Cotgr.), L. _aedificare_.
=effaut,= for _F fa ut_, the full name of the musical note _F_, which was sung to _fa_ or to _ut_ according as it occurred in one or other of the hexachords (imperfect scales) to which it belonged (NED.). Buckingham, The Rehearsal, ii. 5 (Bayes). The first hexachord contained G (the lowest note), A, B, C, D, E (but not F); the second contained C, D, E, F, G, A, sung to _ut_, _re_, _mi_, _fa_, _sol_, _la_, F being sung to _fa_; the third began with F, sung to _ut_; so that F was sung to _fa_ or _ut_, and was called F _fa ut_.
=efficace,= effectiveness, efficacy. Butler, Hud. iii. 2. 602. F. _efficace_, efficacy (Cotgr.), L. _efficacia_ (Pliny).
=efficient,= creative or productive cause. Sir T. Browne, Rel. Medici, pt. 1, § 14; id., Vulgar Errors, bk. vii, c. 4, § 2.
=egal,= equal. Merch. Ven. iii. 4. 13 (F.); _egally_, equally, Richard III, iii. 7. 213; _egalness_, equality, Ferrex and Porrex, i. 2 (Philander). F. _égal_.
=eggs:= phr. _to have eggs on the spit_, to be busy; with reference to the old mode of roasting eggs; ‘I have eggs on the spit’, B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum. iii. 6. 47; see Wheatley’s note.
=eggs:= phr. _to take eggs for money_, to accept an offer which one would rather refuse. Winter’s Tale, i. 2. 161. (Fully explained by me in Phil. Soc. Trans., 1903, p. 146). Farmers’ daughters would go to market, taking with them a basket of eggs. If one bought something worth (suppose) 3_s._ 4_d._, she would pay the 3_s._ and say—‘will you take eggs for money?’ If the shopman weakly consented, he received the value of the 4_d._ in eggs; usually (16th cent.) at the rate of 4 or 5 a penny. But the strong-minded shopman would refuse. Eggs were even used to pay interest for money. Thus Rowley has: ‘By Easter next you should have the principal, and eggs for the use [interest], indeed, sir. _Bloodhound._ Oh rogue, rogue, I shall have eggs for my money! I must hang myself’, A Match at Midnight, v. 1. See Nares (s.v. Eggs for Money).
=eisel,= vinegar; ‘I will drink potions of eisel’, Sh. Sonnets, cxi; spelt _eysel_. Skelton, Now Synge We, 40. ME. _esyle_, ‘acetum’ (Prompt. EETS. 147, see note no. 661); _aysel_ (Hampole, Ps. lxviii. 26). OF. _aisil_, vinegar (Oxford Ps. lxviii. 26).
=ejaculation,= a darting forth. Bacon, Essay 9, § 1.
=E-la,= the highest note in the old musical scale, sung to the syllable _la_ in the old gamut; which began with G (_ut_) on the lowest line of the base clef, and ended with E in the highest space of the treble clef. Whoever sang a higher note than this was said to sing ‘above E-_la_’. Hence anything extreme was said ‘to be above E-_la_’. ‘Why, this is above E-_la_!’ Beaumont and Fl., Humorous Lieutenant, iv. 4 (Leontius; near the end). N.B. The old gamut was really founded on hexachords or major sixths; each hexachord contained six notes and comprised four full tones and a semitone, the semitone being in the middle, between the third and fourth note. The hexachords began (in ascending succession) upon the lower G, C, F, G (above F), C (still higher), F (above the last C), and G (above the last F). There were twenty notes in all; viz. G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E; and each of the hexachords was sung to the same syllables, _ut_, _re_, _mi_, _fa_, _sol_, _la_. The highest hexachord contained the G A B C D E at the top of the scale; and as E was thus sung to _la_, it was called E-_la_. It had no other name, because it only occurred in the highest hexachord. In hexachords beginning with F the B was flat.
=eld,= to ail; ‘What thing eldeth thee?’ Thersites, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 414. Cp. _aild_, prov. pronunc. of _ail_ (vb.): ‘He’s allus aildin’ (Worcestersh.); _aildy_, ailing, poorly, ‘I be very aildy to-day’ (Northampton); so in Beds., _teste_ J. W. Burgon, see EDD. (s.v. Ail and Aildy). In Shropsh. they say _elded_ for _ailed_.
=elder,= an elder-tree. It was an old belief that Judas Iscariot hung himself upon an elder. See L. L. L. v. 2. 610; B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, iv. 4 (Carlo). See P. Plowman, C. ii. 64 (Notes, p. 31).
=elegant,= for =alicant,= q.v. A Cure for a Cuckold, iv. 1. 18.
=element,= the sky. Julius Caes. i. 3. 128; Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 116; Milton, Comus, 299. In common prov. use in the west country. A Somerset man describing a thunderstorm would say, ‘Th’ element was all to a flicker’ (EDD.).
=elenche, elench,= a logical refutation, a syllogism in refutation of an argument. Massinger, Emperor of the East, ii. 1 (Theodosius). Also, a sophistical argument, a fallacy; Bacon, Adv. of Learning, bk. ii, § xiv. 5. L. _elenchus_, Gk. ἔλεγχος, cross-examination.
=elk,= the wild swan, or hooper. ‘The Elk’, in the margin of Golding’s tr. of Ovid, Metam. xiv. 509; ‘In hard winters elks, a kind of wild swan, are seen’, Sir T. Browne (Wks. ed. 1893, iii. 313); ‘_Swanne_, some take thys to be the elke or wild swanne’, Huloet. See =ilke.=
=ellops,= a kind of serpent. Milton, P. L. x. 525. Gk. ἔλλοψ, ἔλοψ, lit. ‘mute’, an epithet of fish (so Prellwitz); name for a certain sea-fish, probably the sword-fish or sturgeon, later, a serpent.
=embase,= to debase, lower. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 6. 20; Sonnet 82.
=embassade,= a mission as ambassador. 3 Hen. VI, iv. 3. 32; also, quasi-adv., on an embassy, Spenser, Hymn in Honour of Beauty, 251. F. _embassade_, an embassage; also an embassador accompanied with his ordinary train (Cotgr.).
=embay,= to bathe, drench, wet, steep. Spenser, F. Q. i. 10. 27; ii. 12. 60. Metaph., to bathe (oneself in sunshine); Muiopotmos, 200; to pervade, suffuse, F. Q. i. 9. 13.
=embayed, imbayed,= enclosed as in a bay; enveloped, engirt. Spelt _imbayed_, enclosed; Capt. Smith, Works, ed. Arber, p. 333, l. 3; _embayed_, engirt, Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, ii. 230.
=embayle,= to enclose, encompass. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 3. 27.
=embezzle,= to waste, squander; ‘His bills embezzled’, Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, i. 1 (Lincoln); Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia, c. iii, § 7. See NED.
=emboss,= to ornament with bosses or studs, to decorate. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 4. 15; Shep. Kal., Feb., 67.
=embost= (of a hunted animal). A stag was said to be _embossed_ (_embost_) when blown and fatigued with being chased—foaming, panting, unable to hold out any longer; ‘The boar of Thessaly Was never so emboss’d’, Ant. and Cl. iv. 11. 3; ‘The salvage beast embost in wearie chace’, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 1. 22. Metaph., ‘Our feeble harts Embost with bale’, i. 9. 29; Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, ii. 4. 7. ME. _embose_, to plunge deeply into a wood or thicket (Chaucer, Dethe Blaunche, 353). OF. _bos_ (_bois_), a wood. See =imbost.=
=embost,= encased, enclosed (as in armour); ‘A knight . . . in mighty armes embost’, Spenser, F. Q. i. 3. 24.
=embowd,= arched over. Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 19.
=embraid,= to upbraid, taunt, mock. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 7, § 2; Tusser, Husbandry, § 112, st. 7. Cp. ME. _breydyn_ or _upbraydyn_, ‘Impropereo’ (Prompt. EETS. 64). OE. _bregdan_, to bring a charge (B. T. Suppl.), Icel. _bregða_, to upbraid, blame.
=embrave,= to embellish, decorate. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 60.
=embrew,= to ‘imbrue’, cover with blood; ‘With wyde wounds embrewed’, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 6. 17; Hymn of Love, 13.
=embrocata,= a thrust in fencing. Marston, Scourge of Villany, Sat. xi. 57. See =imbroccato.=
=eme,= uncle. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 10. 47; spelt _eame_, Drayton, Pol. xxii. 427. 848. A north-country word (EDD.). ME. _eme_, fadiris brodyr, ‘patruus’ (Prompt.), OE. _ēam_.
=emeril,= emery. Drayton, Pol. i. 53. F. _emeril_, emery (Cotgr.); OF. _esmeril_; Ital. _smeriglio_, deriv. of Gk. σμύρις, emery-powder.
=emmarble,= to convert into marble. Spenser, Hymn to Love, 139.
=emmew,= or =enmew;= errors for =enew,= q.v.
=empair,= to harm, injure. Spenser, F. Q. v. 11. 48; to become less, to be diminished, id., v. 4. 8. See Dict. (s.v. Impair).
=empale,= to surround, enclose. Sackville. Induction, st. 67.
=emparlance,= parley, talk. Spenser, F. Q. v. 4. 50. Cp. Norm. F. _emparler_, ‘parler, entretenir’, also ‘entretien’ (Moisy), O. Prov. _emparlat_, ‘éloquent’ (Levy).
=empeach,= to hinder. Spenser, F. Q. i. 8. 34; ii. 7. 15; ‘I empesshe, or let one of his purpose’, Palsgrave. F. _empescher_, ‘to hinder’ (Cotgr.); O. Prov. _empedegar_, ‘empêcher’ (Levy), Med. L. _impedicare_, ‘implicare’ (Ducange). See =impeach.=
=empery,= dominion, rank of an emperor. Titus And. i. 1. 201; Hen. V, i. 2. 226. Norm. F. _emperie_ (Moisy), L. _imperium_, empire.
=empesshement,= hindrance. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 131. 29. See =impechement.=
=emprese,= ‘emprise’, enterprise, undertaking. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xi. 257. See NED. (s.v. Emprise).
=emprise,= an undertaking, an enterprise. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Sept., 83; chivalric enterprise, martial prowess, Milton, P. L. xi. 642; ‘In brave poursuit of chevalrous emprize’, Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 1. Norm. F. _emprise_, ‘entreprise’ (Moisy).
=enaunter,= lest by chance. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 200; May, 78; Sept., 161. ‘Anaunters’ is a north-country word, in the sense of ‘lest, in case that’ (EDD.). ME. _enantyr_; _an aunter_, in case that (P. Plowman, C. iv. 437); also, _an aventure_ (id., B. iii. 279), see Dict. M. and S. (s.v. Aventure); Anglo-F. _en_ + _aventure_, chance (Gower).
=enbassement,= dread, terror, ‘abashment’. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 159. 25; _enbaysshement_, lf. 91. 31. Cp. ME. _enbasshinge_, bewilderment (Chaucer, Boethius 4, p. 1. 43).
=enbolned,= swollen, puffed up. Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 207, l. 7 from bottom. Cp. ME. _bolnyd_, swollen (Wyclif, 1 Cor. v. 2).
=enchase,= to set (a jewel) in gold or other setting; used _fig._ Spenser, F. Q. i. 12. 23; to engrave figures on a surface, Shep. Kal., August, 27; to shut in, enclose, M. Hubberd’s Tale, 626; Chapman, tr. Iliad, xii. 56; xix. 346.
=encheason,= occasion, reason. Spenser, Shep. Kal., May, 147. ME. _encheson_, ‘occasio’ (Prompt. EETS. 312), Anglo-F. _enchesoun_, occasion (Gower), Norm. F. _acheisun_, ‘raison, cause, motif’ (Moisy); L. _occasio_.
=endlong,= from end to end of, through the length of; ‘Endlong many yeeres and ages’, Holland, Livy, 921; right along, straight on, Dryden, Palamon, iii. 691. In prov. use in the north country (EDD.). ME. _endelong_, through the length of (Chaucer, C. T. F. 992).
=endosse,= to inscribe. Spenser, F. Q. v. 11. 53; Colin Clout, 634; Palsgrave. Anglo-F. _endosser_, to endorse (Rough List); to write on the back of a document, deriv. of F. _dos_, L. _dorsum_, back.
=endue,= to endow; ‘God hath endued me with a good dowry’ (Vulg. _Dotavit me Deus dote bona_), BIBLE, Gen. xxx. 20; spelt _endew_, Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 51; ‘The King hath . . . endewed (the house) with parkes orchardes’, Act 31 Hen. VIII, c. 5. See =indue.=
=endurance,= also written =indurance,= patience; ‘Past the endurance of a block’, Much Ado, ii. 1. 248; imprisonment, durance, ‘I should have tane some paines to have heard you Without endurance further’, Hen. VIII, v. 1. 122 (the phrase is taken from Foxe’s account of Cranmer’s trial); ‘The indurance of their Generall’, Knolles, Hist. Turks, 1256 (NED.).
=endure,= to indurate, harden. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 8. 27. Norm. F. _s’endurer_, to harden oneself (Moisy).
=eneled,= anointed, as one who has received extreme unction. Morte Arthur, leaf 429*, back, 25; bk. xxi, c. 12; Caxton, Golden Legend, 337, see NED. (s.v. Anele).
=enew= (t. t. in hawking), to drive a fowl into the water; ‘Let her enew the fowl so long till she bring it to the plunge’, Markham, Countr. Content. (ed. 1668, i. 5. 32); ‘Follies doth enew (misprinted _emmew_, Ff.) As Falcon doth the Fowle’, Meas. for M. iii. 1. 91. Spelt _ineawe_, to plunge into the water, Drayton, Pol. xx. 284. Anglo-F. _eneauer_, to wet (Gower), Norm. F. _ewe_ (F. _eau_), water. See =inmew.=
=enewed;= see =ennewe.=
=enfeloned,= made fell or fierce. Spenser, F. Q. v. 8. 48.
=enfired,= kindled, set on fire. Spenser, Hymn to Love, 169.
=enform,= to mould, fashion. Spenser, F. Q. v. 6. 3.
=enfouldred,= hurled out like thunder and lightning. Spenser, F. Q. i. 11. 40. OF. _fouldre_ (F. _foudre_), Romanic type _folgere_, L. _fulgur_, a thunderbolt.
=enfounder,= to drive in, to batter in. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 216, back, 30; lf. 295, back, 25; to stumble, as a horse, to ‘founder’; ‘His horse enfoundred under hym’, Berners, Arth., 87 (NED.). F. _enfondrer_ (un harnois), to make a great dint in an armour; also, to plunge into the bottom of a puddle or mire (Cotgr.).
=enginous,= ingenious. Hero and Leander, iii. 312; Chapman, tr. of Odyssey, i. 452. Cp. Scot, _engine_ (_ingine_), intellect, mental capacity (EDD.). F. _engin_, understanding reach of wit (Cotgr.). L. _ingenium_, natural capacity. See =ingine.=
=engle;= see =ingle.=
=englin,= the name of a Welsh metre. Drayton, Pol. iv. 181. W. _englyn_. The Note has: _Englyns_ are couplets interchanged of sixteen and fourteen feet.
=engore,= to ‘gore’, wound deeply. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 8. 42.
=engraile,= to give a serrated appearance to; ‘I (the river Wear) indent the earth, and then I it engraile With many a turn’, Drayton, Pol. xxix. 380; _engrail’d_, variegated, ‘A caldron new engrail’d with twenty hues’, Chapman, tr. Iliad, xxiii. 761.
=engrain,= to dye ‘in grain’, or of a fast colour. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 131. See Dict. (s.v. Grain).
=engrave,= to bury. Spenser, F. Q. i. 10. 42; ii. 1. 60.
=enhalse,= to greet, salute. Mirror for Mag., Rivers, st. 58. See =halse.=
=ennewe,= to tint, shade; ‘With rose-colour ennewed’, Calisto and Meliba, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 62; ‘The one shylde was enewed with whyte’, Morte Arthur, leaf 55. back, 24; bk. iii, ch. 9 (end). Perhaps fr. F. _nuer_, to shade, tint (Godefroy), see NED.
=enow,= pl. form of ‘enough’; ‘Foes enow’, Milton, P. L. ii. 504; ‘Christians enow’, Merch. Ven. iii. 5. 24; ‘French quarrels enow’, Hen. V, iv. 1. 222. ME. _ynowe_: ‘Wommen y-nowe’ (Chaucer, Parl. Foules, 233), OE. _genōge_, pl. of _genōg_, enough.
=enpesshe,= to hinder. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 238. 6; 329. 19. See =empeach.=
=enrace,= to introduce into a race of living beings. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 5. 52; vi. 10. 25; Hymn of Beauty, 114.
=ens,= being, entity. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, Induct. (Asper). Med. L. (in philosophy) _ens_, entity, a neuter pres. pt. formed fr. L. _esse_, to be.
=enseam,= to cleanse (a hawk) of superfluous fat; ‘_Ensemer_, to inseam, unfatten’, Cotgrave; ‘Clene ensaymed’, Skelton, Ware the Hauke, 79. OF. _esseimer_, ‘retirer le _saim_ (la graisse)’, see Moisy (s.v. Ensaimer), deriv. of _saim_ fat, Med. L. _sagīmen_, ‘adeps’ (Ducange).
=enseam,= to contain together, include. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 11. 35; to introduce to company, Chapman, Bussy D’Ambois, i. 1 (Monsieur). See NED. (s.v. Enseam, vb.^{4}).
=enseamed,= marked with grease; ‘In the ranke sweat of an enseamed bed’, Hamlet, iii. 4. 92. F. _enseimer_ (now _ensimer_), to grease (Hatzfeld). [Schmidt connects this word with ‘enseam’, to cleanse a hawk; see above.]
=enseignement,= teaching, showing. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 2, § last. F. _enseignement_ (Cotgr.).
=ensigns,= insignia, marks of honour. Bacon, Essay 29, § 12.
=ensnarl,= to entangle. Spenser, F. Q. v. 9. 9. A north Yorks. word (EDD.). ME. _snarlyn_, ‘illaqueo’ (Prompt. EETS. 460).
=entail, entayl,= to carve, cut into. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 3. 27; ii. 6. 29; _entayle_, ornamental work cut on gold, id., ii. 7. 4.
=enterdeal,= negotiation. Spenser, F. Q. v. 8. 21; Mother Hubberd’s Tale, 785.
=entermete,= to concern oneself, occupy oneself, meddle with. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 154, back, 13. ME. _entremeten_, refl. to meddle with (Chaucer, Tr. and Cr. i. 1026). Anglo-F. _s’entremettre_, to occupy oneself (Gower).
=enterprize,= to receive, entertain as a host. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 2. 14; In this sense peculiar to Spenser.
=entertain,= to take into one’s service; Gent. Ver. ii. 4. 105; Richard III, i. 2. 258; to keep in one’s service, Fuller, Pisgah, iii. 2; to give reception to, Com. Errors, iii. 1. 120; the reception of a guest, Spenser, Mother Hubberd’s Tale, 1085; F. Q. v. 9. 37; Pericles, i. 1. 119.
=entertake,= to receive, entertain. Only in Spenser, F. Q. v. 9. 35.
=entire.= Used of friends _wholly_ devoted to one another; ‘My most sincere and entire friend’, Coryat, Crudities, Ep. Ded.; ‘Your entire loving brother’, Bacon, Essays, Ep. Ded. [cp. F. _ami entier_]. From the notion of intimacy was developed the sense: inward, internal, ‘Their hearts and parts entire’, Spenser, F. Q. iv. 8. 23 and 48; iii. 1. 47; iii. 7. 16.
=entradas,= receipts, revenues. Massinger, Guardian, v. 4 (Severino). Span. _entrada_, revenue.
=entraile,= to twist, entwine, interlace. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 3. 27; iii. 6. 44; Shep. Kal., Aug. 30; Prothalamion, 25; a coil, F. Q. i. 1. 16. Cp. F. _traille_ (_treille_), lattice-work (Cotgr.).
=entreat,= to treat, use. Richard II, iii. 1. 37; Fletcher, Rule a Wife, iii. 4 (Perez); Spenser, F. Q. i. 10. 7; ‘He entreated Abram well’, BIBLE, Gen. xii. 16; ‘Despytfully entreated’, Tyndale, Luke xviii. 32. OF. _entraiter_, to treat, use (Godefroy).
=entreglancing,= interchange of glances. Gascoigne, Flowers, ed. Hazlitt, i. 46.
=entries,= places through which deer have recently passed. B. Jonson, Sad Shepherd, i. 2 (John).
=entwite,= to rebuke, reproach, reprove, to ‘twit’. Udall, tr. of Apoph., Augustus, § 1; Roister Doister, ii. 3 (song); p. 36. Altered form of ME. _atwiten_, to reproach, twit, OE. _æt-witan_.
=enure,= to put into operation, to ‘inure’, carry out, practise. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 2. 29; v. 9. 39.
=envy,= to feel a grudge against; to begrudge; to treat grudgingly; to have grudging feelings. Milton, P. L. iv. 317; King John, iii. 4. 73; Peele, Tale of Troy, ed. Dyce, p. 551. The stress is often on the latter syllable.
=envy,= to injure, disgrace, calumniate. Fletcher, Pilgrim, ii. 1 (Juletta); Shirley, Traitor, iii. 3 (Duke).
=envỳ,= to emulate, ‘vie’ with. Spenser, F. Q. i. 2. 17; iii. 1. 13. F. _envier_ (au jeu), to vie (Cotgr.), L. _invitare_, to invite, challenge.
=ephemerides,= properly, tables showing the positions of the heavenly bodies (or some of them) for every day of a period, esp. at noon. But used vaguely for an almanac or calendar that noted some of these things. B. Jonson, Alchem. iv. 4 (Surly); Bp. Hall, Sat. ii. 7. 6; Bacon, Adv. of Learning, i. 1, § 3. Gk. ἐφημερίς, a diary.
=Ephesian,= a boon companion. 2 Hen. IV, ii. 2. 164. A cant term; used like ‘Corinthian’ in 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 13.
=epiky,= reasonableness, equity; ‘Such an epiky and moderacion’, Latimer, 5 Sermon bef. King (ed. Arber, p. 143). Gk. ἐπιείκεια, reasonableness; from ἐπιείκής, fitting, equitable.
=epiphoneme,= an exclamatory sentence, used to sum up a discourse. Puttenham, Art of Eng. Poesie, bk. ii, c. 12 (ed. Arber, p. 125); Heywood, Dialogue 2 (Mary), vol. vi, p. 123. Gk. ἐπιφώνημα.
=epitasis,= the part of a play wherein the plot thickens. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, iii. 2 (end). Gk. ἐπίτασις.
=epitrite,= in prosody, a foot consisting of three long syllables and a short one. B. Jonson, Staple of News, iv. 1 (P. Can.). Gk. ἐπίτριτος.
=equal=(=l,= fair, equitable, just, impartial. BIBLE, 1539, Psalm xvii. 2; Fletcher, Span. Curate, iii. 3 (Bartolus); iv. 4. 15; _equally_, justly, id., iv. 5 (Diego).
=equipage,= equipment; retinue. Sh., Sonnet 32; Spenser, Shep. Kal., Oct., 114. F. _equipage_, ‘equipage, good armour; store of necessaries; _Equipage d’un navire_, her Marriners and Souldiers’ (Cotgr.). See NED. (s.v. Equip). See =esquip.=
=erased,= in heraldry; said of an animal’s head, with a jagged edge below, as if torn violently from the body. Also used humorously of an ear, Butler, Hud. iii. 3. 214.
=eremite,= one dwelling in the desert; ‘This glorious eremite’, Milton, P. R. i. 8 (used with allusion to the original meaning of the Greek word). Eccles. Gk. ἐρημίτης, one who has retired into the desert from religious motives, a hermit, deriv. of ἔρημος, wilderness (Matt. iii. 1).
=erie, ery,= every. Tusser, Husbandry, § 18. 17; § 57. 11. Also several times in Turbervile’s Poems. A contracted form, like _e’er_ for _ever_.
=eringo, eryngo,= the candied root of the sea-holly, used as a sweetmeat, and regarded as an aphrodisiac. Merry Wives, v. 5. 23. Ital. _eringio_, sea-holly (Florio), L. _eryngion_, Gk. ἠρύγγιον, dimin. of ἤρυγγος, sea-holly.
=erne,= an eagle. Golding, Metam. vi. 517; fol. 74 (1603). A Scottish literary word (EDD.). OE. _earn_ (Matt. xxiv. 28).
=errant:= phr. _an errant knight_, a knight-errant. Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 38; i. 10. 10. Anglo-F. _errer_, to travel, to march (Ch. Rol. 3340), O. Prov. _edrar_ (_errar_), Med. L. _iterare_, ‘iter facere’ (Ducange).
=errant,= ‘arrant’. Chapman, Byron’s Tragedy, v. 1 (Byron); ‘Sir Kenelm Digby was an errant mountebank’, Evelyn, Diary (Nov. 7, 1651). See NED. (s.v. Errant, 7).
=errour,= wandering, roving. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 5. 7.
=erst,= once upon a time, formerly. Hen. V, v. ii. 48; Ferrex and Porrex, i. 2. 5; previously, Spenser, F. Q. i. 8. 18. ME. _erst_ (Chaucer, C. T. A. 776), OE. _ǣrest_, superl. of _ǣr_, soon.
=esbatement,= amusement. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 160. 15; Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 3, § 10. Anglo-F. _esbatement_, diversion (Gower). F. _esbatement_, ‘divertissement’ (Rabelais), OF. _esbatre_, ‘se divertir’ (Bartsch).
=escape,= a wilful error; a great fault. Lyly, Euphues (ed. Arber, p. 150); Othello, i. 3. 197.
=escot,= to pay a reckoning for, to maintain; ‘How are they escoted’, Hamlet, ii. 2. 362. OF. _escoter_, ‘payer l’écot’ (Didot), Anglo-F. _escot_, payment, reckoning at a tavern (Gower); _escot_ (payment) occurs in the Statutes of the Realm, i. 221 (13th cent.), see Rough List. See Ducange (s.v. Scot, Scottum). _Escot_ (payment) is the same word as ‘scot’ or ‘shot’, in prov. use for payment of a tavern reckoning (EDD.).
=escuage,= lit. shield-service; personal service in the field for 40 days in the year; later, a money payment in lieu of it, also called ‘scutage’. Bacon, Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 148. Anglo-F. _escuage_, Med. L. _scutagium_, deriv. of L. _scutum_, a shield (Ducange).
=escudero,= a squire. B. Jonson, Devil an Ass, iv. 1 (Wit.). Span. _escudéro_, an esquire, a servant that waits on a lady (Stevens), deriv. of _escúdo_, a shield, L. _scutum_.
=esguard,= a tribunal existing among the Knights of St. John, to settle differences between members of the order. Beaumont and Fl., Knight of Malta, v. 2 (Valetta). OF. _esgard_, ‘tribunal des chevaliers de Malte’. Med. L. _esgardium_: ‘De vassallo delinquente in Dominum, Dominus potest de ce quod tenet ab ipso, ipsum per Exguardium dissaisire (Id est, judicio parium suerum interveniente)’, quotation from Statutes (Ducange). O. Prov. _esgart_, ‘regard, décision, jugement; condamnation pécuniaire; égard, considération’; _esgardar_, ‘regarder, considérer; décider, juger’ (Levy).
=esloin, esloyne,= to remove to a distance. Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 20. F. _esloigner_ (Cotgr.).
=esmayed,= dismayed. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 308. 6; 329, back, 9. Anglo-F. _s’esmaier_, to be dismayed (Gower).
=esmayle,= enamel. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, bk. iii, c. 19; p. 242. F. _esmail_ ‘enammel’ (Cotgr.).
=espial,= the action of espying or spying. Bp. Hall, Contempl. O. T. xix. 9 (NED.); a company of spies, Elyot, Governour, iii. 6. 236; _espials_, spies, Bacon, Essay, 48; 1 Hen. VI, iv. 3. 6; Hamlet, iii. 1. 32. See NED.
=esquip,= to equip. _Esquippe_, Baret, Alvearie; _esquipping_, Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, i. 577. F. _esquiper_ (_equiper_), to equip, arm, store with necessary furniture (Cotgr.). See =equipage.=
=essoyne,= excuse, Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 20. ME. _essoyne_, excuse for non-appearance in a law-court (Chaucer, C. T. I. 164). Anglo-F. _essoigne_ (_essoyne_), excuse, a legal term (Rough List), see Ducange (s.v. Sunnis). Med. L. _essoniare_, ‘excusationem proponere’ (Ducange), of Teutonic origin, cp. Goth. _sunjôn_, ‘excusare’ (2 Cor. xii. 19).
=estate,= rank, dignity; ‘He poisons him in the garden for his estate’, Hamlet, iii. 2. 273; Macbeth, i. 4. 37; _estates_, men of rank, nobles, Heywood, Rape of Lucrece, i. 1 (Tarquin). F. _estat_, office, dignity, rank, degree which a man hath (Cotgr.). See Bible Word-Book.
=estivation:= phr. _place of estivation_, a summer-house. Bacon, Essay 45, § 5. Deriv. of L. _aestivus_, pertaining to summer.
=estres,= apartments, dwellings, quarters; the inner rooms in a house, divisions in a garden, &c.; spelt _estures_ [printed by Caxton _eftures_]. Morte Arthur, leaf 392, back, 3; bk. xix, ch. 8. ME. _estres_ (Chaucer), Anglo-F. _estre_, habitation, dwelling (Gower); _estres_, inward parts of a house (Rough List); OF. _estre_, ‘domuncula, aedificium’, see Ducange (s.v. _Estra_).
=estridge,= an ostrich, 1 Hen. IV, iv. 1. 98; Ant. and Cl. iii. 13. 197; spelt _estrich_, Fletcher, Love’s Pilgrimage, ii. 2 (Incubo); Lyly, Euphues (ed. Arber, 124). ME. _estrich_ (Voc. 585, 22). O. Prov. _estrutz_, ‘autruche’ (Levy).
=eten, ettin,= a giant; ‘Giants and ettins’, Beaumont and Fl., Knight of the B. Pestle, i. 2 (_or_ 3) (Wife). ME. _ȝeten_ (Gen. and Ex. 545), OE. _eoten_, a giant, cp. Icel. _jötunn_.
=Etesian,= (properly) the epithet of certain winds, blowing from the NE. for about forty days annually in summer; ‘Etesian winds’, Holland, tr. of Pliny, bk. xvi, c. 25 (end); ‘Etesian gales’, Dryden, Albion, Act i (Iris). L. _etesius_; Gk. ἐτήσιος, annual, from ἔτος, year.
=ethe;= see =eath.=
=eugh,= yew; ‘The Eugh, obedient to the bender’s will’, Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 9; Bacon, Essay 46. ME. _ew_ (Chaucer, C. T. A. 2923), OE. _īw_.
=eure,= destiny, fate, luck. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 235, back, 8; spelt _ure_, Skelton, Colin Clout, 1003; _to be ured_, to be invested with, as by the decree of fate, Skelton, Magnyfycence, 6; _ewre_, to render happy, Palsgrave. Hence _eurous_, _ewrous_, lucky, Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 227. 30; lf. 228. 19. ME. _ure_, fate, good luck (Barbour’s Bruce). OF. _eür_, ‘sort, bonheur’ (Bartsch), O. Prov. _aür_, _agur_, destiny, Romanic type _agurium_, L. _augurium_, augury, omen. See =ure, male-uryd, misured.=
=evelong,= oblong. Golding, Metam. viii. 551, fol. 101 (1603). ME. _evelong_, ‘oblongus’ (Trevisa, tr. Higden, i. 405). Cp. Icel. _aflangr_, oblong, Dan. _aflang_; L. _oblongus_.
=event,= to cool, by exposing to the air; ‘To event the heat’, Mirror for Mag., Clyfford, st. 8; to find vent, ‘Whence that scalding sigh evented’, B. Jonson, Case is Altered, v. 3 (Angelo). F. _esventer_, to fan or winnow; _s’esventer_, to take vent or wind (Cotgr.).
=ever among,= continually, Spenser, Shep. Kal., Dec, 12.
=evertuate,= _reflex._, to endeavour. Howell, Foreign Travell, sect. xvi, p. 72; ‘I have evirtuated myself’, Howell, Famil. Letters, vol. ii, let. 61 (end). Anglo-F. _s’esvertuer_, to exert oneself, endeavour (Gower).
=evesing,= the eaves of the thatch of a house; ‘A dropping evesing’, Schole-house of Women, 912; in Hazlitt, Early Pop. Poetry, iv. 140. ME. _evesynge_ (P. Plowman, C. xx. 193), deriv. of _evese_, the edge of the roof of a building, the ‘eaves’, OE. _efes_ (Ps. ci. 8). See =easing.=
=evet,= an eft, a newt. Lyly, Euphues, p. 315. See EDD. for prov. forms. OE. _efeta_. See =ewftes.=
=evicke,= a wild goat. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, iv. 122 (rendering of αἲξ ἄγριος). See NED. (s.v. Eveck).
=ewftes,= efts. Spenser, F. Q. v. 10. 23. See =evet.=
=exacuate,= to sharpen, whet, provoke. B. Jonson, Magn. Lady, iii. 3 (Compass).
=Exaltation of the Holy Cross,= the Feast observed on Sept. 14. Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 37. 16.
=exampless,= for _example-less_, without an example, unparalleled. B. Jonson, Sejanus, ii. 4 (Silius).
=Excalibur,= the name of King Arthur’s sword. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum. iii. 1 (Bobadil); ‘The try’d Excalibour’, Drayton, Pol. iv (Nares).
=excheat,= ‘escheat’, profit, lit. that which is fallen to one. Spenser, F. Q. i. 5. 25; iii. 8. 16. Anglo-F. _eschete_, _eschaëte_ (Rough List), Med. L. _escaeta_, deriv. from Romanic type _escadére_ (F. _echoir_), Med. L. _excadere_, ‘jure haereditario obvenire; in aliquem cadere, ei obvenire’ (Ducange).
=exercise,= an act of preaching, discourse; a discussion of a passage of Scripture. Richard III, iii. 2. 112; iii. 7. 64; Middleton, Mayor of Queenborough, v. 1 (Oliver).
=exhale,= to hale forth, drag out. B. Jonson, Poetaster, iii. 1 (Crispinus); cp. Hen. V, ii. 1. 66.
=exhibition,= allowance, fixed payment. King Lear, i. 2. 25; Othello, i. 3. 238; London Prodigal, i. 1. 10. Med. L. _exhibitio_, ‘praebitio’; _exhibere_, ‘praebere alimenta et ad vitam necessaria’ (Ducange). See Prompt. EETS. 161, and Rönsch, Vulgata, 312. Hence the term ‘exhibition’ in the University of Oxford for annual payments made by a College to deserving students.
=exigent,= state of pressing need, emergency, decisive moment. Julius Caesar, v. 1. 19; Ant. and Cl. iv. 12. 63; extremity, end, 1 Hen. VI, ii. 5. 9; phr. _to take an exigent_, to come to an end, A Merry Knack to know a Knave, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 546; _exigents_, straits, Marlowe, Edw. II, ii. 5 (Warwick).
=exigent,= an urgent command; _a writ of exigent_ was one commanding the sheriff to summon the defendant to appear, and to deliver himself up on pain of outlawry. Butler, Hud. i. 1. 370; iii. 1. 1036. Anglo-F. _exigende_, L. _exigenda_, from _exigere_, to exact. See Cowell, Interpreter (s.v.).
=exoster,= a hanging-bridge, used by men besieging a city; ‘Exosters, Sambukes, Catapults’, Peacham, Comp. Gentleman, c. 9. L. _exostra_, Gk. ἐξώστρα, a bridge _thrust out_ from the besiegers’ tower against the walls of the besieged place; deriv. of ὠθέειν, to thrust.
=expend,= to weigh, examine, consider. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. iii, c. 9, § 1; c. 29, § 3. L. _expendere_, to weigh out.
=expert,= to experience. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Nov., 186.
=expire,= to breathe out. Spenser, F. Q. i. 11. 45; iv. 1. 54; to fulfil a term, i. 7. 9; to fly forth from a cannon, Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 188.
=expiscate,= to ‘fish out’, i.e. to find out by inquiry. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, x. 181. L. _expiscari_, to fish out; deriv. of _piscis_, a fish.
=explete,= to complete, to satisfy; ‘To explete the act’, Speed, Hist. ix. 21, § 71; ‘Nothing under an Infinite can expleat the immortall minde of man’, Fuller, Pisgah, iv. 7. 123. L. _explere_, to fill out.
=exploit,= success; ‘His ambassadours hadde made no better exployte’, Berners, tr. Froissart, ii. 91. 272. ME. _espleit_, success (Gower, C. A. V. 3924), Anglo-F. _exploit_, _espleit_, _esplait_, speed, success (Rough List).
=exploit,= to accomplish, achieve; ‘I _exployt_, I applye or avaunce myself to forther a busynesse’, Palsgrave; ‘They departed without _exploytinge_ their message’, Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, ch. 26, § 8; ‘To exploit some warlike service’, Holland, tr. Ammianus (Nares).
=express,= to press out, squeeze out. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 11. 42.
=expulse,= to expel. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. ii, c. 5, § 5; Bacon, Adv. of Learning, bk. ii, c. 17, § 9. L. _expulsare_, freq. of _expellere_, to expel.
=extend= (a legal t. t.), to seize upon lands, in execution of a writ. Massinger, New Way to Pay, v. 1 (Overreach); to seize upon land, Ant. and Cl. i. 2. 105. See Cowell, Interpreter (s.v.).
=extent= (a legal t. t.); ‘A writ or commission to the Sheriff for the valuing of lands or tenements; also, the Act of the Sheriff or other Commissioner upon this writ’, Cowell, Interpreter; Butler, Hud. iii. 1. 1035; Massinger, City Madam, v. 2 (Luke); As You Like It, iii. 1. 17.
=extinct,= to extinguish. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. iii, c. 2 (end); hence _extincted_, pp., Othello, ii. 1. 81.
=extirp,= to extirpate. Spenser, F. Q. i. 10. 25. L. _extirpare_, _exstirpare_, deriv. of _stirps_, the stem of a tree.
=extort,= extorted. Spenser, F. Q. v. 2. 5; v. 10. 25.
=extraught,= extracted. 3 Hen. VI, ii. 2. 142. Cp. _distraught_ for _distract_, _distracted_.
=extreate,= extraction, origin. Spenser, F. Q. v. 10. 1. ME. _estrete_, extraction, origin (Gower, C. A. i. 1344), OF. _estraite_, birth, origin (Assizes de Jer., ch. 134); see Bartsch (Glossary).
=extree,= axle-tree. Golding, Metam. ii. 297; fol. 19, back (1603). In prov. use, see EDD. (s.v. Ax, sb.^{1}), ME. _ex-tre_ (Prompt. EETS. 145).
=eyas,= a young hawk taken from the nest for the purpose of training; _eyas hauke_, a young untrained hawk, Spenser, F. Q. i. 11. 34; _eyas-musket_ (used jocularly of a sprightly child), Merry Wives, iii. 3. 22; ‘An aerie of children little eyases’, Hamlet, ii. 2. 355. F. _niais_ (Fauconnerie), ‘qui n’a pas encore quitté le nid’ (Hatzfeld), L. _nidacem_, deriv. of _nidus_, a nest, cp. Ital. _nidiace_, ‘taken out of the nest, a simpleton’ (Florio). See =niaise.=
=eye,= a brood; esp. of pheasants; ‘An Eye of Pheasaunts’, Spenser, Shep. Kal., April, 118 (E. K. Gloss.); ‘An Eye of tame pheasants Or partridges’, Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1 (Prigg); Worlidge, Dict. Rust. 252; Coles, Lat. Dict. (1677). In prov. use in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Eye, sb.^{2}); also in the form _nye_ (_nie_, _ni_), see EDD. OF. _ni_, ‘nid’ (La Curne).
=eyre,= to ‘ear’, to plough. Drayton, Robert Duke of Normandy, st. 5. See =earth.=
=eysel;= see =eisel.=
F
=faces about,= the same as ‘right-about face’, i.e. turn round the other way. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum. iii. 1. 14; Beaumont and Fl., Knt. of the B. Pestle, v. 2 (Ralph); Scornful Lady, v. 2 (Y. Loveless).
=fackins.= The forms here given are distortions of _fay_ (faith), frequent in trivial quasi-oaths. _By my fackins_, B. Jonson, Every Man, i. 3; _By my feckins_, Heywood, 1 Edw. I, iii. 1; _By my facks_, Middleton, Quiet Life, ii. 2; _By my feck_, Webster, Cure for Cuckold, iv. 3. Cp. _I’ faikins_, in truth, verily, used in Scotland, Lakeland, and Lancashire (EDD.). See =fay= (1).
=fact,= evil deed, crime. Meas. for M. iv. 2. 141; v. 439; Wint. Tale, iii. 2. 86; Macb. iii. 6. 10; _in the fact_, in the act, 2 Hen. VI, ii. 1. 173.
=fadge,= to fit, suit, agree; ‘Let men avoid what fadgeth not with their stomachs’, Robertson, Phras. 708; ‘How ill his shape with inward forme doth fadge’, Marston, Scourge of Villanie, i. 1. 172; to succeed, to turn out well, ‘How will this fadge?’, Twelfth Nt. ii. 2. 34; to get on well, to thrive, ‘Let him that cannot fadge in one course fall to another’, Cotgrave (s.v. Mouldre). In prov. use in various parts of England, meaning to fit, suit; to make things fit; to succeed, thrive, see EDD. (s.v. Fadge, vb.^{3}).
=fading,= the name of a dance; ‘Fading is a fine jig’, Beaumont and Fl., Knight B. Pestle, iv. 5 (end). ‘With a fading’ was the refrain of a popular song of an indecent character, Winter’s Tale, iv. 4. 195.
=fagary,= a vagary, freak. Middleton, Roaring Girl, iv. 2 (Goshawk); Lady Alimony, ii. 1 (1 Boy). See =fegary.=
=fagioli,= French beans. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, ii. 1 (Mercury). Ital. _fagioli_, ‘french peason, kidney beanes’ (Florio), Late L. _phaseolus_ (Pliny), earlier L. _phaselus_ (Virgil), Gk. φάσηλος, a kidney-bean.
=fail, fayl,= to deceive. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 5. 11; iii. 11. 46. F. _faillir_, to deceive (Cotgr.).
=fain,= to rejoice. Spenser, F. Q. v. 12. 36. Hence _fayning_, gladsome, wistful, Hymn of Love, 216. OE. _fægnian_, to rejoice.
=fair,= fairness, beauty. Greene, Looking Glasse, i. 1. 81 (Rasni); Death of E. of Huntingdon, ii. 1 (Salisbury); iii. 4 (Leicester); in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, viii. 255, 282.
=fairy money,= money given by fairies, which turned to dry leaves if talked about; ‘Such borrowed wealth, like Fairy-money . . . will be but Leaves and Dust when it comes to use’, Locke, Human Und. I, iv. (NED.); Beaumont and Fl., Honest Man’s Fortune, v. 1 (Montague). See Davies.
=faitour,= an impostor, cheat, a lying vagabond. Spenser, Shep. Kal., May, 39; _faytor_, F. Q. i. 12. 35; 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 173. See Notes to Piers Plowman, p. 166. The word means a sham, a maker-up of a character. OF. _faitour_, _faiteör_, Romanic type _factitorem_.
=fa la,= a snatch of song; ‘The fiddle, and the _fa las_’, Fletcher, Mons. Thomas, iv. 2 (Launcelot). From the notes in the upper part of the gamut—_fa_-sol-_la_-si. Hence, _fa la la_, as a refrain of a song.
=fall,= the blast blown on a horn at the death of the deer. Gascoigne, Art of Venerie, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 315. See =mort.=
=fall,= a collar falling flat round the neck. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Surly); _falls_, pl., Middleton, Your Five Gallants, i. 1 (2 Fellow).
=fall,= autumn; ‘The hole yere is deuided into iiii. partes, spring-time, somer, faule of the leafe, and winter’, Ascham, Toxophilus, p. 48; Dryden, tr. Juvenal, Sat. x. In prov. use in various parts of England, very common in America (EDD.).
=fall,= to let fall, Temp. ii. 1. 296; Richard III, v. 3. 135; to happen, Mids. Night’s D. v. 1. 188.
=falling bands;= see =band.=
=false:= phr. _to false a blow_, to make a feint, Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 46; ii. 5. 9. Cp. Cymbeline, ii. 3. 74.
=falser,= a deceiver. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Dec.; Epilogue, 6.
=falx,= a term in wrestling; a grip round the small of the back. Drayton, Pol. i. 244; Carew, Cornwall, 76. F. _faux du corps_ (Sherwood, s.v. Wast). See NED. (s.v. Faulx).
=famble,= hand. (Cant.) Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1 (Higgen); Harman, Caveat, p. 87. Icel. _fálma_, the hand; cp. Swed. _famle_, to grope; cognate with OE. _folm_, a hand.
=famble,= a ring. (Cant.) Shadwell, Squire of Alsatia, ii. 1 (Belfond Senior). So called because worn on the hand. See above.
=famelic,= exciting hunger, appetizing. B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, iii. 1 (Busy). L. _famelicus_, hungry; from _fames_, hunger.
=Familist,= one of the sect called the Family of Love. Middleton, Anything for a Quiet Life, ii. 1 (Knavesby). See Dyce’s introduction to the Family of Love, by the same dramatist.
=fang,= to take, seize, seize upon. Timon, iv. 3. 23; spelt _vang_ (Southern), London Prodigal, iii. 3. 5; _fanged_, pp., Northward Ho, i. 2. 6. OE. _fōn_, to take; pp. _gefangen_.
=fanterie,= infantry; ‘Cavallery [cavalry] and Fanterie’, Holland, tr. of Pliny, bk. vi, c. 20; vol. i, p. 128 g; _Fanteries_, foot-soldiers, Gascoigne, Fruites of Warre, st. 152. OF. _fanterie_ (Roquefort); Ital. ‘_fantería_, infantry; _fante_, a boy, a foot soldier’ (Florio); short for _infante_, an infant. Cp. ME. _faunt_, child (P. Plowman, B. xvi. 101), whence surname ‘Fauntleroy’.
=fap,= drunk. Merry Wives, i. 1. 183.
=farandine,= a kind of cloth, made partly of silk and partly of wool. Spelt _farrendon_, Wycherley, Love in a Wood, iii. 1 (Lucy); _ferrandine_, a gown of this material, id. v. 2 (Mrs. Joyner). Said to be from F. _Ferrand_, the name of the inventor (_c._ 1630). See NED.
=farce,= to stuff, fill out; ‘Farce thy lean ribs’, B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, v. 4 (Carlo); ‘The farced title’ (i.e. stuffed, tumid), Hen. V, iv. 1. 280; ‘Wit larded with malice, and malice farced with wit’, Tr. and Cr. v. 1. 64. See Dict. (s.v. Farce).
=farcion, farcyon,= the farcy, a disease in horses, akin to glanders. Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 93. F. _farcin_; see Hatzfeld. See =fashions.=
=fardle,= to furl a sail. Golding, Metam. xi. 483; fol. 138 (1603). F. _fardeler_, to truss or pack up (Cotgr.). See NED. (s.v. Fardel).
=fare,= course; track of a hare. Spenser, F. Q. v. 10. 16; Fletcher, Faithful Shepherdess, iv. 2. 18. OE. _fær_, course; from _faran_, to go.
=far-fet,= fetched from afar. Milton, P. R. ii. 401. Things ‘far-fet’ were proverbially said to be good (or fit) for ladies; ‘Farre fet and deere bought is good for Ladyes’, Lyly, Euphues (ed. Arber, 93). See The Malcontent, v. 2 (Mendoza); B. Jonson, Sil. Woman, 1 Prologue; Cynthia’s Revels, iv. 1 (Argurion).
=farlies,= strange things, wonders. Drayton, Pol. x. 170. ‘Ferlies’ (or ‘fairlies’) is in common use in Scotland for ‘sights, show things to be seen, lions’, see EDD. (sv. Ferly, 4). ME. _ferly_, strange, wonderful; also, a wonder (Barbour’s Bruce), OE. _fǣrlic_, sudden, unexpected.
=fashions,= or =fashion,= the ‘farcy’, a disease of the skin in horses, Tam. Shrew, iii. 2. 53; Dekker, O. Fortunatus, ii. 2 (Andelocia). See =farcion.=
=fast and loose,= a cheating game with a leather strap, which is made up in intricate folds and laid edgewise on a table; the novice thrusts a skewer into it, thinking to hold it fast thereby, but the trickster takes hold of both ends and draws it away. Fletcher, Loyal Subject, ii. 1 (Theodore); City Nightcap, iv. 1 (Dorothea).
=faste,= faced, having faces; ‘Some faste Like loathly toades’, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 11. 12.
=fastidious,= distasteful, displeasing. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 9, § 1; disdainful, B. Jonson, New Inn, Ode (at the end), l. 7.
=fatch,= a ‘vetch’; ‘A fatch for Love!’, Turbervile, The Penitent Lover, last stanza; Udall, tr. of Apoph., Cicero, § 1 (note on the word _Cicero_). See EDD. (s.v. Fatch).
=fault,= a misfortune. Pericles, iv. 2. 79; Massinger, Bondman, v. 1 (Leosthenes).
=faun,= for =fawn,= an act of fawning upon; a cringing. Phineas Fletcher, An Apology for the Premises, st. 4; B. Jonson, Poetaster, iv. 4 (Tucca).
=fausen,= a kind of eel (?). Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xxi. 190. In Kent _fazen-eel_ is in use for a large brown eel; see EDD. (s.v. Fazen).
=fautie,= ‘faulty’. Tusser, Husbandry, § 99. 2. The ordinary pronunciation in Scotland, and many parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Faulty). F. _fautif_.
=fautor,= an adherent, partisan; spelt _faultor_, Mirror for Mag., Worcester, xx; a protector, patron, Chapman, tr. of Iliad, i. 441; xi. 325. F. _fauteur_, ‘a fauter, favourer, protector’ (Cotgr.); L. _fautor_, a favourer, patron.
=fautress,= a patroness. Chapman, tr. Iliad, xxiii. 670.
=Favell,= a personification of flattery; ‘The fyrste was Favell, full of flatery, Wyth fables false that well coude fayne a tale’, Skelton, Bowge of Courte, 134; ‘Favell hath a goodly grace In eloquence’, Wyatt, The Courtier’s Life (ed. Bell, 216). ME. _Fauel_: ‘Bothe Fals and Fauel and fykeltonge Lyere’ (P. Plowman, C. iii. 6); see Notes, pp. 42, 43. Hoccleve, in his De Regimine Principum (ed. Wright, pp. 106, 111), fully describes _favelle_ or flattery, and says, ‘In wrong praising is all his craft and arte’. See =curry-favell.=
=fawting,= favourable. Mirror for Mag., Irenglas, st. 21 (ed. 1575). See =fautor.=
=fay,= faith. Spenser, F. Q. v. S. 19; phr. _by my fay_, by my faith, Romeo, i. 5. 128. ME. _fey_, faith (Chaucer, C. T. A. 1126); Anglo-F. _fei_ (F. _foi_). See =fackins.=
=fay,= to clear away filth, to clean out a ditch or pond. Burton, Anat. Mel. i. 2. 4: Holland, tr. Livy, xxi. 37 (ed. 1609, 414); spelt _fie_, Tusser, Husbandry, § 20. 21. In common prov. use in the north country and in E. Anglia: in the former ‘fey’ is the usual form, in the latter ‘fie’, see EDD. (s.v. Fay, vb.^{1}). Icel. _fǣgja_, to cleanse, polish.
=fayles,= a variety of backgammon, played with three dice. B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. iii. 8. 104. Described in Gifford’s note; so called because a particular throw caused the adversary _to fail_. See NED. (where there is cited from Ludus Anglicorum (_c._ A.D. 1330) ‘Est et alius ludus qui vocatur Faylys’). See Nares.
=feague,= to settle one’s business, to take one in hand, to dispose of. Etherege, She Would if she Could, iii. 3 (Sir Oliver); also (Sir Joslin’s Song); iv. 2 (Sir Oliver). Spelt _fegue_, Wycherley, Love in a Wood, i. 1 (end). Cp. G. _fegen_, to sweep, to clean, to furbish; also, to chastise, rebuke; Du. _vegen_. See NED.
=feague,= to whip. Otway, Soldier’s Fortune, v. 5 (Beaugard). Probably the same word as above. See EDD. (s.v. Feag).
=feak,= a dangling curl of hair. Marston, Sat. i. 38. See NED.
=feants,= for _fiants_ or _fyaunts_; see =fiants.= Turbervile, Hunting, c. 37; p. 98.
=fear,= an object of terror. Hamlet, iii. 3. 25; Milton, P. L. ix. 285; to terrify, Tam. Shrew, i. 2. 221; 1 Hen. VI, v. 2. 2. ‘To fear’ is used in this sense in Scotland and in various parts of England (EDD.).
=feat,= made, fashioned. Shirley, Witty Fair One, iii. 2 (Sir N. Treadle); clever, dexterous, Cymb. v. 5. 88; graceful, ‘She speaks feat English’, Fletcher, Night-walker, iii. 6; neat, becoming, Temp. ii. 1. 273; to make a person elegant, Cymb. i. 1. 49. ‘Feat’ is in gen. prov. use in the sense of suitable, also, dexterous, adroit, smart (EDD.). F. _fait_, made; _fait pour_, made for, suitable for.
=featuously,= elegantly, Drayton, Pastorals, Ecl. iv, Ballad of Dowsabel, 24; _feateously_, dexterously, nimbly, Spenser, Prothal. 27. ME. _fetysly_, exquisitely; _fetys_, well-made, handsome, graceful (Chaucer). OF. _fetis_, _feitis_; L. _facticius_.
=feature,= fashion, make, form. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 2. 44; ‘The grim Feature’ (used of Satan), Milton, P. L. x. 279.
=feaze;= see =feeze.=
=feeze.= The threat ‘I’ll feeze you’ seems to have given rise to the sense. To ‘do for’, ‘settle the business of’, also, to beat, flog. Beaumont and Fl., Coxcomb, i. 6 (Ricardo); _veeze_, Massinger, Emperor East, iv. 2 (Countryman); _pheese_, Tam. Shrew, Induct, i. 1. ‘To fease’ is in prov. use in Scotland and in various parts of England—Midlands, E. Anglia, and South Coast, in the sense of to drive away, to put to flight (EDD.). OE. _fēsan_, to drive away; cp. Norw. dialect _föysa_ (Aasen).
=fegary, figary,= ‘vagary’, freak, whimsical trick. Spelt _figuary_, Beaumont and Fl., Fair Maid of the Inn, ii. 2 (Clown); _fegary_, Middleton, Span. Gipsy, i. 5 (Diego). See =fagary.=
=fegue;= see =feague.=
=felfare,= a field-fare. Middleton, Anything for a Quiet Life, i. 1 (L. Beaufort). So in Nottingham and Warwick (EDD.).
=fell,= a marsh, a fen. Drayton, Pol. iii. 113; see NED. (s.v. Fell, sb.^{2} 2 b).
=fell,= gall, rancour. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 11. 2. L. _fel_, gall.
=fell’ff,= the ‘felloe’ of a wheel, part of the wheel-rim. Chapman, tr. Iliad, iv. 525. A Yorks. pron. of ‘felloe’ (EDD.). OE. _felg_.
=fellowly,= companionable, sympathetic. Temp. v. 1. 64; _fellowlie_, Tusser, Husbandry, § 10. 55.
=felly,= cruelly, fiercely. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 50.
=felness,= fierceness, spite, anger. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 8. 37.
=feltred,= with wool matted close together; ‘Feltred ram’, Chapman, tr. Iliad, iii. 219; ‘His felter’d locks’, Fairfax, Tasso, iv. 7. See EDD. (s.v. Felter).
=feme, feeme,= a woman; ‘Take time therefore, thou foolish Feeme’, Turbervile, On the divers Passions of his Love, st. 3 from end. OF. _feme_ (F. _femme_).
=feminitee,= womanhood. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 6. 51.
=fennel,= supposed to be an emblem of flattery; ‘How this smells of fennel’, B. Jonson, Case is Altered, i. 2 (Count F.). See Nares.
=fenny,= spoiled with damp, mouldy. Tusser, Husbandry, § 35. 44; ‘_Fenny_, mouldy as fenny cheese’, Worlidge, Ray’s English Words, 1691. In prov. use (EDD.). OE. _fynig_. See =finewed.=
=fensive,= ‘defensive’, capable of defence. Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, ii. 301; Warner, Albion’s England, bk. i, c. 4 (st. 4 from end).
=fere, feere,= a companion, mate, spouse. Titus Andron. iv. 1. 89. Often spelt _pheer_, _pheere_, as in Spenser, Muse of Thestylis, 100. ME. _fere_ (Chaucer). OE. _ge-fēra_, a companion.
=ferk;= See =firk= (2).
=ferle,= a ‘ferule’; a rod, sceptre; ‘The one of knight-hoode bare the ferle’, Mirror for Mag., Mortimer, st. 9.
=ferme,= a lodging; ‘His sinfull sowle with desperate disdaine Out of her fleshly ferme fled to the place of paine’, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 5. 23.
=ferrandine;= see =farandine.=
=ferrary,= farriery, the art of working in iron. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xiv. 141.
=ferrour,= ‘farrier’. Skelton (ed. Dyce, i. 24). OF. _ferrier_ (Godefroy).
=ferse,= the piece now known as the ‘queen’ in chess. Surrey, To the Lady that scorned, 12, in Tottel’s Misc., p. 21; ‘_Fers_, The Queen at Chess-play’, Bullokar. ME. _fers_ (Chaucer, Book Duch., 654). OF. _fierce_, also, _fierge_ (Roman Rose), Med. L. _fercia_ (Ducange). Of Persian origin, _ferzên_, prop. ‘wise man’, ‘counsellor’, cp. Arab, _firzân_, queen in chess.
=ferula,= a flat wooden bat, used by schoolmasters for inflicting pats on the palm of a boy’s hand. North, tr. of Plutarch, J. Caesar, § 41 (in Shak. Plut., p. 96, n. 1); Englished as _ferule_, Hall, Satires, iv. 1. 169. L. _ferula_.
=fescue,= a little stick or pin, for pointing out the letters to children learning to read. Hall, Satires, iv. 2. 100; Dryden, Prologue to Cleomenes, 38. Hence, the gnomon of a dial; Puritan Widow, iv. 2. 84. OF. _festu_ (F. _fétu_), a straw, O. Prov. _festuc_, for L. _festūca_, a straw (cp. O. Prov. _festuga_).
=festinately,= hastily. L. L. L. iii. 1. 6. Deriv. of L. _festinus_, hasty.
=fet,= _pt. t._ and _pp._ fetched; ‘David sent, and fet her to his house’, BIBLE, 2 Sam. xi. 27, Acts xxviii. 13 (ed. 1611); ‘This conclusion is far fet’, Jewel (Wks., ed. Parker Soc. i. 146); ‘Deep-fet groans’, 2 Hen. VI, ii. 4. 33; B. Jonson, Silent Woman, Prol. ‘To fet’ is in gen. prov. use for ‘fetch’ in Lancashire and Midland counties (EDD.) ME. _fette_, pt. s. of _fecchen_, and _fet_ pp. (Chaucer). OE. _fette_, pt. s., and _fetod_, pp. of _fetian_, to fetch (B. T.).
=fetch,= a trick, stratagem. Tusser, Husbandry, § 64. 2; Hamlet, ii. 1. 38; King Lear, ii. 4. 90. In gen. prov. use in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Fetch, sb.^{2} 14).
=fetch in,= to seize upon, apprehend. Ant. and Cl. iv. 1. 14, Massinger, Roman Actor, iv. 1 (Parthenius).
=fetuous,= well-formed, well-made. Herrick, The Temple, 68; _featous_ (NED.). See =featuously.=
=feutred,= featured, fashioned. J. Heywood, The Four Plays, Anc. Brit. Drama, i. 19, col. 1; Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 376. The strange spelling _feautered_ also occurs (NED.).
†=fewmand.= Only in B. Jonson, Sad Sheph. ii. 1 (Earnie): ‘They [a young badger and a ferret] fewmand all the claithes’. ‘Fewmand’ belongs to the imaginary dialect of the piece; it apparently means ‘to foul’, ‘to soil’.
=fewmets,= the excrement of a deer. B. Jonson, Sad Sheph., i. 2 (John); Gascoigne, Art of Venerie, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 306; ‘_Fumées_, the dung or excrements of Deer, called by woodmen, fewmets, or fewmishing’, Cotgrave. Cp. F. _fumier_, dung, manure, cogn. w. L. _fimus_, dung, excrement. See NED. (s.v. Fumet).
=fewterer,= a term of the chase, one who looks after the dogs in the kennel, and lets them loose at the proper time. Beaumont and Fl., Tamer Tamed, ii. 2; Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, ii. 2. See =yeoman-fewterer.= ME. _vewter_, a keeper of greyhounds (Bk. Curtasye 631, in Babee’s Bk., ed. 1868, p. 320). Anglo-F. _veutrier_, Med. L. _veltrarius_ (Ducange), deriv. of Romanic type _veltrus_, a greyhound. Cp. O. Prov. _veltre_, It. _veltro_, for older L. _vertragus_, a greyhound, a Gaulish word.
=feyster,= to fester, as a wound. Morte Arthur, leaf 394, back, 31; bk. xix, c. 10.
=fiant, fiaunt,= a warrant. Spenser, Mother Hub. 1144. L. _fiant_, in phr. _fiant literae patentes_, let letters patent be made out; used of a warrant addressed to the Irish Chancery for a grant under the Great Seal (NED.).
=fiants,= the excrements of certain animals, esp. of the fox or badger, Turbervile, Hunting, c. 76, p. 216; _fyaunts_, id., c. 66, p. 184. F. _fiente_, the excrement of certain animals (Cotgr.).
=fico,= a fig. Gascoigne, Herbes (Wks., ed. 1587, 153); as a type of anything valueless or contemptible, ‘A fico for the phrase’, Merry Wives, i. 3. 33. Ital. _fico_. See Stanford.
=fidge,= to keep in continual movement. B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, i. 1 (Cokes); Gammer Gurton’s Needle, i. 4 (Hodge); ‘_Remuer_, to move, stir, fidge’, Cotgrave. In prov. use in Scotland and in various parts of England (EDD.).
=fie;= see =fay= (to clean).
=fig of Spain,= a contemptuous gesture, consisting in thrusting the thumb between two of the closed fingers. Hen. V, iii. 6. 62; phr. _to give the fig_, to insult thus, 2 Hen. IV, v. 3. 123. See Nares.
=figent,= fidgeting restless. Beaumont and Fl., Little French Lawyer, iii. 2 (Vertaigne); Coxcomb, iv. 3 (Nan); Chapman and others, Eastward Ho, iii. 2 (Quicksilver). Deriv. of =fidge.= See Nares.
=fig-frail,= a basket for holding figs. Middleton, Your Five Gallants, iv. 5 (Bungler). See =frail.=
=figging-law,= the art of cutting purses and picking pockets. Dekker, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Moll). See NED.
=figgum,= (perhaps) a juggler’s trick. B. Jonson, Devil an Ass, v. 5 (Sir P. E.).
=fights,= screens of cloth used during a naval engagement, to conceal and protect a crew. Merry Wives, ii. 2. 142; ‘Bear my fights out bravely’, Fletcher, Valentinian, ii. 2 (Claudia); Dryden, Amboyne, iii. 3 (Song); Heywood, Fair Maid of West, iv (Wks., ed. 1874, ii. 316); Phillips, Dict. 1706.
=figo,= a fig. Hen. V, iii. 6. 60; iv. 1. 60. Span. _figo_; L. _ficus_. See =fico.=
=filch,= a hooked staff, used by thieves. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1 (Higgen); also called a _filchman_, Awdeley, Vagabonds, p. 4.
=file,= the thread, course, or tenor of a story or argument. Spenser, F. Q. vii. 6. 37. F. _fil_, a thread, L. _filum_.
=file,= to render foul, filthy, or dirty; ‘To file my hands in villain’s blood’, Wilkins, Miseries of inforst Marriage, iii (Scarborow); Macbeth, iii. 1. 65. In prov. use in Scotland and the north of England (EDD.). OE. _fȳlan_ (in compounds), deriv. of _fūl_, foul.
=filed,= polished with the ‘file’; neatly sculptured; also _fig._ of literary work. Tale of Pygmalion, 4; in Tottel’s Misc., p. 131; ‘True-filed lines’, B. Jonson, Pref. Verses to Shakespeare (1623), 68.
=fill;= _fills_, pl., the ‘thills’ or shafts of a cart. Tr. and Cr. iii. 2. 48; hence _fill-horse_, a shaft-horse, Herrick, The Hock-cart, 21; spelt _phil-horse_, Merch. Ven. ii. 2. 100. ‘Fill’ and ‘fill-horse’ are both in prov. use (EDD.). See =thiller.=
=filograin,= ‘filigree’. Butler, On P. Nye’s Thanksgiving Beard, l. 13 from end. Ital. _filigrana_ (Fanfani). See Dict. (s.v. Filigree).
=fincture,= a feint, in fencing. Marston, Scourge of Villainy, Sat. xi. 54. Ital. _finctura_, _fintura_ (NED.); deriv. of L. _fingere_, to feign.
=fine,= end. Much Ado, i. 1. 247; Hamlet, v. 1. 113.
=fineness,= ingenuity. Tr. and Cr. i. 3. 209; Massinger, Renegado, iv. 1 (Master).
=finewed,= musty, mouldy. Mirr. for Mag., Lord Hastings, st. 28; spelt _fenowed_, ‘The Scripture . . . is a Panary of holesome foode against fenowed traditions’, BIBLE, 1611, The Translators to the Reader; _vinewed_, Baret, Alvearie (s.vv. Mouldie _and_ Hoarie); Tr. and Cr. ii. 1. 15 (in the Folios _whinid_). ‘Vinnewed’ (or ‘Vinnied’), mouldy, is in common prov. use in the south-west of England, see EDD. (s.v. Vinny). See =fenny.=
=fingle-fangle,= a trifle. Butler, Hud. iii. 3. 454.
=fire-drake,= a fiery dragon; hence, a meteor. Hen. VIII, v. 4. 45; Beaumont and Fl., Knight of the B. Pestle, ii. 2 (_or_ 5), near the end. OE. _fȳr-draca_; _fȳr_, fire, and _draca_, L. _draco_, Gk. δράκων, a dragon; cp. E. _dragon_.
=fireship,= a prostitute. (Cant.) Wycherley, Love in a Wood, ii. 1 (Sir Simon). [Smollett, Roderick Random, 1. xxiii.]
=firk,= to beat, trounce. Hen. V, iv. 4. 29. See EDD. (s.v. Firk, 4).
=firk,= to cheat, rob. Dekker, Honest Wh. (NED.); spelt _ferk_, Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, iii. 1. See NED. (s.v. Firk, 2, c).
=firk,= to move about briskly, to frisk, gallop. Shirley, Hyde Park, iv. 3 (Song). See NED. (s.v. Firk, 3 b).
=firk,= a frisk; (humorously), a dance. Shirley, Hyde Park, ii. 2 (Lacy).
=firk up,= to trim up. Shirley, Constant Maid, ii. 1 (Playfair).
=fisgig,= a light, worthless female, fond of gadding about. Tusser, Husbandry, § 77. 8; ‘_Trotiere_, a fisgig, fisking huswife, gadding flirt’, Cotgrave. See NED. (s.v. Fizgig).
=fisk,= to scamper about, frisk, move briskly; ‘Then he fyskes abrode’, Latimer, Fourth Sermon (ed. Arber, p. 104); ‘Tome Tannkard’s Cow . . . fysking with her taile’, Gammer Gurton’s Needle, i. 2; _fysking_, Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 45. 2; ‘Fisking about the house’, Otway, Venice Preserved, ii. 1 (Pierre). A Shropshire word (EDD.).
=fist,= a contemptuous expression; ‘Fist o’ your kindness!’, Eastward Ho, iv. 1 [_or_ 2] (Gertrude). Also spelt _fiste_, _fyste_, _foist_; the orig. sense is a breaking wind, a disagreeable smell. See NED. (s.v. Fist, sb.^{2}).
=fisting-hound,= a spaniel; a contemptuous term. Fleming, tr. of Caius’ Dogs; in Arber, Eng. Garner, iii. 287. See above.
=fitches,= ‘vetches’. BIBLE, Isaiah xxviii. 25; _fytches_, Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 20. 40, § 70. 8. ‘_Vesce_, . . . fitch or vitch’, Cotgrave. ‘Fitches’ in gen. prov. use in Scotland, Ireland, and England (EDD.).
=fitchock, fichok,= a polecat. Fletcher, Bonduca, i. 2 (Petillius); Scornful Lady, v. 1 (end). ‘Fitch’ is a common prov. word for the polecat; see EDD. (s.v. Fitch, also, Fitchock).
=fitten, fitton,= an untruth, an invention. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, i. 1 (Amorphus); Gascoigne, Fruites of Warre, st. 54. ‘Fitten’ is in prov. use for ‘an idle fancy’, ‘a pretence’, in Hants., Wilts., and Somerset (EDD.). ME. _fyton_ or lesynge, ‘mendacium’ (Prompt. EETS., see note no. 729).
=fitters,= fragments, rags, pieces. Beaumont and Fl., Custom of the Country, iii. 3. 4; Pilgrim, i. 1. 22. In prov. use in the north (EDD.).
=five-and-fifty,= the highest number to stand on, at the game of primero. But it could be beaten by a flush, i.e. when the cards were all of one colour. ‘As big as _five-and-fifty and flush_’; as confident as one who held five-and-fifty in number, and also held a flush; so that he could not be beaten; B. Jonson, Alchem. i. 1 (Face).
=five eggs:= in phr. _to come in with one’s five eggs_, to break in or interrupt fussily with an idle story; ‘Persones coming in with their five egges, how that Sylla had geuen ouer his office’, Udall, tr. of Erasmus’s Apoph., p. 272; ‘Another commeth in with his fiue egges’, Robinson, tr. More’s Utopia (ed. Arber, p. 56). The orig. phrase had reference to the offering of _five eggs for a penny_, which was a trivial offer, and not very advantageous to the purchaser in the sixteenth century; See =eggs= (2).
=fiveleaf,= cinquefoil, _Potentilla reptans_. Drayton, Pol. xiii. 229; ‘Of Cinquefoyle, or Five-finger grasse’, Lyte, tr. of Dodoens, bk. i, c. 56.
=fives,= a disease of horses. Tam. Shrew, iii. 2. 54; ‘Vyves, a disease that an horse hath, _avives_’, Palsgrave; so Cotgrave; ‘_Adivas_, the disease in Horses and other Beasts call’d the Vives’, Stevens, Span. Dict., 1706. Of Arabic origin, _ad-dhîba_, ‘morbi species qua affici solet guttur jumenti’ (Freytag); see Dozy, Glossaire, p. 45.
=fixation,= in alchemy; the process that rendered the elixir fixed. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Subtle).
=flacket,= a flask, bottle, or vessel; ‘A flacket of wyne’, Great Bible (1539), 1 Sam. xvi. 20; ‘A flacket, _Uter formam habens doliarem_’, Coles, Dict., 1679. In prov. use in Yorkshire for a small cask-shaped vessel for holding beer (EDD.). ME. _flaket_, ‘obba, uter’ (Cath. Angl.); _flakette_, ‘flasca’ (Prompt.). Anglo-F. _flaket_ (Gower).
=flag,= used as a sign or signal; ‘A flag and sign of love’, Othello, i. 1. 157; ‘His flag hangs out’ (i.e. as an advertisement), Middleton, The Widow, iv. 1 (Valeria); ‘’Tis Lent, the flag’s down’ (i.e. there is no flag flying above the theatre, because it is Lent, and the performances are suspended), Middleton, A Mad World, i. 1 (Follywit).
=flaighted, fleighted,= terrified. Golding, Metam. iv. 597; fol. 52 (1603); id., xi. 677. See NED. (s.v. Flaite, also, Flight). ‘To flight’ means properly ‘to put to flight’, hence, ‘to frighten’, ‘to scare’. Cp. EDD. (s.v. Flaite).
=flanker,= a fortification protecting men against a ‘flank’ or side attack; ‘Flankers . . . cannon-proof’, Marston, Antonio, Pt. I, i. 1 (Rossaline).
†=flantado,= flaunting display. Only occurs in Stanyhurst (tr. Aeneid, i. 44).
=flapdragon,= a combustible put in liquor, to be swallowed flaming; e.g. a raisin set on fire. L. L. L. v. 1. 45; Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, iv. 1 (Clause). Hence, as vb., to swallow quickly, Winter’s Tale, iii. 3. 100.
=flapjack,= a pancake; also, an apple turnover. Pericles, ii. 1. 87; Brome, Jovial Crew, ii. 1 (Vincent); see Nares. In prov. use in E. Anglia, Sussex, and Somerset (EDD.).
=flappet,= a little flap; ‘A flappet of wood’, Beaumont and Fl., Knight of the B. Pestle, i. 2 (_or_ 3), Ralph. The sense of _flap_ is here uncertain; perhaps a fly-flapper, to keep off flies.
=flash,= a pool, a marshy place. Drayton, Pol. xxv. 60; Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 70. In common prov. use in the north country, also in Lincoln and Shropshire; occurring frequently in place-names, see EDD. (s.v. Flash, sb.^{1} 1). ME. _flasch_, ‘lacuna’ (Prompt.), OF. _flache_, ‘locus aquis stagnantibus oppletus’ (Didot), Med. L. _flachia_ (Ducange).
=flask,= to flap; also, to cause to flutter; ‘To flask his wings’, Golding, Metam. vi. 703 (fol. 77); ‘The weather flaskt . . . her garments’, id., ii. last line.
=flasky,= (perhaps) belonging to a ‘flask’ or ‘flash’, a muddy pool; ‘The flasky fiends of Limbo lake’, Appius and Virginia, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 149. See NED.
=flat-cap,= a London citizen; esp. a London apprentice; ‘Flat-caps thou call’st us. We scorne not the name’, Heywood, 1 Edw. IV, sc. 1 (NED.); Beaumont and Fl., Knight of Malta, iii. 1 (Song, st. 4). See Nares.
=flatchet,= a sword. Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, i. 92; _flachet_, iii. 241. 529. Cp. MHG. _flatsche_, _flasche_, a sword with a broad blade (Weigand).
=flatted,= laid flat, levelled, made smooth. Dryden, Ceyx and Alcyone, 131; tr. of Virgil, Aeneid x, 158. See EDD. (s.v. Flat, v. 21).
=flaunt-a-flaunt,= flauntingly displayed. Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 1163.
=flaw,= a gust of wind. Arden of Fev. iv. 4. 44; 2 Hen. VI, iii. 1. 354; Hamlet, v. 1. 239. Metaphorically, a quarrel; Webster, White Devil (Camillo), ed. Dyce, p. 7. In prov. use in Scotland, also, in Devon and Cornwall (EDD.). Norw. dial, _flaga_, a gust of wind (Aasen).
=flaw,= to ‘flay’. B. Jonson, Alchem. iv. 1 (Subtle). In prov. use in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, see EDD. (s.v. Flaw, vb. 7).
=fleck,= to spot, stain; hence _fleckt_, spotted in the cheek, flushed with wine; ‘And drinke, till they be fleckt’, Mirror for Mag., Norfolk, st. 25. In prov. use in Scotland and various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Fleck, vb.^{1} 5). Cp. Norw. dial. _flekk_, a spot (Aasen).
=fledge,= fully fledged, ready to fly. Drayton, Muses’ Elysium, Nymphal ii. 147; ‘Fledge souls’, Herbert, Temple, Death. OE. _flycge_, fledged; cp. G. _flügge_. See Dict. (s.v. Fledge). See =flidge.=
=fleet,= to be afloat. Ant. and Cl. iii. 13. 171; to be overflowed, to be covered with water; Spenser, F. Q. iv. 9. 33; to pass or while away (time), As You Like It, i. 1. 124. OE. _flēotan_, to float.
=fleet,= to skim cream off milk; ‘I shall fleet their cream-bowls’, Grim the Collier, iv. 1 (Robin), in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, viii. 443; Lyly, Euphues (ed. Arber, p. 336). In prov. use in the north country, E. Anglia, and Kent and Sussex, see EDD. (s.v. Fleet, vb.^{2}). OE. _flēt_, cream. Cp. Bremen dial. _flöten_, ‘die Sahne von der Milch abnehmen’ (Wtb.).
=fleeten,= pale, of the colour of skimmed milk; ‘You fleeten face!’, Fletcher, Queen of Corinth, iii. 1 (Conon).
=fleet,= a creek, inlet, run of water. Drayton, Pol. xxiii. 191; xxv. 51. 129. In prov. use in various parts of England; esp. in E. Anglia and Kent; hence the name of Northfleet, see EDD. (s.v. Fleet, sb.^{1} 9). OE. _flēot_, estuary.
=fleme,= to put to flight. Morte Arthur, leaf 318. 8; bk. xiii, c. 16; lf. 414, back, 16; bk. xx, c. 17. OE. _flēman_ (Anglian), to put to flight; deriv. of _flēam_, flight.
=flert;= see =flirt.=
=flesh,= to feed with flesh, to satiate, All’s Well, iv. 3. 19; 2 Hen. IV, iv. 5. 133; to feed the sword with flesh for the first time, 1 Hen. IV, v. 4. 133; to make fierce and eager for combat, King John, v. 1. 71. Hence _fleshed_, eager for battle, inured to bloodshed, Richard III, iv. 3. 6; ‘A flesh’d ruffian’, Beaumont and Fl., Custom of the Country, iv. 2 (Zabulon).
=fletcher,= a maker or seller of arrows. Ascham, Toxophilus, p. 110; ‘Jack Fletcher and his bolt’, Damon and Pithias (Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 19). Anglo-F. _fleccher_, arrow-maker (Rough List); F. _flèche_, arrow.
=flete,= to float. Surrey, Description of Spring, 8; in Tottel’s Misc., p. 4. _Fletyng_, floating, swimming, Surrey, tr. of Aeneid, ii. 259. See =fleet.=
=flew,= the large chaps of a deep-mouthed hound; as of a bloodhound. Hence _flews_, with the sense of flaps, or flapping skirts, Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, v. 4 (Eyre). Hence also _flew’d_, having flews (of a particular quality), Mids. Night’s D. iv. 1. 125.
=flew,= a tube, pipe; see =flue.=
=flibote, fly-boat,= a fast-sailing vessel. Heywood, King Edw. IV (Spicing), vol. i, p. 38; If you know not me (Medina), vol. i, p. 336. Dutch _Vlie-boot_, boat on the river _Vlie_, the channel leading out of the Zuyder Zee. See NED. (s.v. Fly-boat).
=flicker,= to flutter. Fletcher, Pilgrim, i. 1 (Alphonso); Dryden, Palamon, 1399. Metaph. to make fond movements, as with wings: Palsgrave has, ‘_I flycker_, I kysse together.’
=flicker-mouse,= a bat, a ‘flittermouse’. B. Jonson, New Inn, iii. 1; ‘_Ratepenade_, a bat, rearmouse or flickermouse’, Cotgrave. A Sussex word (EDD.).
=flidge,= fledged, furnished with feathers. Warner, Albion’s England. bk. ii, ch. 10, st. 48; Peacham, Comp. Gentleman, c. 4, p. 33; _flig_, Peele, Edw. I (ed. Dyce, p. 408). OE. _flyege_, fledged. See =fledge.=
=flight,= an arrow for long distances, light and well-feathered. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, v. 3 (2 Masque: Cupid); _flight-shot_, the distance to which a flight-arrow is shot, about 600 yards; ‘A flite shot over, as much as the Tamise is above the Bridge’, Leland, Itin. (ed. 1744, iv. 41); ‘It being from the park about two flight-shots in length’, Desc. of Royal Entertainment, 1613 (Works of T. Campion, ed. Bullen, p. 179); ‘Two flight-shot off’, Heywood, A Woman Killed, iv. 5. 2.
=flip-flap,= a fly-flapper, for driving away flies. Dekker, O. Fortunatus, i. 2 (Andelocia); _flyp-flap_, a lap of a garment, Skelton, Elynour Rummyng, 508.
=flirt, flert,= to throw with a jerk, to jerk, fillip. Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, iii (ed. Arber, 84); Drayton, Pol. vi. 50; to move with a jerk, to dart, to take short quick flights, Stanyhurst, tr. Aeneid, i (ed. Arber, 31).
=flirt-gill, flurt-gill, flurt-gillian,= a woman of light behaviour, a flirt. Romeo, ii. 4. 162; Beaumont and Fl., Knt. of the B. Pestle, iv. 1 (Wife); _flurt-Gillian_, The Chances, iii. 1 (Landlady). ‘Gill’ and ‘Gillian’ are forms of the Christian-name ‘Juliana’.
=flitter-mouse,= a bat. B. Jonson, Sad Sheph. ii. 2 (Alken); Alchemist, v. 2 (Subtle). In common prov. use in various parts of England (EDD.).
=flix,= fur of the hare. Dryden, Annus Mirab. 132. Also applied to other animals; ‘the flix of goat’, Dyer, The Fleece, bk. iv, l. 104. In prov. use for the fur of a hare, rabbit, or cat, see EDD. (s.v. Flick, sb.^{3}).
=float,= flow, flood of the tide. Ford, Love’s Sacr. ii. 3; _in float_, at high water, ‘Hee being now in Float for Treasure’, Bacon, Henry VII (ed. Lumby, 128); Middleton, Span. Gipsy, i. 5 (Rod). See =flote= (wave).
=flocket,= a loose garment with long sleeves. Skelton, El. Rummyng, 53.
=Florentine,= a kind of pie; meat baked in a dish, with a cover of paste. Beaumont and Fl., Woman-hater, v. 1 (Lazarillo); ‘I went to Florence, from whence we have the art of making custards, which are therefore called Florentines’, Wit’s Interpreter (Nares).
=flote,= a fleet. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 142, back, 31; 216, back, 1; Hakluyt, Voy. i. 296, l. 2; spelt _floate_, Gascoigne, Fruites of Warre, st. 135. OE. _flota_, a ship, fleet (BT.).
=flote,= a wave, billow; also, the sea; ‘The Mediterranean Flote’, Tempest, i. 2. 234; ‘The flotes of the see’, Caxton, Jason, 114 (NED.). OF. _flot_, a wave (Hatzfeld); cp. OE. _flot_, the sea (Sweet).
=flote,= to skim milk, to take off the cream. Tusser, Husbandry, § 49. 1. See EDD. (s.v. Float, vb. 16).
=flower-de-luce,= the ‘fleur-de-lis’, a plant of the genus Iris. Tusser, Husbandry, § 43. 11; Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 16; Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 127; also, the heraldic lily, the armorial emblem of France, 1 Hen. VI, i. 1. 80.
=flown:= ‘The Sons of Belial, flown with insolence and wine’, Milton, P. L. i. 502; ‘Flowen with wine’, Ussher, Ann, vi. 250 (NED.). ‘Flown’ was orig. used of a stream in full flow, ‘in flood’; ‘Cedron . . . in wynter . . . is mervaylously flowen with rage of water’, Guilford’s Pilgrimage (ed. Camden Soc. 31). See NED. (s.v. Flow, vb. 11 b).
†=fluce,= to flounce, plunge; ‘They [cattle] backward fluce and fling’, Drayton, The Moon-calf, 1352. Not found elsewhere.
=flue, flew,= an air-passage, a tube or pipe. In NED. (s.v. Flue, sb.^{3}) is this note:—‘The following passage is usually quoted as the earliest example of the word, which is supposed to mean here the spiral cavity of a shell. But _flue_ is probably a misprint for _flute_. [The quotation follows]: 1562, Phaer, _Aeneid_ x [l. 209 of Lat. text] With whelkid shell Whoes wrinckly wreathed _flue_, did fearful shril in seas outyell.’ But this suggestion cannot be right; for the word occurs again in a parallel passage, where the spelling is _flew_, occurring at the end of a line, and riming with _blew_; viz. ‘Dolphins blew, And Tritons blowe their Trumpes, y^{t} sounds in seas w^{t} dropping _flew_,’ Phaer, tr. of Aeneid, v. 824.
=fluence,= a flowing stream. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xvi. 224; also, fluency, Heywood, Fair Maid of the Exchange (Works, vol. ii, p. 86).
=flundering,= ‘floundering’, plunging and tossing; ‘Th’ unruly flundring steeds’, H. More, Song of Soul, i. 1. 17; Chapman, Gent. Usher, i. 1 (Vincentio); the word makes no sense here, for the passage is intentional nonsense. But it’s a loud-sounding and impressive word.
†=flundge,= fly out, are flung out. Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, i. 59. An onomatopoeic word, not found elsewhere.
=flurt at,= to sneer at, to scoff at. Two Noble Kinsmen, i. 2. 19; Beaumont and Fl., Rule a Wife, iii. 2; id., Pilgrim, i. 1; iii. 1; Wild Goose Chase, ii. 1. See NED. (s.v. Flirt, vb. 4 a).
=flush,= a term at primero; when a player held four cards of the same colour. B. Jonson, Alchem. i. 1 (Face). See =five-and-fifty.=
=fluxure,= fluidity; also, moisture; ‘Moisture and fluxure’, B. Jonson, Induct. to Ev. Man out of Humour (Asper); Mirror for Mag., Cromwell (by Drayton), st. 117. Late L. _fluxura_ (Tertullian).
=fly,= a domestic parasite, a familiar. Massinger, Virgin Martyr, ii. 2 (Theoph.). Also, a familiar spirit; ‘I have my flies abroad’, B. Jonson, Alchem. iii. 2 (Face). See NED. (s.v. Fly, sb.^{1} 5, a, b.).
=fly-boat;= see =flibote.=
=fob;= See =fub= (2).
=fobus,= a cheat; for _fob-us_, i.e. cheat us; from _fob_, to cheat. ‘You old fobus’, Wycherley, Plain Dealer, ii (Jerry).
=fode,= a creature, person, man. Squire of Low Degree, l. 364; in Hazlitt, Early Pop. Poetry, ii. 37; The World and the Child, l. 4; in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 243. Also, a companion, id. 247. ME. _fode_, a person, creature (Prov. Hendyng, 63); see Dict. M. and S.
=fode, foad,= to beguile with show of kindness or fair words, to soothe in fancied security. Golding translates ‘Favet huic Aurora timori’, in Ovid, Met. vii. 721, by ‘The morning foading this my feare’, ed. 1587, 99^{b}. Skelton has _fode_, Magnyfycence, 1719. ME. _foden_, to beguile (Will. Palerne, 1646).
=fog,= rank, coarse grass. Drayton, Pol. xiii. 399; ‘Fogg in some places signifies long grass remaining in pasture till winter’, Worlidge, Dict. Rust.; ‘Fogge, _postfaenium_’, Levins, Manipulus. Hence _foggy_, abounding in coarse grass, Drayton, Pol. xxiii. 115; moist, Golding, Metam. xv. 203. ‘Fog’ is in prov. use in various parts of England for the aftermath; the long grass left standing in the fields during winter (EDD.). ME. _fogge_ (Cleanness, 1683, in Allit. Poems, 85). Norm. dial. _fogge_, long grass (Ross).
=fog,= to traffic in a servile way, hunt after, cheat. _Fogging_ rascal, Webster, Devil’s Law-case, iv. 2 (Ariosto). A back-formation from _fogger_; cp. ‘pettyfogger’; see Dict. (s.v. Petty).
=foggy,= flabby, puffy, corpulent; ‘Fat and foggy’, Contention betw. Liberality and Prodigality, v. 4 (Lib.); in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, viii. 377; ‘_Un enbonpoint de nourrice_, a plump, fat, or foggy constitution of body’, Cotgrave; ‘Foggy, to [too] ful of waste flesshe’, Palsgrave. Also _fog_, bloated, Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, iii. 672. ‘Foggy’ is in prov. use in the north country for fat, corpulent.
=fogue,= fury. Dryden, Astraea Redux, 203. Ital. _foga_, fury, violent force (Florio).
=foil, foyle,= to tread under foot, trample down; ‘That Idoll . . . he did foyle In filthy durt’, Spenser. F. Q. v. 11. 33; the tread or track of a hunted animal, ‘What? hunt a wife on the dull foil!’, Otway, Venice Preserved, iii. 2 (Pierre); _foyling_, ‘_Foulée_, the slot of a stag, the fuse of a buck (the view or footing of either) upon hard ground, grass, leaves, or dust; we call it (most properly) his foyling’, Cotgrave. See NED. (s.v. Foil, vb.^{1} 2).
=foil, foyle,= repulse, defeat, disgrace. Mirror for Mag., Cordila, st. 18; 1 Hen. VI, v. 3. 23. See above.
=foin,= a thrust, in fencing. King Lear, iv. 6. 251; ‘Keep at the foin’ (i.e. do not close in fight), Marriage of Wit and Science, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, ii. 389.
=foist,= a light galley; ‘The Lord Mayor’s foist,’ B. Jonson, Epig. cxxxiii; Voyage, 100; Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, ii. 6. 17. F. _fuste_, ‘a foist, a light galley’ (Cotgr.). Ital. _fusta_, ‘a foist, a fly-boat, a light galley’ (Florio); O. Prov. _fusta_, ‘poutre, bois, vaisseau, navire’ (Levy); Med. L. _fusta_, a galley, orig. a piece of timber (Ducange). See =galley-foist.=
=foist= (a term in dice-play), to ‘palm’ or conceal in the fist, to manage the dice so as to fall as required, Ascham, Toxophilus (ed. Arber, 54); to cheat, play tricks, Middleton, Span. Gipsy, ii. 1 (Alvarez); a cheat, a pickpocket, B. Jonson, Every Man, iv. 4 (Cob); Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1; a trick, B. Jonson, Volpone, iii. 6 (Vol.); _foister_, a cheat, a sharper, Mirror for Mag., Burdet, st. 32. Du. _vuisten_, to keep in the fist; _vuist_, the fist. See NED.
=folk-mote,= an assembly of the people. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 4. 6. OE. _folc-mōt_; _folc_, folk, people, and _mōt_, a moot or meeting.
=folt,= a foolish person. Disobedient Child, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, ii. 304; _foult_, Drant, tr. of Horace, Sat. i. 1. ME. _folett_, ‘stolidus’ (Prompt.). OF. _folet_, ‘a pretty fool, a little fop, a young coxe, none of the wisest’ (Cotgr.).
=folter.= Of the limbs: to give way; ‘His [the horse’s] legges hath foltred’, Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, bk. 1, ch. 17; of one’s speech: to stumble, to stammer, Golding, Metam. iii. 277. See NED. (s.v. Falter, vb.^{1}).
=fon,= a fool. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 59. ME. _fon_ (Wars Alex. 2944); _fonne_ (Chaucer, C. T. A. 4089).
=fond,= to play the fool, become foolish; to dote; ‘I fonde, or dote upon’, Palsgrave. Hence _fonded_, befooled, full of folly, Surrey, tr. of Aeneid, iv, l. 489 (L. _demens_, l. 374); ‘A fonded louer’ (an infatuated lover), Turbervile, The Lover, seing himselfe abusde, renounceth love, l. 11.
†=fond,= to found. Misspelt, for the sake of a quibble upon _fond_, foolish; Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, iii. 3 (Hammon).
=fone,= foes. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 10. 10; Visions of Bellay, v. 10. OE. _ge-fān_, foes; pl. of _ge-fā_, a foe.
=foody,= abounding in food, supplying food. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xi. 104; ‘Their foody fall,’ their settlement in a food-supplying place, id., xv. 638. ‘Foody’ is in prov. use in the north of England for rich, fertile, full of grass (EDD.).
=footcloth,= a large richly-ornamented cloth laid over the back of a horse and hanging down to the ground on each side; considered as a mark of dignity and state (NED.). 2 Hen. VI, iv. 7. 51; Fletcher, Noble Gentleman, ii. 1 (Marine); Beaumont and Fl., Thierry, v. 2 (Thierry); ‘My foot-cloth horse’, Richard III, iii. 4. 80; hence _foot-cloth_, a horse provided with this adornment, Beaumont and Fl., Coxcomb, v. 1. 10.
=foot-pace,= a raised platform for supporting a chair of state. Bacon, Essay 56, § 4; Chapman, tr. of Odyssey, x. 466. F. _pas_, a step.
†=foot-saunt,= a game at cards; also called _cent-foot_, and apparently the same as _cent_. Only in Gosson, School of Abuse, p. 35. See =cent.=
=fopdoodle,= a simpleton. Massinger, Gt. Duke of Florence, ii. 1 (Calaminta); Butler, Hud. ii. 3. 998.
=for-,= intensive prefix, as distinct from _fore-_, beforehand. OE. _for-_. Examples are given below: as _for-do_, _-hale_, _-slack_, _-slow_, _-speak_, _-spent_, _-swatt_, _-swonck_, _-weary_, _-wounded_.
=for,= against, in order to prevent; chiefly with a sb. of verbal origin. Marlowe, 2 Tamburlaine, iv. 2; Two Gent. of Verona, i. 2. 136; _for going_, i.e. to prevent going, to save from going, Pericles, i. 1. 40. (Common; and, if the meaning be not caught, the sense of the sentence is altered.)
=forby, foreby,= hard by, near. Spenser, F. Q. i. 6. 39; v. 2. 54; by, id., v. 11. 17. ME. _forby_ (Barbour’s Bruce, x. 345).
=force.= _Of force_, of necessity, Bacon, Adv. Learning, ii. 5. 2; _on force_, Heywood and Rowley, Fortune by Land, &c., ii. 1 (John); Works, vi. 381; _force perforce_, by violent constraint, King John, iii. 1. 142; 2 Hen. IV, iv. 1. 116; _to hunt at force_, to run the game down with dogs instead of slaying with weapons, B. Jonson, Sad Shepherd, i. 2 (Robin).
=force.= _It is force_, it is of consequence or importance; usually negative, _it is no force_, it does not matter, _no force_, no matter, _what force_? what matter?; ‘No force for that, for it is ordered so’, Wyatt, The Courtier’s Life (Works, ed. Bell, 217). ME. _no force_, _no fors_, no matter, no consequence; _what fors_, what matter (Chaucer). Cp. Anglo-F. _force ne fe_t, it makes no force, it matters not (Bozon).
=force,= to trouble oneself, care; ‘I force it not’, I reck not of it, I care not for it, Mucedorus, Induction, 68; _it forceth not_, it matters not, it is not material, Stubbes, Anat. Abuses (ed. Furnivall, 52). See NED. (s.v. Force, vb.^{1} 14 b).
=fordo,= to destroy, overcome. Hamlet, ii. 1. 103. OE. _fordōn_, to destroy.
=fore-,= prefix; often miswritten for the prefix _for-_, as in _forespent_ for _forspent_. See under =for-.=
=forehand:= in phr. _forehand_ (_shaft_), an arrow used for shooting straight before one. Ascham, Toxoph. p. 126; 2 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 52; former, previous, Much Ado, iv. 1. 51; foremost, leading, Butler, Hud. ii. 2. 618; in the front, the mainstay, Tr. and Cr. i. 3. 143.
=forelay,= to lie in wait for. Dryden, Palamon, i. 493; also, to hinder, Dryden, tr. of Virgil, Aeneid xi, 781.
=forepoynted,= appointed beforehand. Gascoigne, Hermit’s Tale, § 2; ed. Hazlitt, ii. 141.
=fore-right,= right on, straight ahead. Beaumont and Fl., Knt. of Malta, ii. 3. 8; said of a favourable wind, Massinger, Renegado, v. 8 (Aga). In prov. use in Devon and Cornwall in the sense of straight forward (EDD.).
=foreset.= _Of foreset_, of set purpose, purposely. Ferrex and Porrex, ii. 2, chorus, 13. See NED.
=forespeak,= to predict; especially, to foretell evil about one. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xvi. 792; xvii. 32; Witch of Edmonton, ii. 1 (Mother Sawyer).
=forfaint,= very faint, extremely languid. Sackville, Induction, § 15; Mirror for Mag., Buckingham, st. 73.
=forfare,= to perish, decay; ‘Thonge Castell . . . is now forfaryn’, Fabyan, Chron., Pt. V, c. 83 (side-note); ed. Ellis, 61. ME. _forfaren_ (Gen. and Ex. 3018).
=forgetive,= inventive. 2 Hen. IV, iv. 3. 107. A word of uncertain formation, commonly taken to be a deriv. of the vb. ‘to forge’.
=forgrown,= grown out of use. Gascoigne, Prol., to Hermit’s Tale, ed. Hazlitt, i. 139.
=forhaile,= to distract. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Sept., 243. See NED. (s.v. For-, prefix^{1} 5 b).
=for-hent,= seized beforehand. Better _fore-hent_, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 4. 49. From _fore_, before, and _hent_, caught, from OE. _hentan_, to seize.
=forhewed,= much hacked, severely cut. Sackville, Induction, st. 57.
=forjust,= to tire out in ‘justing’, beat in a tilting-match. Morte Arthur, leaf 162. 35; bk. viii, c. 33.
=forkhead,= the head of an arrow, with two barbs pointing forward, instead of backward, as in the _swallow-tail_. Ascham, Toxophilus, p. 135.
=forks,= a forked stake used as a (Roman) whipping-post. Fletcher, Bonduca, i. 2 (Petillius); ii. 4 (Decius). L. _furcae_, pl., forks; hence, a yoke under which defeated enemies passed; also, a whipping-post.
=forlore,= utterly wasted. Sackville, Induction, st. 48; _forlorne_, made bare, id. st. 8. OE. _forloren_, pp. of _forlēosan_, to lose, also, to destroy.
=formerly,= first of all, beforehand. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 1. 38; vi. 3. 38. Also, just now, even now; id., ii. 12. 67; Merch. Venice, iv. 1. 362.
=forpine,= to waste away. Gascoigne, Complaint of Philomene, 15; _forpined_, wasted, Hall, Sat. v. 2. 91.
=forsane,= _pp._ ‘forsaken’, avoided, Twyne, tr. Aeneid, x. 720; xi. 412. I can find no third example of the form _forsaken_ being thus contracted. (Not in NED.).
=forslack, foreslack,= to delay, to spoil by delay. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 12. 12; vii. 7. 45.
=forslow,= to delay. Marlowe, Edw. II, ii 4. 39. Ill spelt _foreslow_, 3 Hen. VI, ii. 3. 56; B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, v. 5 (Macilense).
=forsonke,= deeply sunk. Sackville, Induction, st. 20.
=forspeak,= to speak against. Ant. and Cl. iii. 7. 3.
=forspeak,= to bewitch. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, iii. 1 (Asotus); Middleton, Witch of Edmonton, ii. 1. 12; ‘They [the witches] saie they have . . . forespoken hir neighbour’, R. Scot, Discov. Witchcraft, iii. 2. 45 (NED.); ‘_Fasciner_, to charm, bewitch, forspeak; _fasciné_, forspoken’, Cotgrave. In prov. use in Scotland for ‘to bewitch’, ‘to cause ill-luck by immoderate praise’ (EDD.). ME. _forspekyn_, or charmyn, ‘fascino’ (Prompt.).
=forspent,= exhausted. 2 Hen. IV, i. 1. 37; misspelt _forespent_, Sackville, Induction, st. 12.
=forswatt,= covered with ‘sweat’. Spenser, Shep. Kal., April, 99.
=forswonck,= spent with toil. Spenser, Shep. Kal., April, 99. See =swink.=
=forth dayes,= late in the day. Morte Arthur, leaf 402, back, 19; bk. xx, c. 5. ME. ‘Whanne it was forth daies hise disciplis camen’, Wyclif, Mark vi. 35.
=forthink,= to regret, to be sorry for. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 4. 32; ‘I forthynke, I repent me, _Je me repens_’, Palsgrave. A north-country word (EDD.), ME. _forthynke_, ‘penitere’ (Cath. Angl.); OE. for _forþencan_, to despise.
=forthright,= straight forward. Dryden, tr. Aeneid, xii. 1076; id., Palamon, ii. 237; used as sb., a straight course, Tr. and Cr. iii. 3. 158. In use in Scotland, see EDD. (s.v. Forth). ME. _forth right_ (Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 295).
=forthy,= therefore, on that account. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 14; Shep. Kal., March, 37. ME. _for-thy_, therefore (Chaucer, C. T. A. 1841); OE. _for-ðȳ_.
=forwaste,= wasted utterly. Sackville, Induction, st. 11. (Better _forwast_, where _wast_ is contracted from _wasted_.) _Forwasted_, laid waste, Spenser, F. Q. i. 11. 1.
=forwearied,= extremely wearied. Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 13; Davies, Orchestra, 58 (Arber’s Garland, v. 37).
=forwhy,= because. Peele, Edw. I, ed. Dyce, p. 412, col. 1; Richard II, v. 1. 46. ME. _for-why_ (Chaucer, Bk. Duch. 461); see Dict. M. and S., and Wright’s Bible Word-Book.
=forwithered,= utterly withered. Sackville, Induction, st. 12.
=forworn,= worn out, exhausted. Gascoigne, Jocasta, iv. 1 (Antigone).
=forwounded,= badly wounded. Morte Arthur, leaf 175, back, 26; bk. ix, c. 9.
=foster,= a ‘forester’. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 1. 17; iii. 4. 50. Hence the surname ‘Foster’.
=fougade,= a small powder-mine; applied to the gunpowder plot of Guy Fawkes; ‘The fougade or powder plot’, Sir T. Browne, Rel. Medici, pt. i, § 17. F. _fougade_, a mine (Cotgr.).
=foulder,= a thunder-bolt. Mirror for Mag., Clarence, st. 47; hence as vb., to drive out, as with a thunder-bolt, id., Mortimer, st. 4. Anglo-F. _fouldre_ (Gower).
=fouldring,= thunderous. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 2. 20.
=foumerd,= a ‘foumart’, polecat. Ascham, Toxophilus, p. 52. For numerous forms of this very general prov. name for the polecat see EDD. (s.v. Foumart). See =fulmart.=
=fourraye,= to fall upon, attack, raid; lit. to foray, plunder, act as forayers. Caxton, Hist. of Troye, leaf 203. 8; _foureyed and threstid_, charged and thrust, id., leaf 299. 29. See NED. (s.v. Foray).
=foutra, footra,= an expression of contempt; _a foutra for_, a fig for. 2 Hen. IV, v. 3. 103; Fletcher, Mons. Thomas, iv. 2 (Launcelot). For the origin, see NED.
=fowe, fow,= to clean out, cleanse; ‘I fowe a gonge’, Palsgrave. In prov. use in some parts of England for the more usual ‘fey’ or ‘fie’, see EDD. (s.v. Fay, vb.^{2}). ME. _fowyn_, or make clean, ‘mundo, emundo’ (Prompt. EETS. 184, see note no. 833); Icel. _fāga_, to clean.
=fowl,= a bird; pronounced like _fool_, and quibbled upon. 3 Hen. VI, v. 6. 18-20.
=fox,= a kind of sword. Hen. V, iv. 4. 9; ‘A right [genuine] fox’, Two Angry Women, ii. 4 (Coomes). The wolf on some makes of sword-blade is supposed to have been mistaken for a fox.
=foxed,= drunk. (Cant.) Fletcher, Fair Maid of the Inn, ii. 3 (Clown); _fox_, to make drunk, Middleton, Span. Gipsy, iii. 1 (near the end); Pepys, Diary, Oct. 26, 1660.
=fox-in-the-hole,= a game in which boys hopped on one leg, and beat each other with pieces of leather (Boas). Kyd, Soliman and Persida, i. 3 (end); Herrick, The Country Life, 57.
=foy,= fidelity, homage. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 10. 41. F. _foi_, faith.
=fraight,= _pp._ fraught, loaded. Peele, Poems, ed. Dyce, p. 601, col. 1; Spenser, F. Q. i. 12. 35.
=frail,= a basket made of rushes. B. Jonson, Volpone, v. 2 (Peregrine); ‘A frail of figges’, Lyly, Mother Bombie, iv. 2 (Silena); ‘_Cabas_, a frail for raisins or figs’, Cotgrave; so Palsgrave. In common prov. use in various parts of England—the Midlands, E. Anglia, and south-west counties—for a soft flexible basket used by workmen and tradesmen (EDD.). ME. _ffrayl_ of _ffrute_, ‘carica’ (Prompt.), _fraiel_ (Wyclif, Jer. xxiv. 2); OF. _frayel_, ‘cabas à figues’ (La Curne). See Thomas, Phil. Fr. 366.
=fraischeur,= freshness, coolness. Dryden, Poem on the Coronation, 102. F. _fraischeur_ (mod. _fraîcheur_), coolness (Cotgr.).
=franion,= an idle, loose, licentious person. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 2. 37; v. 3. 22; Heywood, 1