SHAKESPEARE, _Julius Cæsar_, act iv. sc. 3

As that empty barren _companion_ in St. James who bids the

poor be warm and fed and clothed (as if he were all made of

mercy), yet neither clothes, feeds, nor warms his back, belly,

or flesh, so fares it with these lovers.--ROGERS, _Naaman the

Syrian_, p. 391.

The young ladies, who thought themselves too much concerned

to contain themselves any longer, set up their throats all

together against my protector. ‘Scurvy _companion_! saucy

tarpaulin! rude, impertinent fellow! did he think to prescribe

to grandpapa!’--SMOLLETT, _Roderick Random_, vol. i. c. 3.

=CONCEITED=, }

CONCEITEDLY. }

‘Conceit’ is so entirely and irrecoverably lost to the language of

philosophy, that it would be well if ‘concept,’ used often by our

earlier philosophical writers, were revived.[13] Yet ‘conceit’ has

not so totally forsaken all its former meanings (for there are still

‘_happy_ conceits’ in poetry), as have ‘conceited,’ which once meant

well conceived, and ‘conceitedly.’

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyn

Which had on it _conceited_ characters.

SHAKESPEARE, _A Lover’s Complaint_.

Triumphal arches the glad town doth raise,

And tilts and tourneys are performed at court,

_Conceited_ masques, rich banquets, witty plays.

DRAYTON, _The Miseries of Queen Margaret_.

The edge or hem of a garment is distinguished from the rest

most commonly by some _conceited_ or costly work.--COWELL, _The

Interpreter_, s. v. Broderess.

Cicero most pleasantly and _conceitedly_.--HOLLAND,

_Suetonius_, p. 21.

=CONCUBINE.= Our Dictionaries do not notice that the male paramour

no less than the female was sometimes called by this name; on the

contrary, their definitions exclude this.

The Lady Anne did falsely and traiterously procure divers of

the King’s daily and familiar servants to be her adulterers and

_concubines_.--_Indictment of Anne Boleyn._

=CONJURE.= The quotation from Foxe shows that this use of ‘to conjure’

as to conspire is not, as one might at first suspect, one of Milton’s

Latinisms, and as such peculiar to him.

Divers, as well horsemen as footmen, had _conjured_ among

themselves and conspired against the Englishmen, selling their

horses and arms aforehand.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs_, 1641, vol.

i. p. 441.

Art thou that traitor angel? art thou he

That first broke peace in heaven, and faith till then

Unbroken, and, in proud rebellious arms,

Drew after him the third part of Heaven’s sons,

_Conjured_ against the Highest?

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, ii. 689.

=CONTEMPTIBLE.= ‘Adjectives in “able” and “ible,” both positive and

negative ones, are frequently used by old writers in an active sense’

(S. Walker, _Criticisms on Shakespeare_, vol. i. p. 183: whom see).

‘Contemptible’ where we should now use ‘contemptuous’ is one of these;

‘intenible’ (_All’s Well that Ends Well_, act i. sc. 3) another;

‘discernible’ a third.

Darius wrote to Alexander in a proud and _contemptible_

manner.--Lord STERLING, _Darius_, 1603 (in the argument

prefixed to the Play).

If she should make tender of her love, ’tis very possible he’ll

scorn it, for the man, as you know all, hath a _contemptible_

spirit.--SHAKESPEARE, _Much Ado about Nothing_, act ii. sc. 3.

I do not mock, nor lives there such a villain,

That can do anything _contemptible_

To you; but I do kneel, because it is

An action very fit and reverent

In presence of so pure a creäture.

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

=CONVINCE.= This and ‘convict’ have been usefully desynonymized. One

is ‘convinced’ of a sin, but ‘convicted’ of a crime; the former word

moving always in the sphere of moral or intellectual things, but the

latter often in that of things merely external.

Your Italy contains none so accomplished a courtier to

_convince_ the honour of my mistress.--SHAKESPEARE,

_Cymbeline_, act i. sc. 4.

Keep off that great concourse, whose violent hands

Would ruin this stone-building and drag hence

This impious judge, piecemeal to tear his limbs,

Before the law _convince_ him.

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

There was none of you that _convinced_ Job, or that answered

his words.--_Job_ xxxii. 12. (A. V.)

=COPY.= A more Latin use of ‘copy,’ as ‘copia’ or abundance, was at one

time frequent in English. It is easy to trace the steps by which the

word attained its present significance. The only way to obtain ‘copy’

(in this Latin sense) or abundance of any document, would be by taking

‘copies’ (in our present sense) of it. Then, too, it often meant the

exemplar, and is so used in the quotations from Shakespeare and Jeremy

Taylor.

We cannot follow a better pattern for elocution than God

Himself. Therefore He using divers words in his Holy Writ, and

indifferently for one thing in nature, we may use the same

liberty in our English versions out of Hebrew or Greek, for

that _copy_ or store that He hath given us.--_The Translators

[of the Bible, 1611] to the Reader._

Be _copy_ now to men of grosser blood,

And teach them how to war.

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

Drayton’s Heroical Epistles are well worth the reading also,

for the purpose of our subject, which is to furnish an

English historian with choice and _copy_ of tongue.--BOLTON,

_Hypercritica_, p. 235.

The sun, the prince of all the bodies of light, is the

principal, the rule and the _copy_, which they in their

proportions imitate and transcribe.--Bishop TAYLOR,

_Exhortation to the Imitation of Christ_.

=COQUET.= At present all our ‘coquets’ are female. But, as in the case

with so many other words instanced in this volume, what once belonged

to both sexes is now restricted to one.

_Cocquet_; a beau, a gallant, a general lover; also a wanton

girl that speaks fair to several lovers at once.--PHILLIPS,

_New World of Words_.

=CORPSE.= Now only used for the body abandoned by the spirit of life,

but once for the body of the living equally as of the dead; now

only = ‘cadaver,’ but once ‘corpus’ as well. It will follow that ‘dead

corpses’ (_2 Kings_ xix. 35 and often) is not a tautology.

A valiant _corpse_, where force and beauty met.

SURREY, _On the Death of Sir T. Wyatt_.

Night is the sabbath of mankind,

To rest the body and the mind:

Which now thou art denied to keep,

And cure thy laboured _corpse_ with sleep.

BUTLER, _Hudibras_, iii. 1. 1349.

Women and maids shall particularly examine themselves about

the variety of their apparell, their too much care of their

_corps_.--_Richeome’s Pilgrim of Loretto, by G. W._

Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of trades

Could not relieve your _corps_ with so much linen

Would make you tinder, but to see a fire.

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

=COUNTERFEIT.= Now, to imitate with the purpose of passing off the

imitation as the original; but no such dishonest intention was formerly

implied in the word.

I wol noon of thapostles _counterfete_:

I wol have money, wolle, chese and whete,

Al were it yeven of the prestes page,

Or of the porest wydow in a village.

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

Christ prayseth not the unrighteous stuard, neither setteth him

forth to us to _counterfeit_, because of his unrighteousness,

but because of his wisdom only, in that he with unright so

wisely provided for himself.--TYNDALE, _The Parable of the

Wicked Mammon_.

But for the Greek tongue they do note in some of his epistles

that he [Brutus] _counterfeited_ that brief compendious manner

of speech of the Lacedæmonians.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p.

818.

=COURTESAN.= The Low Latin ‘cortesanus’ was once one haunting the

court, a courtier, ‘aulicus,’ though already in Shakespeare we often

meet the word in its present use.

By the wolf, no doubt, was meant the Pope, but the fox was

resembled to the prelates, _courtesans_, priests, and the rest

of the spirituality.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs_, ed. 1641, vol.

i. p. 511.

=COURTSHIP.= We now assign to this and to ‘courtesy’ their own several

domains of meanings; but they were once promiscuously used. See

for another example of the same the quotation from Fuller, _s. v._

‘Defalcation.’

As he [Charles I.], to acquit himself, hath not spared

his adversaries, to load them with all sorts of blame and

accusation, so to him, as in his book alive, there will be used

no more _courtship_ than he uses.--MILTON, _Iconoclastes_, The

Preface.

=CUMBER=, }

CUMBROUS. }

This word, the Old French _combrer_, has lost much of the force which

it once possessed; it means now little more than passively to burden.

It was once actively to annoy, disquiet, or mischief. It was as

possessing this force that our Translators rendered ἵνα τί καὶ τὴν γῆν

καταργεῖ; ‘why _cumbereth_ it the ground?’ (_Luke_ xiii. 7.)

The archers in the forefront so wounded the footmen, so galled

the horses, and so _combred_ the men of arms that the footmen

durst not go forward.--HALL, _Henry V._ fol. 17, 6.

We have herde that certayne of oures are departed, and have

troubled you and have _combred_ [ἀνασκευάζοντες] your myndes,

sayenge, Ye must be circumcised and must keep the law.--_Acts_

xv. 24. COVERDALE.

But Martha was _cumbered_ [περιεσπᾶτο, cf. ver. 41: μεριμνᾷs

καὶ τυρβάζῃ] about much serving.--_Luke_ x. 40. (A.V.)

A cloud of _combrous_ gnats do him molest,

All striving to infix their feeble stings.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, i. 1. 23.

=CUNNING.= The fact that so many words implying knowledge, art, skill,

obtain in course of time a secondary meaning of crooked knowledge, art

that has degenerated into artifice, skill used only to circumvent,

which meanings partially or altogether put out of use their primary,

is a mournful witness to the way in which intellectual gifts are too

commonly misapplied. Thus there was a time when the Latin ‘dolus’

required the epithet ‘malus,’ as often as it signified a treacherous

or fraudful device; but it was soon able to drop this as superfluous,

and to stand by itself. Other words which have gone the same downward

course are the following: τέχνη, ‘astutia,’ ‘calliditas,’ ‘List,’

‘Kunst,’ and our English ‘craft’ and ‘cunning,’--the last, indeed, as

early as Lord Bacon, who says, ‘We take _cunning_ for a sinister or

crooked wisdom,’ had acquired what is now its only acceptation; but not

then, nor till long after, to the exclusion of its more honourable use.

How honourable that use sometimes was, my first quotation will testify.

I believe that all these three Persons [in the Godhead] are

even in power and in _cunning_ and in might, full of grace and of

all goodness.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of William

Thorpe_.

So the number of them, with their brethren, that were

instructed in the songs of the Lord, even all that were

_cunning_, was two hundred fourscore and eight.--_1 Chron._

xxv. 7. (A.V.)

=CURATE.= Rector, vicar, every one having _cure_ of souls in a parish,

was a ‘curate’ once. Thus ‘bishops and _curates_’ in the Liturgy.

They [the begging friars] letten _curats_ to know Gods law by

holding bookes fro them, and withdrawing of their vantages, by

which they shulden have books and lerne.--WICLIF, _Treatise

against the Friars_, p. 56.

If there be any man wicked because his _curate_ teacheth

him not, his blood shall be required at the _curate’s_

hands.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, p. 525.

Henry the Second of England commanded all prelates and

_curates_ to reside upon their dioceses and charges.--Bishop

TAYLOR, _Ductor Dubitantium_, b. iii. c. 1.

_Curate_, a parson or vicar, one that serves a cure, or has the

charge of souls in a parish.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.

=CUSTOMER.= One sitting officially at the receipt of customs, that is,

of dues customably paid, and receiving these, and not one repairing

customably to a shop to purchase there, was a ‘customer’ two and three

centuries ago.

He healeth the man of the palsye, calleth Levi the _customer_,

eateth with open synners, and excuseth his disciples.--_What S.

Marke conteyneth._ COVERDALE.

The extreme and horrible covetousness of the farmers,

_customers_, and Roman usurers devoured it [Asia].--NORTH,

_Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 432.

We hardly can abide publicans, _customers_, and toll-gatherers,

when they keep a ferreting and searching for such things as be

hidden.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 138.

=DANGER=, }

DANGEROUS. }

A feudal term, beset with many difficulties when we seek to follow

it as it passes to its present use; but very well worth some study

bestowed upon it. Ducange has written on the subject, and Diez, and

Littré (_Hist. de la Langue Franç._ vol. i. p. 49). [The Old French

_dangier_, _dongier_, power, lordship, refusal, danger, is of Late

Latin origin, representing a form _dominiarium_ (from Latin _dominium_)

which signified properly the strict right of the suzerain in regard to

the fief of the vassal]; thus, ‘fief de _danger_,’ a fief held under a

lord on strict conditions, and therefore in peril of being forfeited

(juri stricto atque adeo confiscationi obnoxium; Ducange). There is

no difficulty here; but there is another early use of ‘danger’ and

‘dangerous’ which is not thus explained, nor yet the connexion between

it and the modern meaning of the words. I refer to that of ‘danger’

in the sense of ‘coyness,’ ‘sparingness,’ ‘niggardliness,’ and of

‘dangerous’ in the sense of haughty, difficult to please.

And if thi voice is faire and clere,

Thou shalt maken no grete _daungere_,

Whanne to synge they goodly preye;

It is thi worship for tobeye.

_Romaunt of the Rose_, 2317.

We ourselves also were in times past unwise,

disobedient, deceived, in _danger_ to lusts [δουλεύοντες

ἐπιθυμίαις].--_Tit._ iii. TYNDALE.

Come not within his _danger_ by thy will.

SHAKESPEARE, _Venus and Adonis_.

My wages ben full streyt and eek ful smale;

My lord to me is hard and _daungerous_.

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

But nathelesse, for hys beauté

So fyers and _daungerous_ was he,

That he nolde graunte hir askyng,

For weepyng, ne for faire praiyng.

_Romaunt of the Rose_, 1480.

=DEADLY.= This and ‘mortal’ (which see) are sometimes synonyms now;

thus, ‘a _deadly_ wound’ or ‘a _mortal_ wound;’ but they are not

invariably so; ‘deadly’ being always active, while ‘mortal’ is far

oftenest passive, signifying not that which inflicts death, but that

which suffers death; thus, ‘a _mortal_ body,’ or body subject to death,

but not now ‘a _deadly_ body.’ It was otherwise once. ‘Deadly’ is

the constant word in Wiclif’s Bible, wherever in the later Versions

‘mortal’ occurs.

Elye was a _deedli_ man lijk us, and in preier he preiede that

it schulde not reyne on the erthe, and it reynede not three

yeeris and sixe monethis.--_Jam._ v. 17. WICLIF.

Many holy prophets that were _deadly_ men were martyred

violently in the Old Law.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination

of William Thorpe_.

=DEBATE=, }

DEBATER. }

This word was only true to its etymology (débattre) so long as an

element of strife, of war waged by the tongue or by the sword, was

included in it. Thus, in some memorable lines attributed to Queen

Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots is described as ‘_the daughter of

debate_.’ It has now a far more harmless meaning, the element of strife

having quite gone out of the word.

It is not the possession of a man’s own, but the usurping of

another man’s right that hath brought injustice, _debate_, and

trouble into the world.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 680.

Prevy bacbiteris, detractouris, hateful to God, _debateris_

[contumeliosi, Vulg.], proude.--_Rom._ i. 30. WICLIF.

=DECEIVABLE=, }

DECEIVABLENESS. }

So far as we use ‘deceivable’ at all now, we use it in the passive

sense, as liable to be, or capable of being, deceived. It was active

when counted exchangeable with ‘deceitful’ as at _2 Pet._ i. 16, where

the ‘deceivable’ of Tyndale appears as the ‘deceitful’ of Cranmer’s

Bible. It has fared in like manner with ‘discernible,’ ‘contemptible,’

which see, and with other words which, active once, are passive now.

This world is fikel and _desayvable_,

And fals and unsiker, and unstable.

RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 1088.

The most uncertain and _deceivable_ proof of the people’s good

will and cities’ toward kings and princes are the immeasurable

and extreme honours they do unto them.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s

Lives_, p. 743.

For we folowed not _decevable_ fables, when we openned unto you

the power and commynge of our Lorde Jesus Christ.--_2 Pet._ i.

16. Geneva Version.

Whose coming is after the working of Satan with all

_deceivableness_ of unrighteousness in them that perish.--_2

Thess._ 9, 10. (A.V.)

=DEFALCATION.= A word at present of very slovenly and inaccurate use.

We read in the newspapers of a ‘defalcation’ of the revenue, not

meaning thereby an active _lopping off_ (‘defalcatio’) of certain taxes

with their proceeds, which would be the only correct use, but a passive

falling short in its returns from what they previously were. Can it

be that some confusion of ‘defalcation’ with ‘default,’ or at least a

seeing of ‘fault’ and not ‘falx’ in its second syllable (there was

once a verb ‘to defalk’), has led to this?

My first crude meditations, being always hastily put together,

could never please me so well at a second and more leisurable

review, as to pass without some additions, _defalcations_, and

other alterations, more or less.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671,

Preface.

As for their conjecture that Zorobabel, at the building of

this temple purposely abated of those dimensions assigned by

Cyrus, as too great for him to compass, in such _defalcation_

of measures by Cyrus allowed, he showed little courtship to

his master the emperor, and less religion to the Lord his

God.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, b. iii. c. 2.

=DEFEND=, }

DEFENCE. }

Now, to protect, but once to protect by prohibiting or fencing round,

to forbid, as ‘défendre’ is still in French.

Now wol I you _defenden_ hasardrye.--CHAUCER, _The Pardoneres

Tale_. (Clar. Press.)

Whan sawe ye in eny maner age

That highe God _defendide_ mariage

By expres word?

Id., _The Wife of Bath’s Tale_.

And oure Lord _defended_ hem that thei scholde not tell that

avisioun till that He were rysen.--Sir JOHN MANDEVILLE, _Voiage

and Travaile_, p. 114.

O sons, like one of us man is become,

To know both good and evil, since his taste

Of that _defended fruit_.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, xi. 84.

Adam afterward ayeines his _defence_,

Frette of that fruit.

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

=DEFY=, }

DEFIANCE. }

This means now to dare to the uttermost hostility, and so, as a

consequence which will often follow upon this, to challenge. But in

earlier use ‘to defy’ is, according to its etymology, to pronounce

all bonds of _faith_ and fellowship which existed previously between

the defier and the defied to be wholly dissolved, so that nothing of

treaty or even of the natural faith of man to man shall henceforth

hinder extremest hostility between them. But still, when we read of one

potentate sending ‘defiance’ to another, the challenge to conflict did

not lie necessarily in the word, however such a message might provoke

and would often be the prelude to this: it meant but the releasing of

himself from all which hitherto had mutually obliged; and thus it came

often to mean simply to disclaim, or renounce.

No man speaking in the Spirit of God _defieth_ Jesus [λέγει

ἀνάθεμα Ἰησοῦν].--_1 Cor._ xii. 3. TYNDALE.

Despise not an hungry soul, and _defy_ not the poor in his

necessity.--_Ecclus._ iv. 2. COVERDALE.

All studies here I solemnly _defy_,

Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke.

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

There is a double people-pleasing. One sordid and servile, made

of falsehood and flattery, which I _defy_ and detest.--FULLER,

_Appeal of Injured Innocence_, p. 38.

Now although I instanced in a question which by good fortune

never came to open _defiance_, yet there have been sects formed

upon lighter grounds.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Liberty of Prophesying_,

§ 3, 5.

=DELAY.= Like the French ‘délayer,’ used often in old time where we

should now employ ‘allay.’ Out of an ignorance of this, and assuming

it a misprint, some modern editors of our earlier authors have not

scrupled to change ‘delay’ into ‘allay.’ This is quite a different word

from _delay_, to put off.

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

The watery showers _delay_ the raging wind.

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

Even so fathers ought to _delay_ their eager reprehensions

and cutting rebukes with kindness and clemency.--HOLLAND,

_Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 16.

Cup-bearers know well enough, and in that regard can discern

and distinguish, when they are to use more or less water to the

_delaying_ of wines.--Id., _Ib._ p. 652.

=DELICACY=, }

DELICATE, }

DELICATELY, }

DELICIOUS, }

DELICIOUSLY.}

In the same way as self-indulgence creeps over us by unmarked degrees,

so there creeps over the words that designate it a subtle change; they

come to contain less and less of rebuke and blame; the thing itself

being tolerated, nay allowed, it must needs be that the words which

express it should be received into favour too. It has been thus, as I

shall have occasion to note, with ‘luxury;’ it has been thus also with

this whole group of words. See the quotation from Sir W. Raleigh, _s.

v._ ‘Feminine.’

Thus much of _delicacy_ in general; now more particularly

of his first branch, gluttony.--NASH, _Christ’s Tear’s over

Jerusalem_, p. 140.

Cephisodorus, the disciple of Isocrates, charged him

with _delicacy_, intemperance, and gluttony.--BLOUNT,

_Philostratus_, p. 229.

The most _delicate_ and voluptuous princes have ever been

the heaviest oppressors of the people, riot being a far

more lavish spender of the common treasure than war or

magnificence.--HABINGTON, _History of King Edward IV._, p. 196.

And drynk nat ouer _delicatliche_, ne to depe neither.

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

She that liveth _delicately_ [σπαταλῶσα] is dead while she

liveth.--_1 Tim._ v. 6. A.V. (margin).

Yea, soberest men it [idleness] makes _delicious_.--SYLVESTER,

_Du Bartas, Second Week, Eden_.

How much she hath glorified herself and lived _deliciously_

[ἐστρηνίασε], so much torment and sorrow give her.--_Rev._

xviii. 7. (A.V.)

=DEMERIT.= It was plainly a squandering of the wealth of the language,

that ‘merit’ and ‘demerit’ should mean one and the same thing; however

this might be justified by the fact that ‘mereor’ and ‘demereor,’

from which they were severally derived, were scarcely discriminated

in meaning. It has thus come to pass, according to the desynonymizing

processes ever at work in a language, that ‘demerit’ has ended in being

employed only of _ill_ desert, while ‘merit’ is left free to good or

ill, having predominantly the sense of the former.

I fetch my life and being

From men of royal siege; and my _demerits_

May speak, unbonneted, to as proud a fortune

As this that I have reached.

SHAKESPEARE, _Othello_, act i. sc. 2.

By our profane and unkind civil wars the world is grown to this

pass, that it is reputed a singular _demerit_ and gracious act,

not to kill a citizen of Rome, but to let him live.--HOLLAND,

_Pliny_, vol. i. p. 456.

But the Rhodians, contrariwise, in a proud humour of theirs,

reckoned up a beadroll of their _demerits_ toward the people of

Rome.--Id., _Livy_, p. 1179.

=DEMURE=, }

DEMURENESS. }

Used by our earlier writers without the insinuation, which is now

always latent in it, that the external shows of modesty and sobriety

rest upon no corresponding realities. On the contrary the ‘demure’ was

the truly modest and virtuous and good. It is one of the many words

to which the suspicious nature of man, with the warrants to a certain

extent which these suspicions find, has given a turn for the worse.

These and other suchlike irreligious pranks did this Dionysius

play, who notwithstanding fared no worse than the most _demure_

and innocent, dying no other death than what usually other

mortals do.--H. MORE, _Antidote against Atheism_, b. iii. c. 1.

Which advantages God propounds to all the hearers of the

Gospel, without any respect of works or former _demureness_ of

life, if so be they will but now come in and close with this

high and rich dispensation.--Id., _Grand Mystery of Godliness_,

b. viii. c. 5.

She is so nice and so _demure_,

So sober, courteous, modest, and precise.

_True History of King Leir_, 1605.

In like manner women also in comely attire; with _demureness_

[cum verecundiâ, Vulg.] and sobriety adorning themselves.--_1

Tim._ ii. 9. Rheims.

His carriage was full comely and upright,

His countenance _demure_ and temperate.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 1, 6.

=DEPART.= Once used as equivalent with ‘to separate’ (divido, partior,

_Promptorium Parvulorum_)--a fact already forgotten, when, at the last

revision of the Prayer-Book in 1662, the Puritan divines objected to

the form as it then stood in the Marriage Service, ‘till death us

_depart_;’ in condescension to whose objection the words, as we now

have them, ‘till death us _do part_,’ were introduced.

And he schal _departe_ hem atwynne, as a scheepherde

_departith_ scheep fro kidis.--_Matt._ xxv. 32. WICLIF.

And whanne he hadde seid this thing, dissencioun was maad

bitwixe the Fariseis and the Saduceis, and the multitude was

_departid_.--_Acts_ xxiii. 7. Id.

If my neighbour neede and I geve him not, neyther _depart_

liberally with him of that which I have, than withholde I from

him unrighteously that which is hys owne.--TYNDALE, _Parable of

the Wicked Mammon_.

Neither did the apostles put away their wives, after they were

called unto the ministry; but they continued with their wives

lovingly and faithfully, till death _departed_ them.--BECON,

_An Humble Supplication unto God_ (1554).

=DEPLORED.= It is well known that ‘deploratus’ obtained in later Latin,

through a putting of effect for cause, the sense of desperate or past

all hope, and was technically applied to the sick man given over by his

physicians, ‘deploratus a medicis.’

The physicians do make a kind of scruple and religion to stay

with the patient after the disease is _deplored_; whereas, in

my judgement, they ought both to inquire the skill, and to give

the attendances, for the facilitating and assuaging of the

pains and agonies of death.--BACON, _Advancement of Learning_,

ii. 10. 5.

If a man hath the mind to get the start of other sinners, and

desires to be in hell before them, he need do no more but open

his sails to the wind of heretical doctrine, and he is like

to make a short voyage to hell; for these bring upon their

maintainers a swift destruction. Nay, the Spirit of God the

more to aggravate their _deplored_ state, brings on three most

dreadful instances of divine justice that ever were executed

upon any sinners.--GURNALL, _The Christian in Complete Armour_,

pt. ii. p. 317.

=DEPRAVE.= As ‘pravus’ is literally crooked, we may say that ‘to

deprave’ was formerly ‘untruly _to present_ as crooked,’ to defame;

while it is now ‘wickedly _to make_ crooked.’ See the quotation from

Bacon, _s. v._ ‘Disable.’

Their intent was none other than to get him [Cardinal Wolsey]

from the king out of the realm; then might they sufficiently

adventure, by the help of their chief mistress, to _deprave_

him with the king’s highness, and so in his absence to bring

him in displeasure with the king.--CAVENDISH, _Life of Cardinal

Wolsey_.

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

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

I am _depraved_ unjustly; who never deprived the Church of her

authority.--FULLER, _Appeal of Injured Innocence_, pt. i. p. 45.

Unjustly thou _depravest_ it with the name

Of servitude, to serve whom God ordains,

Or nature.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, vi. 174.

=DERIVE.= Tropical uses of the verb ‘to derive’ have quite superseded

the literal, so that we now ‘derive’ anything rather than waters from a

river.

An infinite deal of labour there is to lade out the water

that riseth upon the workmen, for fear it choke up the pits;

for to prevent which inconvenience they _derive_ it by other

drains.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_.

Nor may the industry of the citizens of Salisbury be forgotten,

who have _derived_ the river into every street therein, so

that Salisbury is a heap of islets thrown together.--FULLER,

_Worthies of England: Wiltshire_.

=DESCRY.= This verb had a technical meaning in the seventeenth century,

which it afterwards lost; its loss leading to the introduction of

the French verb ‘to reconnoitre,’ ridiculed as an outlandish term

by Addison (1711), and more than half a century later not admitted

by Johnson into his _Dictionary_. It was exactly this which ‘to

descry,’ as used by Shakespeare and by Milton, meant. [The verb is

the equivalent of the Old French _descrire_, _descrivre_, Latin

_describere_, to describe.]

Who hath _descried_ the number of the foe?

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

The house of Israel sent to _descry_ (to spy out, R.V.)

Bethel.--_Judg._ i. 23. (A.V.)

Scouts each coast light-armed scour,

Each quarter to _descry_ the distant foe,

Where lodged or whither fled; or, if for fight,

In motion or in halt.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, vi. 530.

=DESIRE.= ‘To desire’ is only to look _forward_ with longing now; the

word has lost the sense of regret or looking _back_ upon the lost but

still loved. This it once possessed in common with ‘desiderium’ and

‘desiderare,’ from which more remotely, and ‘désirer,’ from which more

immediately, we derive it.

He [Jehoram] reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed

without being desired.--_2 Chron._ xxi. 20. (A.V.)

She that hath a wise husband must entice him to an eternal

dearness by the veil of modesty and the grave robes of

chastity, and she shall be pleasant while she lives, and

_desired_ when she dies.--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Marriage Ring_,

Sermon 18.

So unremovéd stood these steeds, their heads to earth let fall,

And warm tears gushing from their eyes, with passionate _desire_

Of their kind manager.

CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, xvii. 379.

=DETEST.= For the writers of the seventeenth century ‘to detest’ still

retained often the sense of its original ‘detestari,’ openly to witness

against, and not merely to entertain an inward abhorrence of, a thing;

as in ‘attest’ and ‘protest’ the etymological meaning still survives.

It is not easy to adduce passages which absolutely prove this against

one who should be disposed to deny it. There can, however, be no doubt

whatever of the fact. In Du Bartas’ _Weeks_, 1621, p. 106, an invective

against avarice is called in the margin ‘_Detestation_ of Avarice, for

her execrable and cruel effects.’

Wherefore God hath _detested_ them with his own mouth, and

clean given them over unto their own filthy lusts.--BALE, _The

Image of both Churches_, c. 11.

She cast herself upon him [her dead husband], and with

fearful cries _detested_ the governor’s inhuman and cruel

deceit.--GRIMESTON, _History of Lewis XI._, 1614, p. 228.

Satyrs were certain poems, _detesting_ and reproving the

misdemeanours of people and their vices.--HOLLAND, _Explanation

of certain obscure words_.

E’en to vice

They [women] are not constant, but are changing still

One vice but of a minute old, for one

Not half so old as that. I’ll write against them,

_Detest_ them, curse them.

SHAKESPEARE, _Cymbeline_, act ii. sc. 5.

=DIAMOND.= This, or ‘diamant’ as it used to be spelt, is a popular form

of ‘adamant.’ The Greek ἀδάμας, originally used of the hardest steel,

was, about the time of Theophrastus, and, so far as we know, first in

his writings, transferred to the diamond, as itself also of a hardness

not to be subdued; the cutting or polishing of this stone being quite a

modern invention; and the Latin ‘adamas’ continued through the Middle

Ages to bear this double meaning. But if ‘adamant’ meant diamond,

then ‘diamond,’ by a reactive process frequent in language, would be

employed for adamant as well. So far as I know, Milton is the last

writer who so uses it.

Have harte as hard as _diamaunt_,

Stedfast, and nauht pliaunt.

_Romaunt of the Rose._

This little care and regard did at length melt and break

asunder those strong _diamond_ chains with which Dionysius the

elder made his boast that he left his tyranny chained to his

son.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, 1656, p. 800.

But wordes and lookes and sighes she did abhore,

As rock of _diamond_ stedfast evermore.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, i. 6. 4.

Prince Arthur gave a boxe of _diamond_ sure.

SPENSER, ib. i. 9. 19.

Zeal, whose substance is ethereal, arming in complete

_diamond_, ascends his fiery chariot drawn with two blazing

meteors, figured like beasts, but of a higher breed than any

the zodiack yields, resembling two of those four, which Ezekiel

and St. John saw, the one visaged like a lion to express power,

high authority, and indignation; the other of countenance like

a man to cast derision and scorn upon perverse and fraudulent

seducers; with these the invincible warrior Zeal shaking

loosely the slack reins drives over the heads of scarlet

prelates, and such as are insolent to maintain traditions,

bruising their stiff necks under his flaming wheels.--MILTON,

_Defence of Smectymnuus_.

On each wing

Uriel and Raphaël his vaunting foe,

Though huge and in a rock of _diamond_ armed,

Vanquished, Adramelech and Asmodai.

Id., _Paradise Lost_, vi. 363.

=DIFFIDENCE=, }

DIFFIDENTLY. }

‘Diffidence’ expresses now a not unbecoming distrust of one’s own self,

with only a slight intimation, such as ‘verecundia’ obtained in the

silver age of Latin literature, that perhaps this distrust is carried

too far; but it was once used for distrust of others, and sometimes

for distrust pushed so far as to amount to an entire withholding of

all faith from them, being nearly allied to despair; as indeed in _The

Pilgrim’s Progress_ Mistress Diffidence is Giant Despair’s wife.

Of the impediments which have been in the affections, the

principal whereof hath been despair or _diffidence_, and

the strong apprehension of the difficulty, obscurity,

and infiniteness, which belongeth to the invention of

knowledge.--BACON, _Of the Interpretation of Nature_, c. 19.

Every sin smiles in the first address, and carries light in the

face, and honey in the lip; but when we have well drunk, then

comes that which is worse, a whip with ten strings, fears and

terrors of conscience, and shame and displeasure, and a caitiff

disposition, and _diffidence_ in the day of death.--Bishop

TAYLOR, _Life of Christ_.

That affliction grew heavy upon me, and weighed me down even to

a _diffidence_ of God’s mercy.--DONNE, _Sermons_, 1640, vol. i.

p. 311.

Mediators were not wanting that endeavoured a renewing of

friendship between these two prelates, which the haughtiness,

or perhaps the _diffidence_ of Bishop Laud would not accept; a

symptom of policy more than of grace, not to trust a reconciled

enemy.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, pt. ii. p. 86.

It was far the best course to stand _diffidently_ against

each other, with their thoughts in battle array.--HOBBES,

_Thucydides_, b. iii. c. 83.

=DIGEST.= Scholars of the seventeenth century often employ a word of

their own language in the same latitude which its equivalent possessed

in the Greek or the Latin; as though it entered into all the rights

of its equivalent, and corresponded with it on all points, because it

corresponded in one. Thus ‘coctus’ meaning ‘digested,’ why should not

‘digested’ mean all which ‘coctus’ meant? but one of the meanings of

‘coctus’ is ‘ripened;’ ‘digested’ therefore might be employed in the

same sense.

Repentance is like the sun; it produces rich spices in Arabia,

it _digests_ the American gold, and melts the snows from the

Riphæan mountains.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Doctrine and Practice of

Repentance_, ch. 10, § 8.

Splendid fires, aromatic spices, rich wines, and

well-_digested_ fruits.--Id., _Discourse of Friendship_.

=DISABLE.= Our ancestors felt that to injure the character of another

was the most effectual way of disabling him; and out of a sense of this

they often used ‘to disable’ in the sense of to disparage, to speak

slightingly of.

Farewell, mounsieur traveller. Look, you lisp, and wear

strange suits: _disable_ all the benefits of your own

country.--SHAKESPEARE, _As You Like It_, act. iv. sc. 1.

If affection lead a man to favour the less worthy in desert,

let him do it without depraving or _disabling_ the better

deserver.--BACON, _Essays_, 49.

=DISCOURSE.= It is very characteristic of the slight acquaintance

with our elder literature--the most obvious source for elucidating

Shakespeare’s text--which was possessed by many of his commentators

down to a late day, that the phrase ‘discourse of reason,’ which he

puts into Hamlet’s mouth, should have perplexed them so greatly.

Gifford, a pitiless animadverter on the real or imaginary mistakes

of others, and who tramples upon Warburton for attempting to explain

this phrase as though Shakespeare could have ever written it, declares

‘“discourse _of_ reason” is so poor and perplexed a phrase that

I should dismiss it at once for what I believe to be his genuine

language;’ and then proceeds to suggest the obvious but erroneous

correction ‘discourse _and_ reason’ (see his _Massinger_, vol. i. p.

148); while yet, if there be a phrase of continual recurrence among

the writers of our Elizabethan age and down to Milton, it is this. I

have little doubt that it occurs fifty times in Holland’s translation

of Plutarch’s _Moralia_. What our fathers intended by ‘discourse’ and

‘discourse of reason,’ the following passages will abundantly declare.

There is not so great difference and distance between beast and

beast, as there is odds in the matter of wisdom, _discourse_

of reason, and use of memory between man and man.--HOLLAND,

_Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 570; cf. pp. 313, 566, 570, 752, 955,

966, 977, 980.

If you mean, by _discourse_, right reason, grounded on Divine

Revelation and common notions, written by God in the hearts of

all men, and deducing, according to the never-failing rules of

logic, consequent deductions from them; if this be it which

you mean by _discourse_, it is very meet and reasonable and

necessary that men, as in all their actions, so especially

in that of greatest importance, the choice of their way to

happiness, should be left unto it.--CHILLINGWORTH, _The

Religion of Protestants_, Preface.

As the intuitive knowledge is more perfect than that which

insinuates itself into the soul gradually by _discourse_, so

more beautiful the prospect of that building which is all

visible at one view than what discovers itself to the sight by

parcels and degrees.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Canterbury_.

Whence the soul

Reason receives, and reason is her being,

Discursive or intuitive; _discourse_

Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, v. 486.

You, being by nature given to melancholic _discoursing_, do

easilier yield to such imaginations.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s

Lives_, p. 830.

The other gods, and knights-at-arms, all slept, but only Jove

Sweet slumber seized not; he _discoursed_ how best he might approve

His vow made for Achilles’ grace.

CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, b. ii.

=DISCOVER.= This word has lost the sense of uncover, which once it had,

and in which it occurs several times in our Bible.

Whether any man hath pulled down or _discovered_ any church,

chancel or chapel, or any part of them.--Archbishop GRINDAL,

_Articles of Enquiry_, 1576.

The voice of the Lord _discovereth_ the forests.--_Ps._ xxix.

9. A.V. and P.B.V.

=DISEASE.= Our present limitation of ‘disease’ is a very natural one,

seeing that nothing so effectually wars against ease as a sick and

suffering condition of body. Still the limitation is modern, and by

‘disease’ was once meant any distress or discomfort whatever, and the

verb had a corresponding meaning.

Wo to hem that ben with child, and norishen in tho daies, for a

greet _diseese_ [pressura magna, Vulg.] schal be on the erthe

and wraththe to this puple.--_Luke_ xxi. 23. WICLIF.

Thy doughter is deed; why _diseasest_ thou the master eny

further?--_Mark_ v. 35. TYNDALE.

This is now the fourteenth day they [the Cardinals] have been

in the Conclave, with such pain and _disease_ that your grace

would marvel that such men as they would suffer it.--_State

Papers_ (_Letter to Wolsey from his Agent at Rome_), vol. vi.

p. 182.

His double burden did him sore _disease_.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 2, 12.

=DISMAL.= Minsheu’s derivation of ‘dismal,’ that it is ‘dies malus,’

the unlucky, ill-omened day, is exactly one of those plausible

etymologies which one learns after a while to reject with contempt. Yet

there can be no doubt that our fathers so understood the word, and that

this assumed etymology often overrules their usage of it.

Why should we then be bold to call them evil, infortunate,

and _dismal_ days? If God rule our doings continually,

why shall they not prosper on those days as well as on

other?--PILKINGTON, _Exposition on Aggeus_, c. 1.

Then began they to reason and debate about the _dismal_ days

[tum de diebus _religiosis_ agitari cœptum]. And the fifteenth

day before the Kalends of August, so notorious for a twofold

loss and overthrow, they set this unlucky mark upon it, that it

should be reputed unmeet and unconvenient for any business, as

well public as private.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 217.

The particular calendars, wherein their [the Jews’] good or

_dismal_ days are distinguished, according to the diversity of

their ways, we find, Leviticus 26.--JACKSON, _The Eternal Truth

of Scriptures_, b. i. c. 22.

=DISOBLIGE.= Release from obligation lies at the root of all uses,

present and past, of this word; but it was formerly more the release

from an oath or a duty, and now rather from the slighter debts of

social life, to which kindness and courtesy on the part of another

would have held us bound or ‘obliged;’ while the contraries to these

are ‘disobliging.’

He did not think that Act of Uniformity could _disoblige_

them [the Non-Conformists] from the exercise of their

office.--BATES, _Mr. Richard Baxter’s Funeral Sermon_.

Many that are imprisoned for debt, think themselves

_disobliged_ from payment.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Holy Dying_, c. 5,

§ 3.

He hath a very great obligation to do that and more; and he

can noways be _disobliged_, but by the care of his natural

relations.--Id., _Measures and Offices of Friendship_.

=DITTY.= By the ‘ditty’ were once understood the words of a song as

distinguished from the musical accompaniment.

They fell to challenge and defy one another, whereupon he

commanded the musician Eraton to sing unto the harp, who began

his song on this wise out of the works of Hesiodus:--

Of quarrel and contention

There were as then more sorts than one;

for which I commended him in that he knew how to apply the

_ditty_ of his song so well unto the present time.--HOLLAND,

_Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 786.

So that, although we lay altogether aside the consideration of

_ditty_ or matter, the very harmony of sounds being framed in

due sort, and carried by the ear to the spiritual faculties

of the soul, is by a native puissance and efficacy greatly

available to bring to a perfect temper whatsoever is there

troubled.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. v. c. 38.

=DOCUMENT.= Now used only of the _material_, and not, as once, of the

_moral_ proof, evidence, or means of instruction.

They were forthwith stoned to death, as a _document_ unto

others.--Sir W. RALEIGH, _History of the World_, b. v. c. 2, §

3.

This strange dejection of these three great apostles at so

mild and gentle a voice [Matt. xvii. 6], gives us a remarkable

_document_ or grounded observation of the truth of that saying

of St. Paul, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of

God.--JACKSON, _Of the Primeval State of Man_, b. ii. c. 12.

It was a rare _document_ of divine justice to ordain, and of

divine wisdom so to contrive, that the dogs should lap King

Ahab’s blood in the same place where they had lapped the blood

of Naboth.--Id., _Of the Divine Essence and Attributes_, b. vi.

ch. iii. 3.

=DOLE.= This and ‘deal’ are one and the same word, and answer to

the German ‘Theil,’ a part or portion.[14] It has now always the

subaudition of a _scanty_ portion, as ‘to dole’ is to deal scantily and

reluctantly forth (‘pittance’ has acquired the same); but Sanderson’s

use of ‘dole’ is instructive, as showing that ‘distribution or

division’ is all which once lay in the word.

There are certain common graces of illumination, and those

indeed are given by _dole_, knowledge to one, to another

tongues, to another healings; but it is nothing so with the

special graces of sanctification. There is no distribution or

division here; either all or none.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671,

vol. ii. p. 247.

=DRAUGHT.= Many ‘draughts’ we still acknowledge, but not the ‘draught’

or drawing of a bow.

A large _draught_ up to his eare

He drew, and with an arrow ground

Sharpe and new, the queene a wound

He gave.

CHAUCER, _Dreame_, 788.

Then spake another proud one, Would to heaven

I might at will get gold till he hath given

That bow his _draught_.

CHAPMAN, _The Odysseis of Homer_, xxi. 533.

=DREADFUL.= Now that which _causes_ dread, but once that which

_felt_ it. See ‘Frightful,’ ‘Hateful.’

Forsothe the Lord shall gyve to thee there a _dreedful_ herte

and faylinge eyen.--_Deut._ xxviii. 65. WICLIF.

And to a grove faste ther beside

With _dredful_ foot than stalketh Palamon.

CHAUCER, _The Knightes Tale_.

All mankind lo! that _dreadful_ is to die,

Thou dost constrain long death to learn by thee.

HEYWOOD, _Translation of Seneca’s Hercules Furens_.

Thou art so set, as thou hast no cause to be

Jealous, or _dreadful_ of disloyalty.

DANIEL, _Panegyric to the King_.

=DREARY=, }

DREARINESS. }

This word has slightly shifted its meaning. In our earlier English it

was used exactly as its German cognate ‘traurig’ is now, to designate

the heaviness at once of countenance and of heart; very much the

σκυθρωπός of the Greeks, though not admitting the subaudition of anger,

which in that word is often contained. [Its Old English form was

_dréorig_.]

And the king seide to me, Whi is thi chere _dreri_, sithen I

see thee not sick?--_2 Esdras_ ii. 2. WICLIF.

All _drery_ was his chere and his loking.

CHAUCER, _The Clerkes Tale_, pt. 3.

Bowe down to the pore thin ere withoute _dreryness_ [sine

tristitiâ, Vulg.]--_Ecclus._ iv. 8. WICLIF.

Now es a man light, now es he hevy,

Now es he blithe, now es he _drery_.

RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 1454.

=DRENCH.= As ‘to _fell_’ is to make to _fall_, and ‘to _lay_’ to

make to _lie_, so ‘to _drench_’ is to make to _drink_, though with a

sense now very short of ‘to drown;’ but ‘drench’ and ‘drown,’ though

desynonymized in our later English, were once perfectly adequate to one

another.

He is _drenched_ in the flod,

Abouten his hals an anker god.

_Havelok the Dane_, 669.

Thei that wolen be maad riche, fallen in to temptacioun, and in

to snare of the devil, and in to many unprofitable desiris and

noyous, whiche _drenchen_ men in to deth and perdicioun.--_1

Tim._ vi. 9. WICLIF.

Well may men knowe it was no wyght but he

That kepte peple Ebrayk fro hir _drenching_,

With drye feet thurgh-out the see passing.

CHAUCER, _The Man of Lawes Tale_, 488 (Skeat).

=DRIFT.= A drove of sheep or cattle was once a ‘drift;’ so too the act

of driving.

Hoc armentum, Anglice, a _dryfte_.--_Wright-Wülcker, Vocab._

814. 11.

By reason of the foulness and deepness of the way divers of

the said sheep died in driving; partly for lack of meat and

feeding, but especially by mean of the said unreasonable

_drift_ the said sheep are utterly perished.--_Trevelyan

Papers_, p. 130.

And Anton Shiel he loves me not,

For I gat twa _drifts_ of his sheep;

The great Earl of Whitfield he loves me not,

For nae gear fra me he could keep.

_Scotch Ballad._

=DUKE.= One of Shakespeare’s commentators charges him with an

anachronism, the incongruous transfer of a modern title to an ancient

condition of society, when he styles Theseus ‘_Duke_ of Athens.’ It

would be of very little consequence if the charge was a true one; but

it is not, as his English Bible might have sufficiently taught him;

_Gen._ xxxvi. 15-19. ‘Duke’ has indeed since Shakespeare’s time become

that which this objector supposed it to have been always; but all were

‘dukes’ once who were ‘duces,’ captains and leaders of their people.

He [St. Peter] techith christen men to be suget to kyngis and

_dukis_, and to ech man for God.--WICLIF, _Prologe on the first

Pistel of Peter_.

Hannibal, _duke_ of Carthage.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b.

i. c. 10.

These were the _dukes_ and princes of avail

That came from Greece.

CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, b. ii.

=DUNCE=. I have sought elsewhere (_Study of Words_, 20th edit. p. 143)

to trace at some length the curious history of this word. Sufficient

here to say that Duns Scotus, whom Hooker styles ‘the wittiest of the

school divines,’ has given us this name, which now ascribes hopeless

ignorance, invincible stupidity, to him on whom it is affixed.

The course by which this came to pass was as follows. When at the

Reformation and Revival of Learning the works of the Schoolmen fell

into extreme disfavour, alike with the Reformers and with the votaries

of the new learning, Duns, a standard-bearer among those, was so often

referred to with scorn and contempt by these, that his name gradually

became that byeword which ever since it has been. See the quotation

from Stanyhurst, _s. v._ ‘Trivial.’

Remember ye not how within this thirty years, and far less,

and yet dureth unto this day, the old barking curs, _Dunce’s_

disciples, and like draff called Scotists, the children of

darkness, raged in every pulpit against Greek, Latin, and

Hebrew?--TYNDALE, _Works_, 1575, p. 278.

We have set _Dunce_ in Bocardo and have utterly banished him

Oxford for ever with all his blind glosses.... The second time

we came to New College after we had declared your injunctions,

we found all the great Quadrant Court full of the leaves of

_Dunce_, the wind blowing them in every corner.--_Wood’s

Annals_, A.D. 1535, 62.

What _Dunce_ or Sorbonist cannot maintain a paradox?--G.

HARVEY, _Pierce’s Supererogation_, p. 159.

As for terms of honesty or civility, they are gibberish unto

him, and he a Jewish Rabbin or a Latin _dunce_ with him that

useth any such form of monstrous terms.--Id., _ib._ p. 175.

_Maud._ Is this your tutor?

_Tutor._ Yes surely, lady;

I am the man that brought him in league with logic,

And read the _Dunces_ to him.

MIDDLETON, _A Chaste Maid in Cheapside_, act iii. sc. 1.

=DUTCH=, }

DUTCHMAN. }

Till late in the seventeenth century ‘Dutch’ (‘deutsch,’ lit. belonging

to the people) meant generally ‘German,’ and a ‘Dutchman’ a native of

Germany, while what we now term a Dutchman was then a Hollander. In

America this with so many other usages is retained, and Germans are now

often called ‘Dutchmen’ there.

Though the root of the English language be _Dutch_, yet she

may be said to have been inoculated afterwards upon a French

stock.--HOWELL, _Lexicon Tetraglotton_, Preface.

_Germany_ is slandered to have sent none to this war [the

Crusades] at this first voyage; and that other pilgrims,

passing through that country, were mocked by the _Dutch_, and

called fools for their pains.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. i. c. 13.

At the same time began the _Teutonic_ Order, consisting only of

_Dutchmen_, well descended.--Id. _ib._ b. ii. c. 16.

=EAGER=, }

EAGERNESS. }

The physical and literal sense of ‘eager,’ that is, sharp or acrid

(Fr. _aigre_, Lat. _acrem_), has quite departed from the word. It

occasionally retained this, long after it was employed in the secondary

meaning which is its only one at present.

She was lyk thyng for hungre deed,

That ladde hir lyf oonly by breed

Kneden with eisel[15] strong and _egre_.

_Romaunt of the Rose_, 215.

Bees have this property by nature to find and suck the

mildest and best honey out of the sharpest and most _eager_

flowers.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 43.

Now on the _eager_ razor’s edge for life or death we stand.

CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, b. x.

_Asproso_, full of sowrenesse or _eagernesse_.--FLORIO, _New

World of Words_ (A.D. 1611).

=EBB.= Nothing ‘ebbs,’ unless it is figuratively, except water now.

But ‘ebb,’ oftenest an adjective, was continually used in our earlier

English with a general meaning of shallow. There is still a Lancashire

proverb, ‘Cross the stream where it is _ebbest_.’

Orpiment, a mineral digged out of the ground in Syria, where it

lieth very _ebb_.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. ii. p. 469.

This you may observe ordinarily in stones, that those parts

and sides which lie covered deeper within the ground be more

frim and tender, as being preserved by heat, than those outward

faces which lie _ebb_, or above the earth.--Id., _Plutarch’s

Morals_, p. 747.

It is all one whether I be drowned in the _ebber_ shore, or

in the midst of the deep sea.--Bishop HALL, _Meditations and

Vows_, cent. ii.

=ECSTASY.= We still say of madmen that they are _beside themselves_;

but ‘ecstasy,’ or a standing out of oneself, is no longer used as an

equivalent to madness.

This is the very coinage of your brain;

This bodiless creation _ecstasy_

Is very cunning in.

SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, act iii. sc. 4.

=EDIFY.= ‘From the Christian Church being called the temple or house

of God, this word acquired a metaphorical and spiritual meaning, and

is applied in the N. T. and in modern language to mental or spiritual

advancement. Old English writers used it in its original sense of

_build_’ (_Bible Word Book_). For some quotations which mark the coming

up of the secondary or metaphorical meaning see my _English Past and

Present_, 14th edit. p. 186.

I shall overtourne this temple, and adown throwe,

And in thre dayes after _edifie_ it newe.

_Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus xvi. 131 (Skeat).

And the Lord God _edifiede_ the rib, the which he toke of Adam,

into a woman.--_Gen._ ii. 22. WICLIF.

What pleasure and also utility is to a man which intendeth

to _edify_, himself to express the figure of the work that

he purposeth, according as he hath conceived it in his own

fantasy.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b. i. c. 8.

A little wyde

There was an holy chappell _edifyde_.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, i. 1, 34.

=EGREGIOUS.= This has generally now an uncomplimentary subaudition,

which it was very far from having of old.

_Egregious_ viceroys of these eastern parts!

MARLOWE, _Tamburlaine the Great_, part i. act i. sc. 1.

It may be denied that bishops were our first reformers,

for Wickliffe was before them, and his _egregious_ labours

are not to be neglected.--MILTON, _Animadversions upon the

Remonstrants’ Defence_.

=ELDER.= The German ‘eltern’ still signifies parents; as ‘elders’ did

once with us, though now the word has quite let this meaning go.

And hise disciplis axiden hym, Maistir, what synnede, this man

or hise _eldris_, that he schulde be borun blynd?--_John_ ix.

2. WICLIF.

And his _elders_ went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of

Easter.--_Luke_ ii. 41. COVERDALE.

Disobedient to their elders [γονεῦσιν ἀπειθεῖς].--_Rom._ i. 30.

COVERDALE.

So, or much like, our rebel _elders_ driven

For aye from Eden, earthly type of heaven,

Lie languishing near Tigris’ grassy side.

SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas, The Handycrafts_.

=ELEMENT.= The air, as that among the four elements which is most

present everywhere, was frequently ‘_the_ element’ in our earlier

literature.

When Pompey saw the dust in the _element_, and conjectured the

flying of his horsemen, what mind he was of then it was hard to

say.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 553.

The face therefore of the _element_ you have skill to discern,

and the signs of times can you not?--_Matt._ xvi. 3. Rheims.

There is no stir or walking in the streets,

And the complexion of the _element_

In favour is like the work we have in hand,

Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.

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

I took it for a faery vision

Of some gay creatures of the _element_,

That in the colours of the rainbow live,

And play in the plighted clouds.

MILTON, _Comus_, 298.

=ELEPHANT.= I have little doubt that ‘elephant’ as an equivalent for

ivory is a Grecism not peculiar to Chapman, in whose translations from

Homer it several times occurs; but I cannot adduce an example from any

other. The use of ‘olifant’ in this sense is quite common in the older

French (see Didot’s _Glossary_ in Ducange, ed. 1887).

I did last afford

The varied ornament, which showed no want

Of silver, gold, and polished _elephant_.

CHAPMAN, _The Odysseis of Homer_, b. xxiii. l. 306.

=ELEVATE.= There are two intentions with which anything may be lifted

from the place which it occupies; either with that of setting it in a

more conspicuous position; or else of removing it out of the way, or,

figuratively, of withdrawing all importance and significance from it.

We employ ‘to elevate’ now in the former intention; our ancestors for

the most part, especially those whose style was influenced by their

Latin studies, in the latter.

Withal, he forgat not to _elevate_ as much as he could the fame

of the foresaid unhappy field fought, saying, That if all had

been true, there would have been messengers coming thick one

after another upon their flight to bring fresh tidings still

thereof.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1199.

Audience he had with great assent and applause; not more for

_elevating_ the fault and trespass of the common people,

than for laying the weight upon those that were the authors

culpable.--Id., _ib._ p. 1207.

Tully in his oration Pro Flacco, to _elevate_ or lessen that

conceit which many Romans had of the nation of the Jews,

objects little less unto them than our Saviour in this place

doth, to wit that they were in bondage to the Romans.--JACKSON,

_Of the Primeval Estate of Man_, b. x. c. 14.

=EMBEZZLE.= A man can now only ‘embezzle’ another man’s property; he

might once ‘embezzle’ his own. Thus, while we might now say that the

Unjust Steward ‘embezzled’ his lord’s goods (_Luke_ xvi. 1), we could

not say that the Prodigal Son ‘embezzled’ the portion which he had

received from his father, and which had thus become his own (_Luke_

xv. 13); but the one would have been as free to our early writers as

the other. There is a form, ‘to imbecile,’ used by Jeremy Taylor and

others, which has the same meaning as this word.

Mr. Hackluit died, leaving a fair estate to an unthrift

son, who _embezzled_ it.--FULLER, _Worthies of England:

Herefordshire_.

The collection of these various readings [is] a testimony even

of the faithfulness of these later ages of the Church, and of

the high reverence they had of these records, in that they

would not so much as _embesell_ the various readings of them,

but keep them still on foot for the prudent to judge of.--H.

MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b. vii. c. 11.

If we are ambitious of having a property in somewhat, or affect

to call anything our own, ’tis only by nobly giving that we

can accomplish our desire; that will certainly appropriate

our goods to our use and benefit; but from basely keeping or

vainly _embezzling_ them, they become not our possession and

enjoyment, but our theft and our bane.--BARROW, _The Duty and

Reward of Bounty to the Poor_.

Be not _prodigal_ of your time on earth, which is so little in

your power. ’Tis so precious a thing that it is to be redeemed;

’tis therefore too precious to be _embezzled_ and trifled

away.--HOWE, _The Redeemer’s Dominion over the Invisible World_.

=EMULATION.= South in one of his sermons has said excellently well, ‘We

ought by all means to note the difference between envy and emulation;

which latter is a brave and noble thing, and quite of another nature,

as consisting only in a generous imitation of something excellent; and

that such an imitation as scorns to fall short of its copy, but strives

if possible to outdo it. The emulator is impatient of a superior, not

by depressing or maligning another but by perfecting himself. So that

while that sottish thing envy sometimes fills the whole soul, as a

great fog does the air: this on the contrary inspires it with a new

life and vigour, whets and stirs up all the powers of it to action.’

But ‘emulation,’ though sometimes used by our early writers in this

nobler sense, to express an honourable and generous rivalry, was by no

means always so; it was often an exact equivalent to envy.

Zeal to promote the common good is welcomed with suspicion

instead of love, and with _emulation_ instead of thanks.--_The

Translators’ Preface to the Authorized Version._

So every step,

Exampled by the first step that is sick

Of his superior, grows to an envious fever

Of pale and bloodless _emulation_.

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

And the patriarchs through _emulation_ [moved with _envy_,

A.V.] sold Joseph into Egypt.--_Acts_ vii. 9. Rheims.

=ENDEAVOUR.= This, connected with ‘devoir,’ is used as a reflexive verb

in our version of the New Testament and in the Prayer Book. Signifying

now no more than to try, it signified once to bend all our energies,

not to the attempt at fulfilling, but to the actual fulfilment of a

duty. The force of such passages as Ephes. iv. 3, ‘_endeavouring_

to keep the unity of the Spirit,’ is greatly weakened by giving to

‘endeavour’ its modern sense. Attaching to it this, we may too easily

persuade ourselves that the Apostle does no more than bid us to attempt

to preserve this unity, and that he quite recognizes the possibility of

our being defeated in this attempt.

This is called in Scripture ‘a just man,’ that _endeavoureth_

himself to leave all wickedness.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, p. 340.

One thing I do, I forget that which is behind, and _endevour_

myself into that which is before.--_Phil._ iii. 13. Geneva.

=ENGRAVE.= This word has now quite lost the sense of ‘to bury,’ which

it once possessed. See ‘Grave.’

So both agree their bodies to _engrave_;

The great earthes womb they open to the sky; ...

They lay therein those corses tenderly.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 1, 60.

And now with happy wish he closely craved

For ever to be dead, to be so sweet _ingraved_.

_Britain’s Ida_, iv. 2.

Thou death of death, oh! in thy death _engrave_ me.

PHINEAS FLETCHER, _Poetical Miscellanies_.

=ENJOY.= Not, when Wiclif wrote, nor till some time later,

distinguished from ‘rejoice,’ which see.

And the pees of Crist _enioye_ [pax Christi _exsultet_,

Vulgate] in youre hertis.--_Col._ iii. 15. WICLIF.

=ENORMOUS=, }

ENORMITY. }

Now only applied to that which is irregular _in excess_, in this way

transcending the established norm or rule. But departure from rule or

irregularity in _any_ direction might be characterised as ‘enormous’

once.

O great corrector of _enormous_ times,

Shaker of o’er-rank states, thou grand decider

Of dusty and old titles, that heal’st with blood

The earth when it is sick.

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, _The Two Noble

Kinsmen_, act v. sc. 1.

Wild above rule or art, _enormous_ bliss.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, v. 297.

Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the _irregularities_ of

vain-glory, and wild _enormities_ of ancient magnanimity.--Sir

T. BROWNE, _Hydriotaphia_.

=ENSURE.= None of our Dictionaries, as far as I can observe, have taken

notice of an old use of this word, namely, to betroth, and thus to make

_sure_ the future husband and wife to each other. See ‘Assure,’ ‘Sure.’

After his mother Mary was _ensured_ to Joseph, before they were

coupled together, it was perceived she was with child.--_Matt._

i. 18. Sir JOHN CHEKE.

Albeit that she was by the king’s mother and many other put in

good comfort to affirm that she was _ensured_ unto the king;

yet when she was solemnly sworn to say the truth, she confessed

that they were never _ensured_.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King

Richard III._

=EPICURE.= Now applied only to those who devote themselves, yet with

a certain elegance and refinement, to the pleasures of the table;

‘gourmets’ rather than ‘gourmands.’ We may trace two earlier stages

in its meaning. By Lord Bacon and others the followers of Epicurus,

whom we should call Epicureans, are often called ‘Epicures,’ after the

name of the founder of their sect. From them it was transferred to all

who were, like them, deniers of a divine Providence; and this is the

common use of it by our elder divines. But inasmuch as those who have

persuaded themselves that there is nothing above them, will seek their

good, since men must seek it somewhere, in the things beneath them, in

sensual delights, the name has been transferred, by that true moral

instinct which is continually at work in speech, from the philosophical

speculative atheist to the human swine for whom the world is but a

feeding-trough.

So the _Epicures_ say of the Stoics’ felicity placed in virtue,

that it is like the felicity of a player, who if he were left

of his auditors and their applause, he would straight be out of

heart and countenance.--BACON, _Colours of Good and Evil_, 3.

Aristotle is altogether an _Epicure_; he holdeth that God

careth nothing for human creatures; he allegeth God ruleth

the world like as a sleepy maid rocketh a child.--LUTHER,

_Table-Talk_, c. 73.

The _Epicure_ grants there is a God, but denies his

providence.--SYDENHAM, _The Athenian Babbler_, 1627, p. 7.

=EQUAL.= The ethical sense of ‘equal,’ as fair, candid, just, has

almost, if not altogether, departed from it. Compare ‘Unequal.’

O my most _equal_ hearers, if these deeds

May pass with suffrance, what one citizen

But owes the forfeit of his life, yea, fame,

To him that dares traduce him?

BEN JONSON, _The Fox_, act iv. sc. 2.

Hear now, O house of Israel; is not my way _equal_? are not

your ways unequal?--_Ezek._ xviii. 25. (A. V.)

=EQUIVOCAL=, }

EQUIVOCALLY, }

EQUIVOCATION.}

The calling two or more different _things_ by one and the same _name_

(æque vocare) is the source of almost all error in human discourse.

He who wishes to throw dust in the eyes of an opponent, to hinder his

arriving at the real facts of a case, will often have recourse to this

artifice, and thus ‘to equivocate’ and ‘equivocation’ have attained

their present secondary meaning, very different from their original,

which was simply the calling of two or more different things by one and

the same word.

This visible world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein

as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in _equivocal_

shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substance in that

invisible fabric.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Religio Medici_.

Which [courage and constancy] he that wanteth is no other

than _equivocally_ a gentleman, as an image or a carcass is a

man.--BARROW, _Sermon on Industry in our several Callings_.

He [the good herald] knows when indeed the names are the same,

though altered through variety of writing in various ages; and

where the _equivocation_ is untruly affected.--FULLER, _The

Holy State_, b. ii. c. 22.

All words, being arbitrary signs, are ambiguous; and few

disputers have the jealousy and skill which is necessary to

discuss _equivocations_; and so take verbal differences for

material.--BAXTER, _Catholic Theology_, Preface.

=ERR=, }

ERROR. }

‘To err’ is still to wander; but it is now used always in a figurative

and ethical sense, to deviate morally from the right way. In my first

quotation from Chapman, it is Telemachus who speaks, and of course

Ulysses of whom he speaks.

To thy knees therefore I am come, to attend

Relation of the sad and wretched end

My _erring_ father felt.

CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Odysseis_, b. iv. 435.

Even he is _error_-driven,

If yet he lives, and sees the light of heaven.

Id., _ib._ xx. 323.

The extravagant and _erring_ spirit hies

To his confine.

SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 1.

The characters of signs and _erring_ stars.

MARLOWE, _Faustus_, sc. 3.

=ESSAY.= There is no particular modesty now in calling a treatise or

dissertation an ‘essay;’ but from many passages it is plain that there

was so once; which indeed is only agreeable to the proper meaning of

the word, an ‘essay’ being a trial, proof, specimen, taste of a thing,

rather than the very and completed thing itself.

To write just treatises requireth leisure in the writer, and

leisure in the reader; and therefore are not so fit neither in

regard of your highness’ princely affairs, nor in regard of my

continual service; which is the cause which hath made me choose

to write certain brief notes, set down rather significantly

than curiously, which I have called _Essays_. The word is late,

but the thing is ancient.--BACON, _Intended Dedication of his

Essays to Prince Henry_.

Yet modestly he does his work survey,

And calls a finished poem an _essay_.

DRYDEN, _Epistle 5, To the Earl of Roscommon_.

=EXEMPLARY.= A certain vagueness in our use of ‘exemplary’ makes it for

us little more than a loose synonym for excellent. We plainly often

forget that ‘exemplary’ is strictly that which serves, or might serve,

for an exemplar to others, while only through keeping this distinctly

before us will passages like the following yield their exact meaning to

us.

We are not of opinion, therefore, as some are, that nature

in working hath before her certain _exemplary_ draughts or

patterns.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. i. c. 3.

When the English, at the Spanish fleet’s approach in

eighty-eight [1588], drew their ships out of Plymouth haven,

the Lord Admiral Howard himself towed a cable, the least

joint of whose _exemplary_ hand drew more than twenty men

besides.--FULLER, _The Holy State_, b. iv. c. 17.

=EXEMPLIFY.= The use of ‘exemplify’ in the sense of the Greek

παραδειγματίζειν (_Matt._ i. 19) has now passed away. Observe also in

the passage quoted the curious use of ‘traduce.’

He is a just and jealous God, not sparing to _exemplify_ and

_traduce_ his best servants [_i.e._ when they sin], that their

blur and penalty might scare all from venturing.--ROGERS,

_Matrimonial Honour_, p. 337.

=EXPLODE.= All our present uses of ‘explode,’ whether literal or

figurative, have reference to bursting, and to bursting with noise;

and it is for the most part forgotten that these are all secondary and

derived; that ‘to explode,’ originally an active verb, means to drive

off the stage with loud clappings of the hands: and that when one of

our early writers speaks of an ‘exploded’ heresy, or an ‘exploded’

opinion, his image is not drawn from something which, having burst, has

so perished; but he would imply that it has been contemptuously driven

off from the world’s stage--the fact that ‘explosion’ in this earlier

sense was with a great noise being the connecting link between that

sense and our present.

A third sort _explode_ this opinion as trespassing on Divine

Providence.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. iii. c. 18.

A man may with more facility avoid him that circumvents by

money than him that deceives with glosing terms, which made

Socrates so much abhor and _explode_ them.--BURTON, _Anatomy of

Melancholy; Democritus to the Reader_.

Thus was the applause they meant

Turned to _exploding_ hiss, triumph to shame,

Cast on themselves from their own mouths.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, x. 545; cf. xi. 699.

Shall that man pass for a proficient in Christ’s school,

who would have been _exploded_ in the school of Zeno or

Epictetus?--SOUTH, _Sermons_, vol. i. p. 431.

=EXTERMINATE=, }

EXTERMINATION. }

This now signifies to destroy, to abolish; but our fathers, more true

to the etymology, understood by it to drive men out of and beyond their

own borders.

Most things do either associate and draw near to themselves the

like, and do also drive away, chase, and _exterminate_ their

contraries.--BACON, _Colours of Good and Evil_, 7.

We believe it to be the general interest of us all, as much

as in us lies, with our common aid and succour to relieve our

_exterminated_ and indigent brethren.--MILTON, _Letter written

in Cromwell’s name on occasion of the persecutions of the

Vaudois_.

The state of the Jews was in that depression, in that

conculcation, in that consternation, in that _extermination_ in

the captivity of Babylon.--DONNE, _Sermons_, 19.

=FACETIOUS=, }

FACETIOUSNESS. }

It is certainly not a little remarkable that alike in Greek, Latin,

and English, words expressive of witty festive conversation should

have degenerated, though not all exactly in the same direction, and

gradually acquired a worse signification than that with which they

began; I mean εὐτραπελία, ‘urbanitas,’ and our own ‘facetiousness;’

this degeneracy of the words warning us how easily the thing itself

degenerates: how sure it is to do so, to corrupt and spoil, if it be

not seasoned with the only salt which will hinder this. ‘Facetiousness’

has already acquired the sense of buffoonery, of the making of ignoble

mirth for others; there are plain indications that it will ere long

acquire the sense of _indecent_ buffoonery: while there was a time,

as the examples given below will prove, when it could be ascribed

in praise to high-bred ladies of the court and to grave prelates and

divines.

He [Archbishop Williams] demonstrated that his mind was

the lighter, because his friends were about him, and his

_facetious_ wit was true to him at those seasons, because his

heart was true to his company.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop

Williams_, part ii. p. 32.

A grave man, yet without moroseness, as who would willingly

contribute his shot of _facetiousness_ on any just

occasion.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Oxfordshire_.

The king easily took notice of her [Anne Boleyn]; whether

more captivated by the allurements of her beauty, or the

_facetiousness_ of her behaviour, it is hard to say.--HEYLIN,

_History of Queen Mary_, Introduction.

=FACT.= This and ‘act’ or ‘deed’ have been usefully desynonymized. An

‘act’ or ‘deed’ implies now always a person as the actor or doer; but

it is sufficient for a ‘fact’ that it exists, that it has been done,

the author or doer of it falling altogether out of sight.

All the world is witnesse agaynst you, yea, and also your owne

_factes_ and deedes.--BARNES, _Works_, 1572, p. 251.

But, when the furious fit was overpast,

His cruel _facts_ he often would repent.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, 1, iv. 34.

Icetes took but a few of them to serve his turn, as if he had

been ashamed of his _fact_, and had used their friendship by

stealth.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, 1656, p. 228.

=FAIRY.= In whatever latitude we may employ ‘fairy’ now, this Romance

word is generally restricted to the middle beings of Teutonic and

Romanic popular mythology; being in no case applied, as it used to be,

to the δαίμονες of classical antiquity.

Of the _fairy_ Manto [daughter of Tiresias] I cannot

affirm any thing of truth, whether she were a _fairy_ or a

prophetess.--Sir J. HARINGTON, _Orlando Furioso_, b. lxiii.

So long as these wise _fairies_ Μοῖρα and Λάχεσις, that is

to say Portion and Partition, had the ordering of suppers,

dinners, and great feasts, a man should never see any illiberal

or mechanical disorder.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 679.

=FAME.= This is now generally applied to the reputation derived from

the report of great actions, but was constantly used in our Authorized

Version (_Gen._ xlv. 16; _1 Kin._ x. 7; _Jer._ vi. 24; _Matt._ ix. 26),

and in contemporary writings, as equivalent to report alone. Compare

the distinction in Quintilian (v. 3) between ‘fama’ and ‘rumor.’

The occasion which Pharaoh took to murder all the Hebrew males

was from a constant _fame_ or prenotion that about this time

there should a Hebrew male be born that should work wonders

for the good of his people.--JACKSON, _Christ’s Everlasting

Priesthood_, b. x. c. xl.

And his _fame_ [ἡ ἀκοὴ αὐτοῦ] went throughout all

Syria.--_Matt._ iv. 24. (A. V.)

=FAMILY.= It is not a good sign that the ‘family’ has now ceased to

include the servants; but for a long while the word retained the

largeness of its classical use, indeed it has only very recently lost

it altogether.

The same care is to extend to all of our _family_, in their

proportions, as to our children: for as by S. Paul’s reasoning

the heir differs nothing from a servant while he is in

minority, so a servant should differ nothing from a child

in the substantial part of the care.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Holy

Living_, 3, 2.

He [Sir Matthew Hale] kept no greater a _family_ than

myself.--BAXTER, _Life_, part 3, § 107.

A just master may have an unconscionable servant; and if he

have a numerous _family_ and keep many, it is a rare thing if

he have not some bad.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671, vol. i. p.

115.

To join to wife good _family_,

And none to keep for bravery ...

These be the steps unfeignedly

To climb to thrift by husbandry.

TUSSER, _Hundred Points of Good Husbandry_, 9.

=FANCY.= The distinction between ‘fancy’ and ‘imagination,’ for which

Wordsworth so earnestly contended, has obtained full recognition. It

was the more easy for it to find acceptance from the fact that it

fell in with a certain _clinamen_, a disposition already obscurely

working in the minds of men, to ascribe different domains of meaning

to these several words. But while what has been thus done has been

well done, it would be a mistake to regard this as an old distinction

that was now recovered from the oblivion into which it had fallen.

The Greeks ascribed no such subordination of φαντασία (‘phantasy,’

‘phansy,’ ‘fancy’) to some other word, as we now ascribe to ‘fancy’ in

its relation to ‘imagination.’ Φαντασία was for Plato and Aristotle

(see too Longinus, c. 15), all that ‘imagination’ is for us, the

power which summons up before the mind’s eye of the poet, and of as

many as he can carry along with him, the forms of things not present,

shaping and moulding, dissolving and reuniting and fusing these at his

will; while ‘fancy,’ as we now understand the word, with the humbler

offices assigned to it, as the aggregative and associated power, more

playful but less earnest, dealing often in prettinesses rather than

in beauties, had not obtained any special word to express it. At

the Revival of Learning both words found themselves in our English

vocabulary; but far down into the seventeenth century there was no

sense of any distinction between them; they were simply duplicates, one

from the Greek and one from the Latin. They are constantly employed

by Henry More as absolutely convertible; and where Milton makes any

difference between them, it is to the advantage of ‘fancy,’ which

includes ‘imagination’ as a greater includes a less. At a later day it

was felt to be a waste of wealth to have two words absolutely identical

in meaning for one and the same mental operation; above all, while

another went without any to designate it at all; and thus the instinct

which is ever at work in a language for the making the most of its

resources began to work for the desynonymizing of ‘imagination’ and

‘fancy.’ This could only be effected by the coming down of one or the

other from its height of place. The lot naturally fell on ‘fancy,’ the

grand φαντάζεσθαι, on which it rested, being far more obscured to such

as were not scholars, than the Latin ‘imago,’ on which ‘imagination’

reposed.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping _phantasies_, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

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

In the soul

Are many lesser faculties that serve

Reason as chief; among them _Fancy_ next

Her office holds; of all external things

Which the five watchful senses represent

She forms _imaginations_, airy shapes.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, v. 300.

The devil can act upon the soul by suggesting the ideas and

spiritual pictures of things to the _imagination_. For this is

the grand repository of all the ideas and representations which

the mind of man can work either upon or by. So that Satan,

our skilful artist, can as easily slide his injections into

the _fancy_ as present a deluding image to the eye.--SOUTH,

_Sermons_, 1737, vol. i. p. 110.

=FASTIDIOUS.= Persons are ‘fastidious’ now, as feeling disgust;

things, and indeed persons too, were ‘fastidious’ once, as occasioning

disgust. The word has shifted from an objective to a subjective use.

‘Fastidiosus’ had both uses, but our modern quite predominated; indeed

the other is very rare.

That thing for the which children be oftentimes beaten, is to

them ever after _fastidious_.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b.

i. c. 9.

=FEATURE.= This, the Old French ‘faiture,’ Latin ‘factura,’ is always

the part now of a larger whole, a ‘feature’ of the landscape, the

‘features’ of the face; but there was no such limitation once; anything

_made_, any ‘fattura,’ was a ‘feature’ once. ‘Facies’ in Latin,

according to Aulus Gellius (xiii. 29), underwent a not very dissimilar

change of meaning. In addition to the examples which follow, see

Spenser, _Fairy Queen_, iv. 2, 44; iii. 9, 21.

A body so harmoniously composed,

As if nature disclosed

All her best symmetry in that one _feature_.

BEN JONSON, _The Forest_, xi.

We have not yet found them all [the scattered limbs of

Truth], nor ever shall do, till her Master’s second coming;

He shall bring together every joint and member, and shall

mould them into an immortal _feature_ of loveliness and

perfection.--MILTON, _Areopagitica_.

So scented the grim _feature_, and upturned

His nostril wide into the murky air.

Id. _Paradise Lost_, x. 278.

But this young _feature_ [a commentary on Scripture which

Archbishop Williams had planned], like an imperfect embryo, was

mortified in the womb by Star-chamber vexations.--HACKET, _Life

of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p. 40.

=FEMININE.= The distinction between ‘feminine’ and ‘effeminate,’ that

the first is ‘womanly,’ the second ‘womanish,’ the first what becomes a

woman, and under certain limitations may without reproach be affirmed

of a man, while the second under all circumstances dishonours a man, as

‘mannish’ would dishonour a woman, is of comparatively modern growth.

Neither could ‘feminine’ now be used as an antithesis of ‘male,’ as by

Milton (_Paradise Lost_, i. 423) it is.

Till at the last God of veray right

Displeased was with his condiciouns,

By cause he [Sardanapalus] was in every mannes sight

So _femynyne_ in his affectiouns.

LYDGATE, _Poem against Idleness_.

But Ninias being esteemed no man of war at all, but altogether

_feminine_, and subject to ease and delicacy, there is no

probability in that opinion.--Sir W. RALEIGH, _History of the

World_, b. ii. c 1, § 1.

Commodus, the wanton and _feminine_ son of wise Antoninus,

gave a check to the great name of his father.--Bishop TAYLOR,

_Apples of Sodom_.

=FIRMAMENT.= We now use ‘firmament’ only for that portion of the sky on

all sides visible above the horizon, having gotten this application

of the word from the Vulgate (_Gen._ i. 6), or at any rate from the

Church Latin (‘_firmamentum_ cæleste,’ Tertullian, _De Bapt._ 3), as

that had derived it from the Septuagint. This by στερέωμα had sought to

express the firmness and stability of the sky-tent, which phenomenally

(and Scripture for the most part speaks phenomenally) is drawn over

the earth; and to reproduce the force of the original Hebrew word,--in

which, however, there is rather the notion of expansion than of

firmness (see H. More, _Defence of Cabbala_, p. 60). But besides this

use of ‘firmament,’ totally strange to the classical ‘firmamentum,’

being derived to us from the ecclesiastical employment of the word,

there is also an occasional use of it by the scholarly writers of the

seventeenth century in the original classical sense, as that which

makes strong or confirms.

I thought it good to make a strong head or bank to rule and

guide the course of the waters; by setting down this position

or _firmament_, namely, that all knowledge is to be limited by

religion, and to be referred to use and action.--BACON, _Of the

Interpretation of Nature_.

Religion is the ligature of all communities, and the

_firmament_ of laws.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Ductor Dubitantium_, iii.

3, 8.

=FLICKER.= This, with its variant ‘flacker,’ can only be used now of

the wavering motion of flames; but it was not so once.

But being made a swan,

With snowy feathers in the air to _flicker_ he began.

GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. vii.

And the Cherubins _flackered_ with their wings, and lift

themselves up from the earth.--_Ezek._ x. 19. COVERDALE.

=FLIRT.= This, or ‘flurt,’ as it used to be spelt, is a slightly

contracted form of the French ‘fleureter,’ from ‘fleur,’ a flower,

to flirt meaning to go as a bee from flower to flower, daintily

sipping the sweets of one flower, and then passing on to another (see

Cotgrave). At the same time much graver charges came to be often

implied in the word than are implied at the present. See on it A. S.

Palmer’s _Leaves from a Word-hunter’s Note Book_, pp. 33-40.

For why may not the mother be naught, a peevish, drunken

_flurt_, a waspish choleric slut, a crazed piece, a fool, as

soon as the nurse?--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part i.

sect. 2.

Gadrouillette, _f._ A minx, gigle, _flirt_, callet, Gixie; (a

feigned word, appliable to any such cattell).--COTGRAVE, _A

French and English Dictionary_, ed. 1673.

=FLOUNCE.= This word, meaning ‘to plunge about,’ must not be confused

with ‘flounce’ (a part of a dress); see Skeat’s Dictionary.

After an exhortation to his army, he [the Emperor

Conrad] commanded them all at once to _flounce_ into the

river.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. ii. c. 28.

Launch now into the whirlpool, or rather _flounce_ into the mud

and quagmire.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, vol. ii.

p. 200.

=FONDLING.= ‘Fond’ retains to this day, at least in poetry, not seldom

the sense of foolish; but a ‘fondling’ is no longer a fool.

An epicure hath some reason to allege, an extortioner is a

man of wisdom, and acteth prudently in comparison to him; but

this _fondling_ [the profane swearer] offendeth heaven and

abandoneth happiness he knoweth not why or for what.--BARROW,

_Sermon_ 15.

We have many such _fondlings_, that are their wives’

pack-horses and slaves.--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part

iii. sect. 3.

=FORGETFUL.= Exactly the converse of what has happened to ‘dreadful’

and ‘frightful’ (which see) has befallen ‘forgetful.’

It may be the _forgetful_ wine begot

Some sudden blow, and thereupon this challenge.

WEBSTER, _A Cure for a Cuckold_, act iii. sc. 1.

If the sleepy drench

Of that _forgetful_ lake benumb not still.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, ii. 73.

=FORLORN=, }

FORLORN HOPE. }

There are two points of difference between the past use of ‘forlorn

hope’ and the present. The first, that it was seldom used,--I can

recall no single example,--in that which is now its only application,

namely, of those who, being the first to mount the breach, thus set

their lives upon a desperate hazard; but always of the skirmishers and

others thrown out in front of an army about to engage. Here, indeed,

the central notion of the word may be affirmed to agree with that it

has now. These first come to hand-strokes with the enemy; they bear the

brunt of their onset; with less likelihood therefore that they will

escape than those who come after. This is quite true, and it comes

remarkably out in my first quotation from Holland; just as in a retreat

they are the ‘forlorn hope’ (_Swedish Intelligencer_, vol. i. p. 163),

who bring up the rear. But in passages innumerable this of the greater

hazard to which the ‘forlorn hope’ are exposed, has quite disappeared,

and the ‘forlorn’ (for ‘hope’ is often omitted) are simply that part

of the army which, being posted in the front, is first engaged. The

phrase is an importation from Holland, and ‘hope’ is the Dutch ‘hoop,’

a heap, band, troop. I find it first in Gascoigne’s _Fruits of War_,

st. 74.

The fearful are in the _forlorn_ [see _Rev._ xxi. 8] of those

that march for hell.--GURNALL, _The Christian in Complete

Armour_, c. 1.

They [the Enniskillen horse] offered with spirit to make always

the _forlorn_ of the army.--DRYDEN (Scott’s edition), vol. vii.

p. 303.

These [the Roman Velites] were loose troops, answerable

in a manner to those which we call now by a French name

_Enfans Perdues_, but when we use our own terms, _The Forlorn

Hope_.--Sir W. RALEIGH, _History of the World_, v. 3, 8.

Before the main battle of the Carthaginians he sets the

auxiliaries and aid-soldiers, a confused rabble and medley of

all sorts of nations, who, as the _forlorn hope_, bearing the

furious heat of the first brunt, might, if they did no other

good, yet, with receiving many a wound in their bodies dull and

turn the edge of the enemy’s sword.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 765.

Upon them the light-armed _forlorn hope_ [qui primi agminis

erant] of archers and darters of the Roman host, which went

before the battle to skirmish, charged forcibly with their

shot.--Id., _ib._ p. 641; cf. pp. 1149, 1150, 1195.

Christ’s descent into hell was not ad prædicandum, to

preach; useless, where his auditory was all the _forlorn

hope_.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Hampshire_.

=FORMAL=, }

FORMALLY, }

FORMALITY. }

It has been observed already, _s. v._ ‘Common Sense,’ that a vast

number of our words have descended to us from abstruse sciences and

speculations, we accepting them often in a total unconsciousness of the

quarter from which they came. Another proof of this assertion is here;

only, as it was metaphysics there, it is logic here which has given us

the word. It is curious to trace the steps by which ‘formality,’ which

meant in the language of the Schools the essentiality, the innermost

heart of a thing, that which gave it its form and shape, the ‘forma

formans,’ should now mean something not merely so different, but so

opposite.

Be patient; for I will not let him stir,

Till I have used the approved means I have,

With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers

To make of him a _formal_ man again.

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

Next day we behold our bride a _formal_ wife.--FULLER, _Of the

Clothes and Ornaments of the Jews_, § 6.

There are many graces required of us, whose material and

_formal_ part is repentance.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Doctrine and

Practice of Repentance_, i. 3, 47.

It is not only as impious and irreligious a thing, but as

senseless and as absurd a thing to deny that the Son of God

hath redeemed the world, as to deny that God hath created the

world; and he is as _formally_ and as gloriously a martyr that

dies for this article, The Son of God is come, as he that dies

for this, There is a God.--DONNE, _Sermons_, 1640, p. 69.

According to the rule of the casuists, the _formality_

of prodigality is inordinateness of our laying out, or

misbestowing on what we should not.--WHITLOCK, _Zootomia_, p.

497.

When the school makes pertinacy or obstinacy to be the

_formality_ of heresy, they say not true at all, unless it be

meant the obstinacy of the will and choice; and if they do,

they speak impertinently and inartificially, this being but

one of the causes that make error become heresy; the adequate

and perfect _formality_ of heresy is whatsoever makes the

error voluntary and vicious.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Liberty of

Prophesying_, § 2, 10.

Strong and importunate persuasions have not the nature and

_formality_ of force: but they have oftentimes the effect of

it; and he that solicits earnestly, sometimes determines as

certainly as if he did force.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol.

viii. p. 288.

=FRANCE=, }

FRENCHMAN. }

We consider now, and consider rightly, that there was properly no

‘France’ before there were Franks; and, speaking of the land and people

before the Frankish conquest, we use Gaul, Gauls, and Gaulish; just

as we should not now speak of Cæsar’s ‘journey into _England_.’ Our

fathers had not these scruples (North, _Plutarch’s Lives_). See the

quotation from Milton, _s. v._ ‘Civil.’

When Cæsar saw his army prone to war,

And fates so bent, lest sloth and long delay

Might cross him, he withdrew his troops from _France_,

And in all quarters musters men for Rome.

MARLOWE, _First Book of Lucan_.

A _Frenchman_ together with a _Frenchwoman_, likewise a Grecian

man and woman, were let down alive into the beast-market into a

vault under the ground, stoned all about.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p.

467.

=FRET.= This, the A.S. ‘fretan,’ the German ‘fressen,’ to eat, is with

us restricted now, though once it was otherwise, to the eating of the

heart through care, according to an image which we all can only too

well understand; and which has given the Pythagorean ‘Cor ne edito,’

the French ‘dévoré de chagrins.’

Adam afterward ayeines his defence

_Frette_ of that fruit.

_Piers Plowman_, B-text, xviii. 193 (Skeat).

He [Hercules] slough the cruel tirant Buserus,

And made his hors to _frete_ him fleisch and boon.

CHAUCER, _The Monkes Tale_ (Morris, iii. p. 205).

I saugh how that his houndes han him [Actæon] caught,

And _freten_ him, for that they knewe him naught.

Id., _Knightes Tale_ (Morris, ii. p. 64).

Thou makest his beauty to consume away, like as it were a moth

_fretting_ a garment.--_Ps._ xxxix. 12. P. B. V.

=FRIGHTFUL.= Now always active, that which inspires fright; but

formerly as often passive, that which is, or is liable to be,

frightened. See ‘Dreadful,’ ‘Hateful.’

The wild and _frightful_ herds,

Not hearing other noise, but this of chattering birds,

Feed fairly on the lawns.

DRAYTON, _Polyolbion_, Song 13.

=FRIPPERY.= Now such trumpery, such odds and ends of cheap finery,

as one might expect to meet at an old-clothes shop; but in our early

dramatists and others of their time, the shop itself where old clothes

were by the ‘fripper’ or broker scoured, ‘interpolated,’ and presented

anew for sale (officina vestium tritarum, Skinner); nor had ‘frippery’

then the contemptuous subaudition of worthlessness in the objects

offered for sale which its present use would imply. See Littré,

_Dictionnaire_, s. v. _Friperie_.

_Trinculo._ O worthy Stephano, look what a wardrobe here is for thee.

_Caliban._ Let it alone, thou fool, it is but trash.

_Trinculo._ O, ho, monster! we know what belongs to a _frippery_.

SHAKESPEARE, _The Tempest_, act iv. sc. 1.

_Enter Luke, with shoes, garters, fans, and roses._

_Gold._ Here he comes, sweating all over,

He shows like a walking _frippery_.

MASSINGER, _The City Madam_, act i. sc. 1.

Hast thou foresworn all thy friends in the Old Jewry? or dost

thou think us all Jews that inherit there? Yet, if thou dost,

come over, and but see our _frippery_. Change an old shirt for

a whole smock with us.--BEN JONSON, _Every Man in his Humour_,

act i. sc. 1.

=FULSOME=, }

FULSOMENESS. }

I have seen it questioned whether in the first syllable of ‘fulsome’

we are to find ‘foul’ or ‘full.’ There should be no question on the

matter; seeing that ‘fulsome’ is properly no more than ‘full,’ and

then secondly that which by its fulness and overfulness produces first

satiety, and then loathing and disgust. This meaning of ‘fulsome’

is still retained in our only present application of the word,

namely to compliments and flattery, which by their grossness produce

this effect on him who is their object; but the word had once many

more applications than this. See the quotation from Pope, _s. v._

‘Bacchanal.’

His lean, pale, hoar, and withered corpse, grew _fulsome_, fair,

and fresh.

GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. vii.

The next is Doctrine, in whose lips there dwells

A spring of honey, sweeter than its name,

Honey which never _fulsome_ is, yet _fills_

The widest souls.

BEAUMONT, _Psyche_, b. xix. st. 210.

Chaste and modest as he [Persius] is esteemed, it cannot be

denied but that in some cases he is broad and _fulsome_. No

decency is considered; no _fulsomeness_ omitted.--DRYDEN,

_Dedication of Translations from Juvenal_.

Making her soul to loathe dainty meat, or putting a surfeit and

_fulsomeness_ into all which she enjoys.--ROGERS, _Naaman the

Syrian_, p. 32.

=GARB.= One of many words, all whose meaning has run to the surface. A

man’s dress was once only a portion, and a very insignificant portion,

of his ‘garb,’ which included his whole outward presentment to other

men; now it is all.

First, for your _garb_, it must be grave and serious,

Very reserved and locked; not tell a secret

On any terms, not to your father.

BEN JONSON, _Volpone_, act iv. sc. 1.

The greatest spirits, and those of the best and noblest

breeding, are ever the most respective and obsequious in their

_garb_, and the most observant and grateful in their language

to all.--FELTHAM, _Resolves_, lxxxv.

Have thy observing eyes

E’er marked the spider’s _garb_, how close she lies

Within her curious web, and by and by

How quick she hastes to her entangled fly?

QUARLES, _History of Samson_, sect. 19.

A σεμνοπρέπεια in his person, a grave and a smiling _garb_

compounded together to bring strangers into a liking of their

welcome.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p. 32.

Horace’s wit and Virgil’s state

He did not steal but emulate,

And when he would like them appear,

Their _garb_, but not their clothes, did wear.

DENHAM, _On the Death of Cowley_.

=GARBLE.= Writings only are ‘garbled’ now; and ‘garbled’ extracts are

extracts dishonestly made, so shifted, mutilated, or in other ways

tampered with, that, while presented as fair specimens, they convey a

false impression. It is not difficult to trace the downward progress

of the word. It is derived from the Low Latin ‘garbellare,’ to sift or

cleanse corn from any dust or rubbish which may have become mingled

with it. It was then applied to any separation of the good from the

bad, retaining that, rejecting this, and used most commonly of spices;

then generally to picking and choosing, but without any intention to

select the better and to dismiss the worse: and lastly, as at present,

to picking and choosing with the distinct purpose of selecting that

which should convey the worse impression, and dismissing that which

should have conveyed a truer and a better. It is a very favourite word

in its earlier uses with Fuller.

_Garbling_ of bow-staves (anno 1 R. 3, cap. 11) is the sorting

or culling out of the good from the bad.--COWELL, _The

Interpreter_, s. v.

There was a fair hospital, built to the honour of St. Anthony

in Bennet’s Fink, in this city; the protectors and proctors

whereof claimed a privilege to themselves, to _garble_ the live

pigs in the markets of the city; and such as they found starved

or otherwise unwholesome for man’s sustenance they would slit

in the ear, tie a bell about their necks, and turn them loose

about the city.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: London_.

_Garbling_ men’s manners you did well divide,

To take the Spaniards’ wisdom, not their pride;

With French activity you stored your mind,

Leaving to them their fickleness behind;

And soon did learn, your temperance was such,

A sober industry even from the Dutch.