word, like so many others which we have met with, now restrained to
one sex, was formerly applied to both. It conveyed also of old a much
deeper moral reprobation than now or in the Middle English it did. Thus
Lucifer is a ‘shrew’ in _Piers Plowman_, and two murderers are ‘shrews’
in the quotation from Chaucer which follows.
And thus accorded ben these _schrewes_ twayn
To sle the thridde, as ye han herd me sayn.
CHAUCER, _The Pardoneres Tale_.
If Y schal schewe me innocent, He schal preve me a _schrewe_
[_pravum_ me comprobabit, Vulg.].--_Job_ ix. 20. WICLIF.
I know none more covetous _shrews_ than ye are, when ye have
a benefice.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of William
Thorpe_.
=SHREWD=, }
SHREWDNESS. }
The weakness of the world’s moral indignation against evil causes a
multitude of words which once conveyed intensest moral reprobation
gradually to convey none at all, or it may be even praise. ‘Shrewd’ and
‘shrewdness’ must be numbered among these.
An ant is a wise creature for itself; but it is a _shrewd_
thing in an orchard or garden.--BACON, _Essay 23_.
Is he _shrewd_ and unjust in his dealings with others?--SOUTH,
_Sermons_, 1737, vol. vi. p. 106.
Forsothe the erthe is corupt before God, and is fulfilled with
_shrewdness_ [iniquitate, Vulg.].--_Gen._ vi. 12. WICLIF.
The prophete saith: Flee _schrewednesse_ [declinet _a malo_,
Vulg.], and doo goodnesse; seeke pees, and folwe it.--CHAUCER,
_The Tale of Melibeus_ (Morris, iii. p. 187).
=SIEGE.= A ‘siege’ is now _the sitting down_ of an army before a
fortified place with the purpose of taking it; and has no other meaning
but this. It had once the double meaning, abstract and concrete, of the
French ‘siège,’ a seat.
Whanne mannus sone schal come in his _majeste_ and alle hise
aungels with hym, thanne he schal sitte on the _sege_ of his
majeste, and alle folkis schulen be gaderid bifor hym.--_Matt._
xxv. 31. WICLIF.
A stately _siege_ of soveraine majestye;
And thereon sat a woman gorgeous gay.
SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 7, 44.
Besides, upon the very _siege_ of justice
Lord Angelo hath to the common ear
Professed the contrary.
SHAKESPEARE, _Measure for Measure_, act iv. sc. 2.
=SIGHT.= The use of ‘sight’ to signify a multitude, a great quantity
(that is, to see), has now a touch of vulgarity about it, which once it
was very far from possessing.
A noble _sighte_ of bookes (nobilissimam librorum
bibliothecam).--Harleian translation of Higden, vi. 239. (Rolls
Series, No. 41.)
Ye are come unto the mounte Sion, and to the citie of the
livinge God, the celestiall Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
_sight_ of angels.--_Heb._ xii. 22. TYNDALE.
Clodius was ever about him in every place and street he went,
having a _sight_ of rascals and knaves with him.--NORTH,
_Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 722.
=SILLY=, }
SILLINESS. }
A deep conviction of men that he who departs from evil will make
himself a prey, that none will be a match for the world’s evil who is
not himself evil, has brought to pass the fact that a number of words,
signifying at first goodness, signify next well-meaning simplicity; the
notions of goodness and foolishness, with a strong predominance of the
last, for a while interpenetrating one another in them; till at length
the latter quite expels the former, and remains as the sole possessor
of the word. I need hardly mention the Greek ἄκακος, εὐήθης, εὐήθεια:
while the same has happened in regard of the O.E. ‘sǽlig,’ which (the
same word as the German ‘selig’) has successively meant, (1) blissful,
(2) innocent, harmless, (3) weakly foolish.
Oh God, quod she, so worldly _selynesse_,
Which clerkes callen fals felicite,
Imedled is with many a bitternesse.
CHAUCER, _Troylus and Cryseyde_ (Morris, p. 258).
O _sely_ woman, ful of innocence.
CHAUCER, _Legend of Fair Women_, 1252.
This Miles Forest and John Dighton about midnight (the _silly_
children lying in their beds) came into the chamber, and
suddenly lapped them up among the clothes.--Sir T. MORE,
_History of King Richard III._
=SINCERE=, }
SINCERITY. }
The etymology of ‘sincerus’ being uncertain, it is impossible to say
what is the primary notion of our English ‘sincere.’ These words belong
now to an ethical sphere exclusively, and even there their meaning is
not altogether what once it was; but the absence of foreign admixture
which they predicate might be literal once.
The mind of a man, as it is not of that content or receipt to
comprehend knowledge without helps and supplies, so again, it
is not _sincere_, but of an ill and corrupt tincture.--BACON,
_Of the Interpretation of Nature_, c. xvi.
The Germans are a people that more than all the world, I think,
may boast _sincerity_, as being for some thousands of years a
pure and unmixed people.--FELTHAM, _A brief Character of the
Low Countries_, p. 59.
=SKELETON.= Now the framework of bones as entirely denuded of the
flesh; but in early English, and there in stricter agreement with the
meaning of the word in Greek, the _dried_ mummy.
_Scelet_; the dead body of a man artificially dried or tanned
for to be kept or seen a long time.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s
Morals; An Explanation of certain obscure Words_.
=SMUG.= One of many words which have been spoilt for poetic use through
being drawn into our serio-comic vocabulary. It still means neat, trim,
being connected with the German ‘schmuck,’ trim, spruce; but seeks to
present the very neatness which it implies in a ridiculous ignoble
point of view. Any such intention was very far from it once.
And here the _smug_ and silver Trent shall run
In a new channel, fair and evenly.
SHAKESPEARE, _1 Henry IV._, act iii. sc. 1.
Twelve sable steeds, _smug_ as the old raven’s wing,
Of even stature and of equal pride,
Sons of the wind, or some more speedy thing,
To his fair chariot all abreast were tied.
BEAUMONT, _Psyche_, ix. 176.
I like the _smugness_ of the Cathedral (Winchester), and
the profusion of the most beautiful Gothic tombs.--WALPOLE,
_Letters_, i. 442 (1755).
=SNAIL.= It is curious what different objects men will be content for
long to confuse under a common name. Thus in some provincial dialects
of Germany they have only one name, ‘padde’ (compare our ‘paddock’),
for frog and toad. So too ‘snail’ (cochlea) and ‘slug’ (limax) with us
were both to a comparatively recent period included under the former
name. ‘Slug’ indeed, in the sense of slothful, is an old word in the
language; but only at the end of the seventeenth or beginning of the
eighteenth century was it transferred to that familiar pest of our
gardens which we now call by this name. Indeed up to the present day
in many of our provincial dialects slugs and snails are invariably
both included under the latter name; the snail proper being sometimes
distinguished from the other as the ‘_shell_-snail’ (see Holland’s
_Plutarch_, p. 212). See an interesting discussion in the Philological
Society’s _Transactions_, 1860-1, pp. 102-106.
There is much variety even in creatures of the same kind. See
these two _snails_. One hath a house, the other wants it;
_yet both are snails_, and it is a question whether case is
the better. That which hath a house hath more shelter, that
which wants it hath more freedom.--Bishop HALL, _Occasional
Meditations_.
_Snails_, a soft and exosseous animal, whereof in the _naked_
and greater sort, as though she would requite the loss of a
shell on their back, nature near the head hath placed a flat
white stone. Of the great grey _snails_ I have not met with any
that wanted it.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Vulgar Errors_, b. iii. c. 13.
=SNUB.= To check or cut short; now never used save in a figurative
sense and in familiar language; but this was not always so.
If we neglect them [the first stirrings of corruption] but a
little, out of a thought that they can do no great harm yet,
or that we shall have time enough to _snub_ them hereafter,
we do it to our own certain disadvantage, if not utter
undoing.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671, vol. ii. p. 241.
=SOFT=, }
SOFTNESS. }
It is not an honourable fact that ‘soft’ and ‘softness’ should now be
terms of slight, almost of contempt, when ethically employed; although
indeed it is only a repetition of what we find in χρηστός, εὐήθης,
‘gutig,’ ‘bonhomie,’ and other words not a few.
That they speak evil of no man, that they be no fighters, but
_soft_ [ἐπιεικεῖς], showing all meekness unto all men.--_Titus_
iii. 2. TYNDALE.
The meek or _soft_ shall inherit the earth; even as we say, Be
still and have thy will.--TYNDALE, _Exposition on the Fifth
Chapter of Matthew_.
Let your _softness_ [τὸ ἐπιεικὲς ὑμῶν] be known unto all
men.--_Phil._ iv. 5. CRANMER.
=SONNET.= A ‘sonnet’ now must consist of exactly fourteen lines,
neither more nor less; and these with a fixed arrangement, though
admitting a certain relaxation, of the rhymes; but ‘sonnet’ used often
to be applied to _any_ shorter poem, especially of an amatory kind.
He [Arion] had a wonderful desire to chaunt a _sonnet_ or hymn
unto Apollo Pythius.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 343.
If ye will tell us a tale, or play a jig, or show us a play and
fine sights, or sing _sonnets_ in our ears, there we will be
for you.--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 492.
=SOT=, }
SOTTISH, }
SOTTISHNESS. }
He only is a ‘sot’ now whose stupor and folly is connected with, and
the result of, excessive drink; but _any_ fool would once bear this
name.
In Egypt oft has seen the _sot_ bow down,
And reverence some deified baboon.
OLDHAM, _Eighth Satire of Boileau_.
I do not here speak of a legal innocence (none but _sots_ and
Quakers dream of such things), for as St. Paul says, ‘By the
works of the law shall no flesh living be justified;’ but I
speak of an evangelical innocence.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, vol. ii.
p. 427.
He [Perseus] commanded those poor divers to be secretly
murdered, that no person should remain alive that was privy to
that _sottish_ commandment of his.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1177.
A leper once he lost, and gained a king,
Ahaz his _sottish_ conqueror, whom he drew
God’s altar to disparage and displace
For one of Syrian mode.
MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, i. 471.
_Sottishness_ and dotage is the extinguishing of reason in
phlegm or cold.--H. MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b.
viii. c. 14.
[=SPARKLE.= It is probable that ‘to sparkle’ in the sense of to
scatter is not the same word as our modern ‘sparkle,’ the diminutive
of ‘spark,’ a small particle of fire. I think that it is almost
certain that the ‘sparkle’ in the passages given below is a later form
of ‘sparple,’ to scatter, see Trevisa, v. 287 (Rolls Series), and
_Promptorium_. The Middle English ‘sparplen’ is the same word as the
French ‘esparpiller,’ to scatter, disparkle asunder (see Cotgrave);
compare also Italian ‘sparpagliare’ (Florio). For the etymology
of ‘sparple’ see Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of Middle English_ (s. v.
‘disparplen’). For a late use of ‘disparple,’ to scatter, see Davies,
_Suppl. Gloss._]
The Lansgrave hath _sparkled_ his army without any further
enterprise.--_State Papers_, vol. x. p. 718.
Cassandra yet there sawe I how they haled
From Pallas’ house, with _spercled_ tresse undone.
SACKVILLE, _Induction to a Mirrour for Magistrates_.
And awhile chawing all those things in his mouth, he spitteth
it upon him whom he desireth to kill; who being _sparkled_
therewith, dieth by force of the poison within the space of
half an hour.--_Purchas’s Pilgrims_, part ii. p. 1495.
=SPECIOUS.= Like the Latin ‘speciosus,’ it simply signified beautiful
once; it now means always presenting a deceitful appearance of that
beauty which is not really possessed, and is never used in any but an
ethical sense.
This prince hadde a dowter dere, Asneth was her name,
A virgine ful _specious_, and semely of stature.
_Metrical Romance of the Fourteenth Century._
And they knew him, that it was he which sate for alms at the
_Specious_ Gate of the temple.--_Acts_ iii. 10. Rheims.
His mind as pure and neatly kept
As were his nurseries, and swept
So of uncleanness or offence
That never came ill odour thence;
And add his actions unto these,
They were as _specious_ as his trees.
BEN JONSON, _Epitaph on Master Vincent Corbet_.
Which [almug-trees], if odoriferous, made that passage as sweet
to the smell as _specious_ to the sight.--FULLER, _Α Pisgah
Sight of Palestine_, b. iii. c. 2, § 5.
=SPICE.= We have in English a double adoption of the Latin ‘species,’
namely ‘spice’ and ‘species’. ‘Spice,’ the earlier form (Old French
‘espice’), is now limited to certain aromatic drugs, which, as
consisting of various _kinds_, have this name of ‘spices.’ But ‘spice’
was once employed as ‘species’ is now.
Absteyne you fro al yvel _spice_ [ab omni _specie_ malâ,
Vulg.]--_1 Thess._ v. 22. WICLIF.
The _spices_ of envye ben these.--CHAUCER, _The Persones Tale_
(Morris, p. 304).
Justice, although it be but one entire virtue, yet is
described in two kinds of _spices_. The one is named justice
distributive, the other is called commutative.--Sir T. ELYOT,
_The Governor_, b. iii. c. 1.
=SPILL.= Nothing appears so utterly and irrecoverably lost as liquid
poured upon the ground; and thus it has come to pass that ‘to
spill,’ the Ο. E. ‘spillan,’ which had once the meaning of to waste,
to squander, to consume, to destroy, and that in any way, is now
restricted to this single meaning.
O litel child, alas! what is thi gilt,
That never wroughtest synne as yet, parde?
Why wil thyn harde fader han the _spilt_?
CHAUCER, _The Man of Lawes Tale_.
If the colors ... be not well tempered or not well laid, or be
used in excess, or never so little disordered and misplaced,
they disfigure the stuff, and _spill_ the whole workmanship,
taking away all beauty and good liking from it.--PUTTENHAM,
_Art of English Poesy_, b. iii. c. 1.
_Spill_ not the morning, the quintessence of the day, in
recreations.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. iii. c. 13.
=SPINSTER.= A name that was often applied to women of evil life, in
that they were set to enforced labour of spinning in the Spittle or
House of Correction (it is still called ‘The _Spinning_ House’ at
Cambridge), and thus were ‘spinsters.’ None of our Dictionaries, so far
as I have observed, take note of this use of the word.
Many would never be indicted _spinsters_, were they spinsters
indeed, nor come to so public and shameful punishments, if
painfully employed in that vocation.--FULLER, _Worthies of
England: Kent_.
_Geta._ These women are still troublesome;
There be houses provided for such wretched women,
And some small rents to set ye a spinning.
_Drusilla._ Sir,
We are no _spinsters_, nor, if you look upon us,
So wretched as you take us.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, _The Prophetess_, act iii. sc. 1.
=SPRUCE.= The exploits of the Teutonic Knights against the Pruzzi,
the stubborn heathen of Lithuania, made Prussia to be very familiar
on the lips of men in the later Middle Ages (see Weigand, _s. v._
Preuszen). This Prussia, Sprutia very often in medieval Latin, appears
now as ‘Pruce’ (so in Chaucer), and now as ‘Spruce’ (see Skeat’s
_Dictionary_); and in this latter form it survives in our _spruce_
fir, which was brought from Northern Europe, in _spruce_ beer, and in
_spruce_, more vaguely applied to a certain neatness and smartness of
outward appearance; one which it is implied had reached us from those
quarters.
They were apparelled after the fashion of Prussia or
_Spruce_.--HALL, _Chronicle, Henry VIII._
Norway in that age, the _sprucest_ of the three kingdoms of
Scandia, and best tricked up with shipping, sent her fleet of
tall soldiers to Syria.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. v. c. 22.
=SQUANDER.= The examples which follow will show that ‘to squander’ had
once, if not a different, yet a much wider use than it now, at least
in our classical English, retains. In the northern dialects it is still
used as equivalent to ‘disperse.’
He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies;
... he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other
ventures he hath, _squandered_ abroad.--SHAKESPEARE, _Merchant
of Venice_, act i. sc. 3.
The minister is not to come into the pulpit, as a fencer upon
the stage, to make a fair flourish against sin, but rather as
a captain into the field, to bend his forces specially against
the strongest troops of the enemy, and to _squander_ and break
through the thickest ranks.--SANDERSON, _Sermon 2, ad Clerum_.
They charge, recharge, and all along the sea
They chase and _squander_ the huge Belgian fleet.
DRYDEN, _Annus Mirabilis_, st. 67.
=STAPLE.= A curious change has come over this word. We should now say,
Cotton is the great ‘staple,’ that is, the established merchandize, of
Manchester; our ancestors would have reversed this and said, Manchester
is the great ‘staple,’ or established mart, of cotton. We make the
goods prepared or sold the ‘staple’ of the place; they made the place
the ‘staple’ of the goods. See Cowell, _The Interpreter_, s. v.
Men in all ages have made themselves merry with singling out
some place, and fixing the _staple_ of stupidity and stolidity
therein.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Nottinghamshire_.
_Staple_; a city or town, where merchants jointly lay up their
commodities for the better uttering of them by the great; a
public storehouse.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.
=STARVE.= This word, the O.E. ‘steorfan,’ the German ‘sterben,’ to die,
is only by comparatively modern use restricted to dying _by cold or by
hunger_; in this restriction of use, resembling the French ‘noyer,’ to
kill _by drowning_, while ‘necare,’ from which it descends, is to kill
by any manner of death. But innumerable words are thus like rivers,
which once pouring their waters through many channels, have now left
dry and abandoned them all, save one, or, as in the present instance it
happens, save two.
For wele or woo sche wol him not forsake:
Sche is not wery him to love and serve,
Theigh that he lay bedred til that he _sterve_.
CHAUCER, _The Marchaundes Tale_.
But, if for me ye fight, or me will serve,
Not this rude kind of battell, nor these armes
Are meet, the which doe men in bale to _sterve_.
SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 6, 34.
=STATE.= Used often by our old writers for a raised dais or
platform, on which was placed a chair or throne with a canopy (the
German ‘Thronhimmel’) above it; being the chiefest seat of honour;
thus in Massinger’s _Bondman_, act i. sc. 3, according to the old
stage-direction Archidamus ‘offers Timoleon the _state_.’ But there
is another use of ‘state’ not unfrequent in the seventeenth century,
though altogether unknown in our own. A ‘state’ was a republic, as
contradistinguished from a monarchy. This usage, which the States of
Holland may have contributed to bring about, does not seem to have
lasted very long.
But for a canopy to shade her head,
No _state_ which lasts no longer than ’tis stayed,
And fastened up by cords and pillars’ aid.
_Beaumont_, PSYCHE, can. xix. st. 170.
Their majesties were seated as is aforesaid under their
canopies or _states_, whereof that of the Queen was somewhat
lesser and lower than that of the King, but both of them
exceeding rich.--_History of the Coronation of King James II._,
1687, p. 61.
When he went to court, he used to kick away the _state_, and
sit down by his prince cheek by jowl. Confound these _states_,
says he, they are a modern invention.--SWIFT, _History of John
Bull_, part ii. c. 1.
What say some others? A government of _states_ would do much
better for you than a monarchy.--ANDREWES, _Sermon 6, Of the
Gunpowder Treason_.
Dull subjects see too late
Their safety in monarchal reign;
Finding their freedom in a _state_
Is but proud strutting in a chain.
DAVENANT, _The Dream_.
Those very Jews, who, at their very best
Their humour more than loyalty expressed,
Thought they might ruin him, they could create;
Or melt him to a golden calf, a _state_.
DRYDEN, _Absalom and Achitophel_, 66.
=STATIONER.= There was a time when ‘stationer,’ meaning properly no
more than one who had his _station_, that is, in the market-place or
elsewhere, included the bookseller and the publisher, as well as the
dealer in the raw material of books. But when, in the division of
labour, these became separate businesses, the name was restrained to
him who dealt in the latter articles alone.
_Stacyonere_, or he that sellythe bokys, stacionarius,
bibliopola.--_Promptorium._
I doubt not but that the Animadverter’s _stationer_ doth
hope and desire that he hath thus pleased people in his
book, for the advancing of the price and quickening the sale
thereof.--FULLER, _Appeal of Injured Innocence_, p. 38.
The right of the printed copies (which the _stationer_ takes
as his own freehold), was dispersed in five or six several
hands.--OLEY, _Preface to Dr. Jackson’s Works_.
Quarles, Chapman, Heywood, Wither had applause,
And Wild, and Ogilby in former days;
But now are damned to wrapping drugs and wares,
And cursed by all their broken _stationers_.
OLDHAM, _A Satire_.
=STICKLE=, }
STICKLER. }
Now to stand with a certain pertinacity to one’s point, refusing
to renounce or go back from it; but formerly to interpose between
combatants and separate them, when they had sufficiently satisfied
the laws of honour. Our present meaning of the word connects itself
with the past in the fact that the ‘sticklers,’ or seconds, as we
should call them now, often fulfilled another function, being ready
to maintain in their own persons and by their own arms the quarrel of
their principals, and thus to ‘stickle’ for it. [The word ‘stickle’
represents the Middle English ‘stightlen,’ to order, arrange; for an
interesting account of its cognates see Skeat’s _Dictionary_.]
I _styckyll_ betwene wrastellers, or any folkes that prove
mastries to se that none do other wronge, or I parte folkes
that be redy to fyght.--PALSGRAVE.
Betwixt which three a question grew,
Which should the worthiest be;
Which violently they pursue,
And would not _stickled_ be.
DRAYTON, _Muses’ Elysium, Nymph. 6_.
The same angel [in Tasso], when half of the Christians are
already killed, and all the rest are in a fair way of being
routed, _stickles_ betwixt the remainders of God’s hosts and
the race of fiends; pulls the devils backwards by the tails,
and drives them from their quarry.--DRYDEN, _Dedication of
Translations from Juvenal_, p. 122.
In ancient times they were wont to employ third persons as
_sticklers_, to see no treachery nor disorder were used, and to
bear witness of the combat’s success.--FLORIO, _Montaigne_, ii.
27.
The dragon wing of night o’erspreads the earth,
And, _stickler_-like, the armies separates.
SHAKESPEARE, _Troilus and Cressida_, act v. sc. 9.
Our former chiefs, like _sticklers_ of the war,
First fought to inflame the parties, then to poise;
The quarrel loved, but did the cause abhor,
And did not strike to hurt, but make a noise.
DRYDEN, _On the Death of Oliver Cromwell_.
=STOMACH.= Already in classical Latin ‘stomachus’ had all the uses,
courage, pride, indignation, ill-will, which ‘stomach’ may be seen in
the following quotations to have once possessed, but which at this day
have nearly or quite departed from it.
And sence we herde therof oure hert hath failed us, neither
is there a good _stomache_ more in eny man, by the reasone of
youre commynge.--_Josh._ ii. 11. COVERDALE.
He was a man
Of an unbounded _stomach_, ever ranking
Himself with princes.
SHAKESPEARE, _Henry VIII._, act iv. sc. 2.
Arius, discontented that one should be placed before him in
honour, whose superior he thought himself in desert, became
through envy and _stomach_ prone unto contradiction, and bold
to broach that heresy wherein the Deity of our Lord Jesus
Christ was denied.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. v. § 42.
[=STOUT.= This word is now generally used in the sense of corpulent,
less frequently in the sense of strong, robust. In provincial use
‘stout’ has sometimes the meaning of proud, and this is probably
the original meaning of the word. ‘Stout’ is the same word as the
Old French _estout_, bold, proud, which represents a Germanic base
_stolto_-; compare modern German _stolz_, proud (see Kluge, _s. v._).
In the passages below the word retains its old meaning.]
Commonly it is seen that they that be rich are lofty and
_stout_.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, p. 545.
I _stout_ and you _stout_,
Who will carry the dirt out?
_Old Proverb._
Come all to ruin; let
Thy mother rather feel thy pride, than fear
Thy dangerous _stoutness_; for I mock at death
With as big heart as thou.
SHAKESPEARE, _Coriolanus_, act iii. sc. 2.
=STOVE.= This word, which was probably introduced from Holland, has
much narrowed its meaning. Bath, hothouse, any room where air or water
was artificially heated, was a ‘stove’ once.
When a certain Frenchman came to visit Melanchthon, he found
him in his _stove_, with one hand dandling his child in the
swaddling-clouts, and the other holding a book and reading
it.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. ii. c. 9.
How tedious is it to them that live in _stoves_ and caves
half a year together, as in Iceland, Muscovy, or under the
pole!--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part i. sect. 2.
When most of the waiters were commanded away to their supper,
the parlour or _stove_ being nearly emptied, in came a company
of musketeers, shot every one his man, and so proceeded to
an apothecary’s house, where Wallenstein lay.--_Letters and
Despatches of Thomas Earl of Strafford_, vol. i. p. 226.
=STREET.= This, one of the words which the Romans left behind them when
they quitted Britain, and which the Saxons learned from the Britons,
is more properly a road or causeway (‘via _strata_’) than a street, in
our present sense of the word; and as late as Coverdale was so used.
For they soughte them thorow every _strete_, and yet they
founde them not.--_Josh._ ii. 22. COVERDALE.
But when one sawe that all the people stode there still, he
removed Amasa from the _strete_ unto the felde.--_1 Sam._ xx.
12. COVERDALE.
=SUBLIME.= There is an occasional use of ‘sublime’ by our earlier
poets, a use in which it bears much the meaning of the Greek
ὑπερήφανος, or perhaps approaches still more closely to that of
μετέωρος, high and lifted up, as with pride; which has now quite
departed from it.
For the proud Soldan, with presumptuous cheer
And countenance _sublime_ and insolent,
Sought only slaughter and avengément.
SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, v. 8, 30.
Their hearts were jocund and _sublime_,
Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine.
MILTON, _Samson Agonistes_, 1669.
=SUE.= One now ‘sues’ or _follows_ another into the courts of law,
being, as in the legal language of Greece, ὁ διώκων, the ‘pursuer;’ but
‘to sue’ was once to follow, without any such limitation of meaning.
If thou wolt be perfite, go, and sille alle thingis that thou
hast, and come, and _sue_ me.--_Matt._ xix. 21. WICLIF.
And anoon thei leften the nettis and _sueden_ hym.--_Mark_ i.
19. Id.
=SURE.= Used once in the sense of affianced, or, as it would be
sometimes called, ‘hand-fasted.’ See ‘Assure,’ ‘Ensure.’
The king was _sure_ to dame Elizabeth Lucy, and her husband
before God.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King Richard III._
=SUSPECT=, }
SUSPICION. }
To ‘suspect’ is properly to look under, and out of this fact is derived
our present use of the word; but in looking _under_ you may also look
_up_, and herein lies the explanation of an occasional use of ‘suspect’
and ‘suspicion’ which we find in our early writers.
Pelopidas being sent the second time into Thessaly, to make
accord betwixt the people and Alexander, the tyrant of
Pheres, was by this tyrant (not _suspecting_ the dignity of
an ambassador, nor of his country) made prisoner.--NORTH,
_Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 927.
If God do intimate to the spirit of any wise inferiors that
they ought to reprove, then let them _suspect_ their own
persons, and beware that they make no open contestation, but be
content with privacy.--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 330.
Cordeilla, out of mere love, without the _suspicion_ of
expected reward, at the message only of her father in distress,
pours forth true filial tears.--MILTON, _History of England_,
b. i.
=SYCOPHANT.= The early meaning of ‘sycophant,’ when it was employed
as equivalent to informer, delator, calumniator, ‘promoter’ (which
see), agreed better with its use in the Greek than does our present.
Employing it now in the sense of false and fawning flatterer, we might
seem at first sight to employ it in a sense not merely altogether
unconnected with, but quite opposite to, its former. Yet indeed there
is a very deep inner connexion between the two uses. It is not for
nothing that Jeremy Taylor treats of these two, namely ‘Of Slander and
Flattery,’ in one and the same course of sermons; seeing that, as the
Italian proverb has taught us, ‘He who flatters me before, spatters me
behind.’
The poor man, that hath nought to lose, is not afraid of the
_sycophant_ or promoter.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 261.
He [St. Paul] in peril of the wilderness, that is of wild
beasts; they [rich men] not only of the wild beast called
the _sycophant_, but of the tame beast too, called the
flatterer.--ANDREWES, _Sermon preached at the Spittle_.
Sanders, that malicious _sycophant_, will have no less than
twenty-six wain-load of silver, gold, and precious stones
to be seized into the king’s hands by the spoil of that
monument.--HEYLIN, _History of the Reformation_, 1849, vol. i.
p. 20.
=SYMBOL.= The employment of ‘symbol’ in its proper Greek sense of
contribution thrown into a common stock, as in a pic-nic or the like,
is frequent in Jeremy Taylor, and examples of it may be found in other
scholarly writers of the seventeenth century.
The consideration of these things hath oft suggested, and
at length persuaded me to make this attempt, to cast in my
mite to this treasury, my _symbolum_ toward so charitable a
work.--HAMMOND, _A Paraphrase on the Psalms_, Preface.
Christ hath finished his own sufferings for expiation of
the world; yet there are ‘portions that are behind of the
sufferings’ of Christ, which must be filled up by his body
the Church; and happy are they that put in the greatest
_symbol_; for ‘in the same measure you are partakers of the
sufferings of Christ, in the same shall ye be also of the
consolation.’--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Faith and Patience of the
Saints_.
There [in Westminster Abbey] the warlike and the peaceful,
the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and the despised
princes, mingle their dust and pay down their _symbol_ of
mortality.--Id., _Holy Dying_, c. i. § 2.
=TABLE.= The Latin ‘tabula’ had for one of its meanings picture or
painting; and this caused that ‘table’ was by our early writers used
often in the same meaning.
The _table_ wherein Detraction was expressed, he [Apelles]
painted in this form.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b. iii. c.
27.
You shall see, as it were in a _table_ painted before your
eyes, the evil-favouredness and deformity of this most
detestable vice.--_Homilies: Against Contention._
Learning flourished yet in the city of Sicyon, and they
esteemed the painting of _tables_ in that city to be the
perfectest for true colours and fine drawing, of all other
places.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 843.
=TAINT.= This and ‘tint’ or ‘teint,’ the one connected more closely
with the French, the other with the Italian form of the word, have
divided off from one another, but own a common origin--‘tingo,’
‘tinctus.’ The fact that discoloration commonly accompanies decay
explains our present use of ‘taint.’
A most delicate and beautiful young lady, slender of body, tall
of stature, fair of _taynt_ and complexion.--REYNOLDS, _God’s
Revenge against Murther_, b. i. hist. 1.
But in the court be quainter dames than she,
Whose faces are enrich’d with honour’s _taint_.
GREENE, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, sc. 1.
And Nero will be _tainted_ with remorse.
SHAKESPEARE, _3 Henry VI._, act iii. sc. 1.
=TALENT.= The original meaning, as of ‘talent’ in Old French,
‘talento’ in Italian, ‘talante’ in Spanish, was will, inclination,
from ‘talentum’ (τάλαντον), balance, scales, and then inclination of
balance; thus in Spenser (_Fairy Queen_, iii. 4, 61), ‘maltalent’ is
grudge or ill-will (compare Old French ‘maltalant’ in the _Chanson de
Roland_, 271). It is probably under the influence of the Parable of the
Talents (_Matt._ xxv.) that it has travelled to its present meaning.
Clarendon still employs it very distinctly in its older sense.
Whoso then wold wel understonde these peines, and bethinke him
wel that he hath deserved these peines for his sinnes, certes
he shold have more _talent_ for to sighe and to wepe than for
to singe and playe.--CHAUCER, _The Persones Tale_.
The meaner sort rested not there, but creating for their leader
Sir John Egremond, a factious person and one who had of a long
time borne an ill _talent_ towards the king, entered into open
rebellion.--BACON, _History of King Henry VII._
Though the nation generally was without any ill _talent_ to the
Church, either in the point of the doctrine or the discipline,
yet they were not without a jealousy that Popery was not enough
discountenanced.--CLARENDON, _History of the Rebellion_, b. i.
c. 194.
=TALL.= [This word occurs in earlier English with a great variety of
meanings. A very common meaning is seemly, fine, elegant; for examples
see Oliphant’s _New English_ (index). In old plays it often meant
valiant, brave, great (Halliwell). In the _Complaint of Mars_ ‘talle’
occurs, apparently in the sense of obedient, docile (see Skeat, _Minor
Poems of Chaucer_, iv. 38). The word in the sense of lofty in stature
may perhaps be distinct from the above ‘tall’; at any rate the modern
sense of tall seems to be the primary one in the Welsh and Cornish
_tal_, high. See Skeat’s _Dictionary_.]
_Tal_, or semely, Decens, elegans.--_Promptorium._
He [the Earl of Richmond’s] companions being almost in
despair of victory were suddenly recomforted by Sir William
Stanley, which came to succours with three thousand _tall_
men.--GRAFTON, _Chronicle_.
_Tamburlaine._ Where are my common soldiers now, that fought
So lionlike upon Asphaltis’ plains?
_Soldier._ Here, my lord.
_Tamburlaine._ Hold ye, _tall_ soldiers, take ye queens apiece.
MARLOWE, _Tamburlaine the Great_, part ii. act iv. sc. 4.
He [Prince Edward] would proffer to fight with any mean person,
if cried up for a _tall_ man.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. iv. c. 29.
=TARPAULIN.= Not any longer used in the sense of sailor, except in
the shorter form of ‘tar.’ See the quotation from Smollett, _s. v._
‘Companion.’
The Archbishop of Bordeaux is at present General of the French
naval forces, who though a priest, is yet permitted to turn
_tarpaulin_ and soldier.-_-Turkish Spy_, Letter 2.
=TAWDRY.= ‘Tawdry’ laces and such like were cheap and showy articles
of finery bought at St. Etheldrida’s or St. Awdry’s fair; but it is
only in later times that this cheapness, showiness, with a further
suggestion of vulgarity, made themselves distinctly felt in the word.
[The Old English form of ‘Etheldrida’ was ‘Æthelthry̅th,’ which means
noble strength. See Sweet, _Oldest English Texts_, p. 638.]
Bind your fillets fast,
And gird in your waist
For more fineness with a _tawdry_ lace.
SPENSER, _Shepherd’s Calendar, Fourth Eclogue_.
Come, you promised me a _tawdry_ lace and a pair of sweet
gloves.--SHAKESPEARE, _Winter’s Tale_, act iv. sc. 3.
=TEMPER.= What has been said under ‘Humour,’ which see, will also
explain ‘Temper,’ and the earlier uses of it which we meet. The happy
‘temper’ would be the happy mixture, the blending in due proportions,
of the four principal ‘humours’ of the body.
The exquisiteness of his [the Saviour’s] bodily _temper_
increased the exquisiteness of his torment, and the ingenuity
of his soul added to his sensibleness of the indignities
and affronts offered to him.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of
Palestine_, vol. i. p. 345.
Concupiscence itself follows the crasis and temperature of the
body. If you would know why one man is proud, another cruel,
another intemperate or luxurious, you are not to repair so much
to Aristotle’s ethics, or to the writings of other moralists,
as to those of Galen, or of some anatomists, to find the reason
of these different _tempers_.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol. ii.
p. 5.
=TEMPERAMENT.= The Latin ‘temperamentum’ had sometimes very nearly the
sense of our English ‘compromise’ or the French ‘transaction,’ and
signified, as these do, a middle term reached by mutual concession, by
a _tempering_ of the extreme claims upon either side. This same use of
‘temperament’ appears from time to time in such of our writers as have
allowed their style to be modified by their Latin studies.
Safest, therefore, to me it seems that none of the Council
be moved unless by death, or just conviction of some crime.
However, I forejudge not any probable expedient, any
_temperament_ that can be found in things of this nature, so
disputable on either side.--MILTON, _The Ready and Easy Way to
establish a Free Commonwealth_.
Many _temperaments_ and explanations there would have been, if
ever I had a notion that it [_Observations on the Minority_]
should meet the public eye.--BURKE, _Letter to Lawrence_.
=TERMAGANT.= A name at this present applied only to _women_ of fierce
temper and ungoverned tongue, but formerly to men and women alike; and
indeed predominantly to men; ‘Termagant’ in the popular notion being
the name of one of the three gods of the Saracens. [See Mayhew-Skeat,
_Dict. of Middle English_ (_s. v._ ‘Tervagant’).]
Art thou so fierce, currish, and churlish a Nabal, that even
when thou mightest live in the midst of thy people (as she told
Elisha [_2 Kings_ iv. 13]), thou delightest to play the tyrant
and _termagant_ among them?--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p.
270.
This would make a saint swear like a soldier, and a soldier
like _Termagant_.--BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, _King or No King_.
=THEWS.= It is a remarkable evidence of the influence of Shakespeare
upon the English language, that while, so far as yet has been observed,
every other writer, one single instance excepted, employs ‘thews’ in
the sense of manners, qualities of mind and disposition, his employment
of it in the sense of nerves, muscular vigour, has quite overborne the
other; which, once so familiar in our literature, has now quite passed
away. See a valuable note in Craik’s _English of Shakespeare_, p. 117.
To alle gode _thewes_ born was she;
As lyked to the goddes, or she was born,
That of the shefe she sholde be the corn.
CHAUCER, _Legend of Good Women_ (Skeat, p. 118).
For well ye worthy bene forworth and gentle _thewes_.
SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 1, 33.
Faire Helena, the fairest living wight,
Who in all godly _thewes_ and goodly prayse
Did far excell.
Id., _ib._, 10, 59.
=THINK=, }
THOUGHT, }
THOUGHTFUL. }
Many, as they read or hear in our English Bible these words of our
Lord, ‘Take no _thought_ for your life’ (_Matt._ vi. 25; cf. _1 Sam._
ix. 5), are perplexed, for they cannot help feeling that there is
some exaggeration in them, that He is urging here something which is
impossible, and which, if possible, would not be desirable, but a
forfeiting of the true dignity of man. Or perhaps, if they are able
to compare the English with the Greek, they blame our Translators
for having given an emphasis to the precept which it did not possess
in the original. But neither is the fact. ‘Thought’ is constantly
_anxious_ care in our earlier English, as the examples which follow
will abundantly prove; and ‘to think,’ though not so frequently, is to
take _anxious_ care. To this day they will say in Yorkshire, ‘it was
_thought_ that did for her,’ meaning that it was care that killed her.
_Cleopatra._ What shall we do, Enobarbus?
_Enobarbus._ _Think_ and die.
SHAKESPEARE, _Antony and Cleopatra_, act iii. sc. 13.
Yet, for his love that all hath wrought,
Wed me, or else I die for _thought_.
SKELTON, _Manerly Margery_.
He so plagued and vexed his father with injurious indignities,
that the old man for very _thought_ and grief of heart pined
away and died.--HOLLAND, _Camden’s Ireland_, p. 120.
In five hundred years only two queens have died in childbirth.
Queen Catherine Parr died rather of _thought_.--_Somers’
Tracts_ (_Reign of Elizabeth_), vol. i. p. 172.
Harris, an alderman of London, was put in trouble, and died
of _thought_ and anxiety before his business came to an
end.--BACON, _History of Henry VII._
O _thoughtful_ herte, plungyd in dystres.
LYDGATE, _Lyf of Our Lady_.
=THRIFTY.= The ‘thrifty’ is on the way to be the thriving; yet
‘thrifty’ does not mean thriving now, as once it did. It still
indeed retains this meaning in provincial use; as I have heard a
newly-transplanted tree, which was doing well, described as ‘thrifty.’
See ‘Unthrifty;’ and the quotation from Tusser, _s. v._ ‘Family.’
No grace hath more abundant promises made unto it than this
of mercy, a sowing, a reaping, a _thrifty_ grace.--Bishop
REYNOLDS, _Sermon 30_.
=TIDY.= This, identical with the German ‘zeitig,’ has lost that
reference to _time_ which in ‘noon_tide_,’ ‘even_tide_,’ and some other
compounds still survives.
Seven eares wexen fette of coren
On an busk ranc and wel _tidi_.
_Genesis and Exodus_, 2104.
Lo an erthetilier abidith preciouse fruyt of the erthe,
paciently suffrynge til he resseyve tymeful and lateful
fruit--that is _tidi_ and ripe.--_James_ v. 7. WICLIF.
=TINSEL.= This (the Old French ‘estincelle,’ a spark) is always now
_cheap_ finery, flashing like silver and gold, but at the same time
pretending a value and a richness which it does not really possess.
There lay no such insinuation of pretentious splendour in its earlier
uses. A valuable note in Keightley’s _Milton_, vol. i. p. 126, makes
it, I think, clear that by ‘tinsel’ was commonly meant ‘a _silver_
texture, less dense and stout than cloth of silver;’ yet not always,
for see my first quotation.
Under a duke, no man to wear cloth of gold _tinsel_.--_Literary
Remains of King Edward VI._, 1551, 2.
Every place was hanged with cloth of gold, cloth of silver,
_tinsel_, arras, tapestry, and what not.--STUBBES, _Anatomy of
Abuses_, p. 18.
[He] never cared for silks or sumptuous cost,
For cloth of gold, or _tinsel_ figurie,
For baudkin, broidery, cutworks, nor conceits.
GASCOIGNE, _The Steel Glass_.
Her garments all were wrought of beaten gold,
And all her steed with _tinsel_-trappings shone.
SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, iii. 1, 15.
=TOBACCONIST.= Now the seller, once the smoker, of tobacco.
Germany hath not so many drunkards, England _tobacconists_,
France dancers, Holland mariners, as Italy alone hath jealous
husbands.--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part iii. sect. 3.
Hence it is that the lungs of the _tobacconist_ are
rotted.--BEN JONSON, _Bartholomew Fair_.
But let it be of any truly said,
He’s great, religious, learned, wise or staid,
But he is lately turned _tobacconist_,
Oh what a blur! what an abatement is’t!
SYLVESTER, _Tobacco Battered_.
=TORY.= It is curious how often political parties have ended by
assuming to themselves names first fastened on them by their
adversaries in reproach and scorn. The ‘Gueux’ or ‘Beggars’ of Holland
are perhaps the most notable instance of all; so too ‘tories’ was a
name properly belonging to the Irish bogtrotters, who during our Civil
War robbed and plundered, professing to be in arms for the maintenance
of the royal cause; and from them transferred, about the year 1680,
to those who sought to maintain the extreme prerogatives of the
Crown. There is an Act of the 6th of Anne with this title: ‘For the
more effectual suppressing _Tories_ and Rapparees; and for preventing
persons becoming _Tories_ or resorting to them.’ For the best account
of the ‘tories’ see Prendergast, _Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland_,
pp. 163-183; and compare Carte’s _Life of the Duke of Ormonde_, vol.
ii. p. 481.
That Irish Papists who had been licensed to depart this nation,
and of late years have been transplanted into Spain, Flanders,
and other foreign parts, have nevertheless secretly returned
into Ireland, occasioning the increase of _tories_ and other
lawless persons.--_Irish State Papers_, 24th January, 1656.
Let such men quit all pretences to civility and breeding.
They are ruder than _tories_ and wild Americans.--GLANVILLE,
_Sermons_, p. 212.
In the open or plain countries the peasants are content to live
on their labour; the woods, bogs, and fastnesses fostering
and sheltering the robbers, _tories_, and woodkerns, who are
usually the offspring of gentlemen, that have either misspent
or forfeited their estates; who, though having no subsistance,
yet contemn trade, as being too mean and base for a gentleman
reduced never so low.--_MS. Account of the State of the County
of Kildare_, of date 1684, in Trinity College Library, Dublin.
Mosstroopers, a sort of rebels in the northern part of
Scotland, that live by robbery and spoil, like the _tories_ in
Ireland, or the banditti in Italy.--PHILLIPS, _New World of
Words_, ed. 1706.
=TRADE.= Properly that path which we ‘tread,’ and thus the ever
recurring habit and manner of our life, whatever this may be.
A postern with a blinde wicket there was,
A common _trade_ to passe through Priam’s house.
EARL OF SURREY, _Translation of the Æneid_, b. ii. l. 592.
For him that lacketh nothing necessary, nor hath cause to
complain of his present state, it is a great folly to leave his
old acquainted _trade_ of life, and to enter into another new
and unknown.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 53.
Teach a child in the _trade_ of his way, and when he is old, he
shall not depart from it.--_Proverbs_ xxii. 6. Geneva.
There those five sisters had continuall _trade_,
And used to bath themselves in that deceiptful shade.
SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 12, 30.
As shepheardes curre, that in darke evenings shade
Hath tracted forth some salvage beastes _trade_.
Ib., ii. 6, 39.
=TREACLE.= This at present means only the sweet syrup of molasses, but
was once of far wider reach and far nobler significance, having come
to us from afar, and by steps which are curious to trace. They are
these. The Greeks, in anticipation of modern homœopathy, called a
fancied antidote to the viper’s bite, which was composed of the viper’s
flesh, θηριακά--from θηρίον, a name often given to the viper (_Acts_
xxviii. 5); of this came the Latin ‘theriaca,’ from the Old French form
of which--namely, ‘triacle’--came our ‘triacle’ and ‘treacle.’ See
_Promptorium_, and Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of Middle English_, p. 237.
For a most strong _treacle_ against these venomous heresies
wrought our Saviour many a marvellous miracle.--Sir T. MORE, _A
Treatise on the Passion, Works_, p. 1357.
There is no more _triacle_ at Galaad, and there is no phisician
that can heale the hurte of my people.--_Jer._ viii. 22.
COVERDALE.
At last his body [Sir Thomas Overbury’s] was almost come by use
of poisons to the state that Mithridates’ body was by the use
of _treacle_ and preservatives, that the force of the poisons
was blunted upon him.--BACON, _Charge against Robert, Earl of
Somerset_.
The saints’ experiences help them to a sovereign _treacle_ made
of the scorpion’s own flesh (which they through Christ have
slain), and that hath a virtue above all others to expel the
venom of Satan’s temptations from the heart.--GURNALL, _The
Christian in Complete Armour_, c. ix. § 2.
Wonderful therefore is the power of a Christian, who not only
overcomes and conquers and kills the viper, but like the
skilful apothecary makes antidote and _triacle_ of him.--HALES,
_Sermon on Christian Omnipotence_.
_Treacle_; a physical composition, made of vipers and other
ingredients.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.
=TREE.= This might once have been used of the dead timber, no less
than of the living growth; this use surviving still in ‘rood_tree_,’
‘axle_tree_,’ ‘saddle_tree_.’
In a greet hous ben not oneli vessels of gold and of silver,
but also of _tree_ [lignea, Vulg.] and of erthe.--_2 Tim._ ii.
20. WICLIF.
He had a castel of _tre_, which he cleped
Mategrifon.--CAPGRAVE, _Chronicle of England_, p. 145.
Take down, take down that mast of gowd,
Set up a mast of _tree_;
Ill sets it a forsaken lady
To sail sae gallantlie.
_Old Ballad._
=TRIUMPH.= A name often transferred by our early writers to any stately
show or pageantry whatever, not restricted, as now, to one celebrating
a victory. See Bacon’s _Essay_, the 37th, with the heading ‘Of Masks
and _Triumphs_,’ passim.
Our daughter,
In honour of whose birth these _triumphs_ are,
Sits here, like beauty’s child.
_Pericles, Prince of Tyre_, act ii. sc. 2.
You cannot have a perfect palace except you have two several
sides, the one for feasts and _triumphs_, the other for
dwelling.--BACON, _Essays_, 45.
This day to Dagon is a solemn feast,
With sacrifices, _triumph_, pomp, and games.
MILTON, _Samson Agonistes_, 1311.
=TRIVIAL.= A ‘trivial’ saying is at present a slight one; it was
formerly an often-repeated one, or one containing an elementary truth;
it might be trite, on the ground of the weight and wisdom which it
contained; as certainly the maxim quoted by Hacket is anything but
‘trivial’ in our sense of the word. Gradually the notion of slightness
was superadded to that of commonness, and thus an epithet once of
honour has become one of dishonour rather. See Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of
Middle English_ (_s. v._ ‘Trivials’).
Others avouch, and that more truly, that he [Duns Scotus] was
born in Downe, and thereof they guess him to be named Dunensis,
and by contraction Duns, which term is so _trivial_ and common
in schools, that whoso surpasseth others either in cavilling
sophistry or subtle philosophy is forthwith nicknamed a
Duns.--STANYHURST, _Description of Ireland_, p. 2.
Æquitas optimo cuique notissima, is a _trivial_ saying, A
very good man cannot be ignorant of equity.--HACKET, _Life of
Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 57.
These branches [of the divine life] are three, whose names
though _trivial_ and vulgar, yet, if rightly understood, they
bear such a sense with them that nothing more weighty can be
pronounced by the tongue of men or seraphims, and in brief they
are these, Charity, Humility, and Purity.--H. MORE, _Grand
Mystery of Godliness_, b. ii. c. 12.
=TRUMPERY.= That which is deceitful is without any worth; and
‘trumpery,’ which was formerly deceit, fraud (tromperie), is now
anything which is worthless and of no account. Was Milton’s use of the
word in his well-known line, ‘Black, white and gray, with all their
_trumpery_’ (_P. L._ iii. 475), our present, or that earlier?
When truth appeared, Rogero hated more
Alcyna’s _trumperies_, and did them detest,
Than he was late enamourèd before.
Sir J. HARINGTON, _Orlando Furioso_, b. vii.
Britannicus was now grown to men’s estate, a true and worthy
plant to receive his father’s empire; which a grafted son by
adoption now possessed by the injury and _trumpery_ of his
mother.--GREENWEY, _Tacitus_, p. 182.
=TURK.= It is a remarkable evidence of the extent to which the Turks
and the Turkish assault upon Christendom had impressed themselves
on the minds of men, of the way in which they stood as representing
the entire Mahometan world, that ‘Turk,’ being in fact a national, is
constantly employed by the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries as a religious, designation, as equivalent to, and
coextensive with, Mahometan; exactly as Ἔλλην in the New Testament
means continually not of Greek nationality, but of Gentile religion.
Have mercy upon all Jews, _Turks_, infidels, and
heretics.--_Collect for Good Friday._
It is no good reason for a man’s religion, that he was
born and brought up in it; for then a _Turk_ would have
as much reason to be a _Turk_ as a Christian to be a
Christian.--CHILLINGWORTH, _Religion of Protestants_, part i.
c. 2.
=TUTOR=, }
TUITION. }
The ‘tutor’ of our forefathers was rather a caretaker and guardian than
an instructor: but seeing that one defends another most effectually who
imparts to him those principles and that knowledge whereby he shall be
able to defend himself, our modern use of the word must be taken as a
deeper than the earlier.
This is part of the honour that the children owe to their
parents and _tutors_ by the commandment of God, even to be
bestowed in marriage as it pleaseth the godly, prudent and
honest parents or _tutors_ to appoint.--BECON, _Catechism_,
Parker Soc. ed., p. 871.
What shall become of the lambs under the _tuition_ of
wolves?--ADAMS, _Sermons_, vol. ii. p. 117.
_Tutors_ and guardians are in the place of parents; and what
they are in fiction of law they must remember as an argument
to engage them to do in reality of duty.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Holy
Living_, iii. 2.
As though they were not to be trusted with the king’s brother,
that by the assent of the nobles of the land were appointed, as
the king’s nearest friends, to the _tuition_ of his own royal
person.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King Richard III._, p. 36.
Afterwards turning his speech to his wife and his son, he
[Scanderbeg] commended them both with his kingdom to the
_tuition_ of the Venetians.--KNOLLES, _History of the Turks_,
vol. i. p. 274.
=UMBRAGE=, }
UMBRAGEOUS. }
‘To take umbrage’ is, I think, the only phrase in which the word
‘umbrage’ is still in use among us, the only one at least in which it
is ethically employed; but ‘umbrage’ in its earlier use coincides in
meaning with the old French ‘ombrage’ (see the quotation from Bacon),
and signifies suspicion, or rather the disposition to suspect; and
‘umbrageous,’ as far as I know, is constantly employed in the sense
of suspicious by our early authors; having now no other but a literal
sense. Other uses of ‘umbrage,’ as those of Fuller and Jeremy Taylor
which follow, must be explained from the classical sympathies of
these writers; out of which the Latin etymology of the word gradually
made itself felt in the meaning which they ascribed to it, namely as
anything slight and _shadowy_. [For the development of meaning of the
French ‘ombrage’ from shadow to suspicion, see Darmesteter, _Vie des
Mots_, p. 77.]
I say, just fear, not out of _umbrages_, light jealousies,
apprehensions afar off, but out of clear foresight of imminent
danger.--BACON, _Of a War with Spain_.
To collect the several essays of princes glancing on that
project [a new Crusade], were a task of great pains and small
profit; especially some of them being _umbrages_ and state
representations rather than realities, to ingratiate princes
with their subjects, or with the oratory of so pious a project
to woo money out of people’s purses.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. v.
c. 25.
You look for it [truth] in your books, and you tug hard for
it in your disputations, and you derive it from the cisterns
of the Fathers, and you inquire after the old ways; and
sometimes are taken with new appearances, and you rejoice in
false lights, or are delighted with little _umbrages_ or peep
of day.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Sermon preached to the University of
Dublin_.
There being in the Old Testament thirteen types and _umbrages_
of this Holy Sacrament, eleven of them are of meat and
drink.--Id., _The Worthy Communicant_, c. ii. § 2.
At the beginning some men were a little _umbrageous_, and
startling at the name of the Fathers; yet since the Fathers
have been well studied, we have behaved ourselves with more
reverence toward the Fathers than they of the Roman persuasion
have done.--DONNE, _Sermons_, 1640, p. 557.
That there was none other present but himself when his master
De Merson was murdered, it is _umbrageous_, and leaves a spice
of fear and sting of suspicion in their heads.--REYNOLDS,
_God’s Revenge against Murther_, b. iii. hist. 13.
=UNCOUTH.= Now unformed in manner, ungraceful in behaviour; but once
simply unknown. The change in signification is to be traced to the same
causes which made ‘barbarous,’ meaning at first only foreign, to have
afterwards the sense of savage and wild. Almost all nations regard with
disfavour and dislike that which is outlandish, and generally that
with which they are unacquainted; so that words which at first did but
express this fact of strangeness, easily acquire a further unfavourable
sense.
The vulgar instruction requires also vulgar and communicable
terms, not clerkly or _uncouth_, as are all these of the Greek
and Latin languages.--PUTTENHAM, _Art of English Poesy_, b.
iii. c. 10.
Wel-away the while I was so fonde,
To leave the good that I had in honde
In hope of better that was _uncouth_;
So lost the Dogge the flesh in his mouth.
SPENSER, _The Shepherd’s Calendar, September_.
‘_Uncouthe_, unkiste,’ sayde the old famous poete Chaucer;
which proverb very well taketh place in this our new poete,
who for that he is _uncouthe_ (as said Chaucer) is unkist;
and, _unknown_ to most men, is regarded but of a few.--E. K.,
_Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar_.
=UNEQUAL.= From the constant use made of ‘unequal’ by our early
writers, for whom it was entirely equivalent to unjust, unfair, one
might almost suppose they were influenced by sense association with
‘iniquus’ in their naturalization of ‘inæqualis.’ At any rate they had
no scruple in using it in a sense, which ‘inæqualis’ never has, but
‘iniquus’ continually.
To punish me for what you make me do
Seems most _unequal_.
SHAKESPEARE, _Antony and Cleopatra_, act ii. sc. 5.
These imputations are too common, sir,
And easily stuck on virtue when she’s poor:
You are _unequal_ to me.
BEN JONSON, _The Fox_, act iii. sc. 1.
Jerome, a very _unequal_ relator of the opinion of his
adversaries.--WORTHINGTON, _Life of Joseph Mede_, p. xi.
=UNEASY.= This has lost the sense of ‘difficult,’ and means now
restless or anxious. But the objective signification is to be found in
our Bible and in Shakespeare.
The town was hard to besiege and uneasy to come unto.--_2
Macc._ xii. 21. (A.V.)
This swift business
I must _uneasy_ make, lest too light winning
Make the prize light.
SHAKESPEARE, _The Tempest_, act i. sc. 2.
=UNHANDSOME.= See ‘Handsome.’
A narrow straight path by the water’s side, very _unhandsome_
[οὐ ῥᾳδίαν] for an army to pass that way, though they found not
a man to keep the passage.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 317;
cf. p. 378.
The ships were unwieldy and _unhandsome_.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p.
1188.
=UNHAPPY=, }
UNHAPPINESS. }
A very deep truth lies involved in the fact that so many words, and I
suppose in all languages, unite the meanings of wicked and miserable,
as the Greek σχέτλιος, our own ‘wretch’ and ‘wretched.’ So, too, it was
once with ‘unhappy,’ although its use in the sense of ‘wicked’ has now
passed away.
Fathers shall do well also to keep from them [their children]
such schoolfellows as be _unhappy_, and given to shrewd turns;
for such as they are enough to corrupt and mar the best natures
in the world.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 16.
Thou old _unhappy_ traitor,
Briefly thyself remember; the sword is out
That must destroy thee.
SHAKESPEARE, _King Lear_, act iv. sc. 6.
The servants of Dionyse, king of Sicily, which although they
were inclined to all _unhappiness_ and mischief, yet after the
coming of Plato, perceiving that for his doctrine and wisdom
the king had him in high estimation, they thus counterfeited
the countenance and habit of the philosopher.--Sir T. ELYOT,
_The Governor_, b. ii. c. 14.
[Man] from the hour of his birth is most miserable, weak, and
sickly; when he sucks, he is guided by others; when he is grown
great, practiseth _unhappiness_ and is sturdy; and when old,
a child again and repenteth him of his past life.--BURTON,
_Anatomy of Melancholy; Democritus to the Reader_.
=UNION.= The elder Pliny (_H. N._ ix. 59) tells us that the name ‘unio’
had not very long before his time begun to be given to a pearl in which
all chiefest excellencies, size, roundness, smoothness, whiteness,
weight, met and, so to speak, were _united_; and as late as Jeremy
Taylor the word ‘union’ was often employed to designate a pearl of
a rare and transcendent beauty. See Skeat’s _Dictionary_ (_s. v._
‘Onion’).
And in the cup an _union_ shall he throw,
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark’s crown have worn.
SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, act v. sc. 2.
Pope Paul II. in his pontifical vestments outwent all his
predecessors, especially in his mitre, upon which he had laid
out a great deal of money in purchasing at vast rates diamonds,
sapphires, emeralds, crysoliths, jaspers, _unions_, and all
manner of precious stones.--Sir PAUL RYCAUT, _Platina’s History
of the Popes_, p. 114.
Perox, the Persian king, [hath] an _union_ in his ear worth an
hundred weight of gold.--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, mem.
ii. sect. 3.
=UNKIND=, }
UNKINDNESS. }
‘Unkind’ has quite forfeited now its primary meaning, namely that which
violates the law of kind, thus ‘_unkind_ abominations’ (Chaucer),
meaning incestuous unions and the like; and has taken up with the
secondary, that which does not recognise the duties flowing out of
this kinship. In its primary meaning it moves in a region where the
physical and ethical meet; in its secondary in a purely ethical
sphere. How soon it began to occupy this the passages which follow will
show; for out of a sense that nothing was so unnatural or ‘unkind’ as
ingratitude, the word early obtained use as a special designation of
this vice.
_Unkynde_ [ingrati, Vulg.], cursid, withouten affeccioun.--_2
Tim._ iii. 2, 3. WICLIF.
It is all one to sey _unkinde_,
As thing whiche doone is againe kinde,
For it with kinde never stoode
A man to yelde evill for goode.
GOWER, _Confessio Amantis_, b. v.
Whar-for ilk man, bathe lered and lewed,
Suld thinke on that love that He man shewed,
And love Hym and thank Hym als he can,
And elles es he an _unkynd_ man.
RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 117.
The most damnable vice and most against justice, in mine
opinion, is ingratitude, commonly called _unkindness_. He
is _unkind_ that denieth to have received any benefit, that
indeed he hath received; he is _unkind_ that dissimuleth; he is
_unkind_ that recompenseth not; but he is most _unkind_ that
forgetteth.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b. ii. c. 13.
God might have made me even such a foule and unreasonable
beast as this is; and yet was I never so _kynde_ as to thancke
Him that He had not made me so vile a creature; which thing I
greatly bewayle, and my _unkindenesse_ causeth me now thus to
weepe.--FRITH, _Works_, 1573, p. 90.
We have cause also in England to beware of _unkindnesse_,
who have had in so fewe yeares the candel of Goddes woorde,
so oft lightned, so oft put out; and yet will venture by
our unthankfulnesse in doctrine, and sinfull life, to leese
againe lighte, candle, candlesticke, and all.--ASCHAM, _The
Scholemaster_, b. i.
=UNTHRIFTY=, }
UNTHRIFTINESS. }
As the ‘thrifty’ will probably be the thriving, so the ‘unthrifty’ the
unthriving; but the words are not synonymous any more, as once they
were. See ‘Thrifty.’
What [is it] but this self and presuming of ourselves causes
grace to be _unthrifty_, and to hang down the head? what but
our ascribing to ourselves in our means-using, makes them so
unfruitful?--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 146.
Staggering, non-proficiency, and _unthriftiness_ of profession
is the fruit of self.--Id., _Index_.
=UNVALUED.= This and ‘invaluable’ have been usefully desynonymized;
so that ‘invaluable’ means now having a value greater than can be
estimated, ‘unvalued’ esteemed to have no value at all. Yet it was not
so once; though in Shakespeare (see _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 3) our present
use of ‘unvalued’ occasionally obtained.
Two golden apples of _unvalued_ price.
SPENSER, _Sonnet 77_.
Go, _unvalued_ book,
Live, and be loved; if any envious look
Hurt thy clear fame, learn that no state more high
Attends on virtue than pined envy’s eye.
CHAPMAN, _Dedication of Poems_.
Each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy _unvalued_ book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took.
MILTON, _An Epitaph on Shakespeare_.
=USURY=, }
USURER. }
This, which is now the lending of money upon inordinate interest, was
once the lending it upon any. The man who did not lend his money for
nothing was then a ‘usurer,’ not he, as now, who makes unworthy profit
by the necessities of the needy or the extravagance of the foolish.
It is true that the word was as dishonourable then as it is now; and
it could not be otherwise, so long as all receiving of interest was
regarded as a violation at once of divine and of natural law. When at
length the common sense of men overcame this strange but deep-rooted
prejudice, the word was too deeply stained with dishonour to be
employed to express the lawful receiving of a measurable interest;
but ‘usury,’ taking up a portion only of its former meaning, was now
restricted to that which still remained under a moral ban, namely the
exacting of an excessive interest for money lent.
On the other side, the commodities of _usury_ are: first, that
howsoever _usury_ in some respects hindereth merchandising,
yet in some other it advanceth it; for it is certain that
the greatest part of trade is driven by young merchants upon
_borrowing at interest_; so as if the _usurer_ either call in
or keep back his money, there will ensue presently a great
stand of trade.--BACON, _Essay_, 41.
Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that
at my coming I might have required mine own with _usury_ [σὺν
τόκῳ]?--_Luke_ xix. 23. (A.V.)
Brokers, takers of pawns, biting _usurers_ I will not admit;
yet because we converse here with men, not with gods, and for
the hardness of men’s hearts, I will tolerate some kind of
_usury_.--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy; Democritus to the
Reader_.
=VARLET.= Littré, dealing with this very word, has truly said,
‘Les mots, soit en changeant de pays, soit en changeant de siècle,
s’ennoblissent ou s’avilissent d’une façon singulière’ (_Hist. de la
Langue Française_, vol. ii. p. 166). There could be no more signal
proof of this than that which the word ‘varlet’ supplies. I continue
to quote his words, ‘_Vaslet_, ou, par une substitution non rare
de l’_r_ à l’_s_, _varlet_, est un diminutif de _vassal_; _vassal_
signifiait un vaillant guerrier, et _varlet_ un jeune homme qui pouvait
aspirer aux honneurs de la chevalerie.’ From this it fell to the use in
which we find it in the passage quoted below from Shakespeare of squire
or attendant, which is also the continually recurring use in the Old
English translation of Froissart. In this sense it survives as ‘valet;’
but not pausing here, ‘varlet’ is now tinged with contempt, and implies
moral worthlessness in him to whom it is applied.
Call here my _varlet_; I’ll unarm myself.
SHAKESPEARE, _Troilus and Cressida_, act i. sc. 1.
Right so there came in a _varlet_; and told Sir Tristram how
there was come an errant knight into the town with such colours
upon his shield.--Sir T. MALORY, _Morte d’Arthur_, b. x. c. 56.
=VASSALAGE.= This, like the Old French ‘vasselage,’ had once the
meaning of courage, prowess, superiority. See in explanation the
quotation from Littré under ‘Varlet.’
And certeynly a man hath most honour
To deyen in his excellence and flour,
Thanne whan his name appalled is for age;
For all forgeten is his _vasselage_.
CHAUCER, _The Knightes Tale_, 2189 (Clar. Press).
And Catoun seith is noon so great encress
Of worldly tresour, as for to live in pees,
Which among vertues hath the _vasselage_.
LYDGATE, _Minor Poems_, Halliwell’s ed., p. 176.
=VERMIN.= Now always noxious offensive animals of the _smaller_ kind,
but employed formerly with no such limitation.
But he shouke of the _vermen_ into the fyre and felt no
harme.--_Acts_ xxviii. 5. Geneva Version.
This crocodile is a mischievous four-footed beast, a dangerous
_vermin_ used to both elements.--HOLLAND, _Ammianus_, p. 212.
Wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth,
and _vermin_ [καὶ τὰ θηρία], and worms, and fowls of the
air.--_Acts_ x. 12. Geneva.
The Lord rectifies Peter, and frames him to go by a vision of
all crawling _vermin_ in a clean sheet.--ROGERS, _Naaman the
Syrian_, p. 42.
=VILIFY.= This now implies a great deal more than to hold morally
cheap, which was all that in the seventeenth century it involved.
Can it be imagined that a whole people would ever so _vilify_
themselves, depart from their own interests to that degree as
to place all their hopes in one man?--MILTON, _Defence of the
People of England_, c. 7.
The ears of all men will be filled with deceitful figments and
gainful lies, the merits of Christ’s passion will be _vilified_
and maimed.--H. MORE, _The Mystery of Iniquity_, b. ii. c. 7, §
11.
The more I magnify myself, the more God _vilifies_ me.--ROGERS,
_Naaman the Syrian_, p. 469.
=VILLAIN=, }
VILLANY. }
A word whose story, like that of ‘churl,’ is so well known that one
may be spared the necessity of repeating it. It was, I think, with
‘villany’ that there was first a transfer into an ethical sphere,
though it is noticeable how ‘villany’ till a very late day expressed
_words_ foul and disgraceful to the utterer much oftener than _deeds_.
Pour the blood of the _villain_ in one basin, and the blood
of the gentleman in another; what difference shall there be
proved?--BECON, _The Jewel of Joy_.
We yield not ourselves to be your _villains_ and slaves [non
_in servitutem_ nos tradimus], but as allies to be protected by
you.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 935.
[He] was condemned to be degraded of all nobility, and not only
himself, but all his succeeding posterity declared _villains_,
and clowns, taxable and incapable to bear arms.--FLORIO,
_Montaigne_, b. i. c. 15.
In our modern language it [foul language] is termed _villany_,
as being proper for rustic boors, or men of coarsest education
and employment, who, having their minds debased by being
conversant in meanest affairs, do vent their sorry passions in
such strains.--BARROW, _Of Evil-speaking in general_, Sermon 16.
=VIRTUOUS.= Virtue is still occasionally used as equivalent to might or
potency; but ‘virtuous’ has quite abdicated the meaning of valorous or
potent which it once had, and which its etymology justified.
With this all strengths and minds he moved; but young Deiphobus,
Old Priam’s son, amongst them all was chiefly _virtuous_.
CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, xiii. 147.
Or call up him that left half told
The story of Cambuscan old,
Of Camball and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,
That owned the _virtuous_ ring and glass.
MILTON, _Il Penseroso_.
Tho lifting up his _vertuous_ staffe on hye
He smote the sea, which calmèd was with speed.
SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 12, 26.
=VIVACIOUS=, }
VIVACITY. }
‘Longevity’ is a comparatively modern word. ‘Vivacity,’ which has now
acquired the mitigated sense of liveliness, served instead of it;
keeping in English the original sense which ‘vivacitas’ had in the
Latin.
James Sands, of Horborn in this county, is most remarkable for
his _vivacity_, for he lived 140 years.--FULLER, _Worthies of
England: Staffordshire_.
Fables are raised concerning the _vivacity_ of the deer; for
neither are their gestation nor increment such as may afford an
argument of long life.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Vulgar Errors_.
Hitherto the English bishops had been _vivacious_ almost to
wonder. For, necessarily presumed of good years before entering
on their office in the first year of Queen Elizabeth, it was
much that but five died for the first twenty years of her
reign.--FULLER, _Church History of Britain_, b. ix. § 27.
=VOLUBLE.= This epithet always insinuates of him to whom it is now
applied that his speech is freer and faster than is meet; but it once
occupied that region of meaning which ‘fluent’ does at present, without
any suggestion of the kind. Milton (_P. L._ ix. 436) recalls the word,
as he does so many, to its primary meaning.
He [Archbishop Abbott] was painful, stout, severe against bad
manners, of a grave and a _voluble_ eloquence.--HACKET, _Life
of Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 65.
=VOYAGE.= All journeys, those alike by land and by water, were
‘voyages’ once. The word is restricted now to journeys made by water.
‘Voyage’ is the French form of the late Latin ‘viaticum.’
Holofernes went forth with his chariots and horses to go before
King Nebuchodonosor in the _voyage_.--_Judith_ ii. 19. (A.V.)
My life hath not been unexpensive in learning, and _voyaging_
about.--MILTON, _An Apology for Smectymnuus_.
This is the poynt, to speken schort and pleyn,
That ech of yow to schorte with oure weie
In this _viage_ schal telle tales tweye
To Caunterburi-ward, I mene it so,
And homward he schal tellen othere tuo.
CHAUCER, _Canterbury Tales_, Prologue.
=WAINSCOT.= I transcribe a correction of the brief and inaccurate
notice of this word in my first edition, which a correspondent, with
the best opportunity of knowledge, has kindly sent me: ‘“Wainscot”
is always in the building trade applied to oak only, but not to all
kinds of oak. The wainscot oak grows abroad, chiefly, I think, in
Holland, and is used for wainscoting, or wood lining, of walls of
houses, because it works very freely under the tool, and is not liable
to “cast” or rend, as English oak will do. It is consequently used
for all purposes where expense is no object. Formerly all panelling
to walls was done in wainscot, and was called “wainscoting.” It was
never painted. In modern times it was imitated in deal, and was painted
to represent real wainscot, or of any other colour, while the name
of “wainscoting” adhered to it, though the material was no longer
wainscot. At present, however, the word “wainscot” is always used
to designate the real wainscot oak.’ It will be seen from this very
interesting explanation that within the narrow limits of a particular
trade, the old meaning of ‘wainscot,’ which has everywhere else
disappeared, still survives. It would be curious to trace how much in
this way of earlier English within limited technical circles lives on,
having everywhere else died out. For a further account of ‘wainscot,’
see Skeat’s _Dictionary_, p. 833.
A wedge of _wainscot_ is fittest and most proper for cleaving
of an _oaken_ tree.--Sir T. URQUHART, _Tracts_, p. 153.
Being thus arrayed, and enclosed in a chest of _wainscot_, he
[Edward the Confessor] was removed into the before-prepared
feretry.--DART, _History of St. Peter’s, Westminster_, c. 3.
=WANT.= Among other differences between ‘carere’ and ‘egere,’ this
certainly is one, that the former may be said of things evil as well
as good, as well of those whose absence is desirable as of those whose
absence is felt as a loss, while ‘egere’ always implies not merely the
absence but the painful sense of the absence. ‘To want,’ which had once
the more colourless use of ‘carere,’ has passed now, nearly though not
altogether, into this latter sense, and is = ‘egere.’
If he be lost, and _want_, thy life shall go for his life.--_1
Kings_ xx. 39. Geneva.
The happy and fortunate _want_ of these beasts [wolves] in
England is universally ascribed to the politic government of
King Edgar.--HARRISON, _Description of England_, b. iii. c. 4.
In a word, he [the true gentleman] is such, that could we
_want_ him, it were pity but that he were in heaven; and yet I
pity not much his continuance here, because he is already so
much in heaven to himself.--CLEMENT ELLIS, _Character of a True
Gentleman_.
Friend of my life, which did you not prolong,
The world had _wanted_ many an idle song.
POPE, _Lines to Arbuthnot_.
=WENCH.= In Middle English this term (in the older form ‘wenchel’),
like ‘girl,’ ‘coquette,’ ‘slut,’ ‘flirt,’ and so many more, might be
ascribed to either sex; and when afterwards restrained to one, was
rather a word of familiarity, or even of passion, than of slight and
contempt, which now it has grown to be. See Mayhew-Skeat’s _Dict. of
Middle English_.
And, wretched _wench_, she thinks she has obtained such a thing
As both to Progne and herself should joy and comfort bring.
GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. vi.
O, ill-starred _wench_,
Pale as thy smock, when we shall meet at compt
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven.
SHAKESPEARE, _Othello_, act v. sc. 2.
The tongues of mocking _wenches_ are as keen
As is the razor’s edge invisible.
Id., _Love’s Labours Lost_, act v. sc. 2.
And going in, He saith to them: Why make ye this ado, and
weepe? The wenche is not dead, but sleepeth.... And holding the
wenches hand, He saith to her, Talitha Cumi.--_Mark_ v. 39, 41.
Rheims.
=WHIRLPOOL.= Formerly used in the sense of some huge sea-monster of the
whale kind. Thus in the margin of our Bible, there is on _Job_ xli.
1 (‘Canst thou draw out _leviathan_?’) a gloss, ‘that is, a whale or
_whirlpool_.’ In Harrison’s _Description of England_, b. iii. c. 5,
the ‘thirlepole’ is mentioned with the porpoise and whale as among the
great fishes of the sea. See Wright’s _Bible Word Book_.
The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes
that are, among which the whales and _whirlpools_, called
balænæ, take up in length as much as four acres or arpens of
land.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 235.
Great _whirlpooles_ which all fishes make to flee.
SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 12, 23.
The ork, _whirlpool_, whale, or huffing physeter.
SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas, First Day of the Week_.
About sunset, coming near the Wild Island, Pantagruel spied
afar off a huge monstrous _physeter_, a sort of whale, which
some call a _whirlpool_.--RABELAIS, _Pantagruel_, b. iv. c. 33.
[This creature is suggested by ‘Leviathan descript par le noble
prophete Moses en la vie du sainct home Job.’]
=WHISPERER=, }
WHISPERING. }
There lay in ‘whisperer’ once, as in the ψιθυριστής of the Greeks,
the ‘susurro’ of the Latins, the suggestion of a slanderer or false
accuser, which has now quite passed away from the word.
Now this Doeg, being there at that time, what doeth he? Like
a _whisperer_ or man-pleaser goeth to Saul the king, and told
him how the priest had refreshed David in his journey, and
had given unto him the sword of Goliath.--LATIMER, _Sermons_,
Parker edit., p. 486.
A _whisperer_ separateth chief friends.--_Prov._ xvi. 28; cf.
Ecclus. v. 14. (A.V.)
Kings in ancient times were wont to put great trust in eunuchs.
But yet their trust towards them hath rather been as to good
_whisperers_ than good magistrates and officers.--BACON,
_Essay, 44, Of Deformity_.
Lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings,
_whisperings_, swellings, tumults.--_2 Cor._ xii. 20. (A. V.)
=WHITEBOY.= Formerly a cockered favourite (compare Barnes’s use of
‘white son,’ Works, 1572, p. 192), but in later years one of the many
names which the perpetrators of agrarian outrages in Ireland either
assumed to themselves, or had given to them by others.
His first address was An humble Remonstrance by a
dutiful son of the Church, almost as if he had said her
_whiteboy_.--MILTON, _Prose Works_, vol. i. p. 172.
The Pope was loath to adventure his darlings into danger. Those
_whiteboys_ were to stay at home with his Holiness, their
tender father.--FULLER, _Holy War_, i. 13.
=WIFE.= It is a very profound testimony, yielded by language, to the
fact that women are intended to be wives, and only find the true
completion of their being when they are so, that in so many languages
there is a word which, meaning first a woman, means afterwards a wife,
as γυνή, ‘mulier,’ ‘femme,’ ‘weib,’ and our English ‘wife.’ With us
indeed the secondary use of the word has now overborne and swallowed
up the first, which only survives in a few such combinations as
‘mid_wife_,’ ‘fish_wife_,’ ‘hus_wife_,’ and the like; but it was not
always so; nor in our provincial dialects is it so now. An intelligent
correspondent who has sent me a ‘Glossary of Words used in Central
Yorkshire’ writes as follows: ‘In rural districts a grown woman is a
young wife, though she be unmarried.’
And with that word upstart this olde _wife_.
CHAUCER, _The Wife of Bath’s Tale_.
Like as a _wife_ with childe, when hir travaile commeth upon
her, is ashamed, crieth, and suffreth the payne, even so are
we, O Lorde, in thy sight.--_Isai._ xxvi. 17. COVERDALE.
=WIGHT.= The best discussion on this interesting word is in Grimm’s
_Teutonic Mythology_, pp. 439-442, who has a chapter [ch. xvii.], ‘On
_Wights_ and Elves.’ ‘Wight’ has for us lost altogether its original
sense of a preternatural or supernatural being, and is used, but always
slightingly, of men. It is easy to see how, with the gradual contempt
for the old mythology, the dying-out of the superstitions connected
with it, words such as ‘elf’ and ‘wight’ should have lost their weight
and honour as well.