A SELECT GLOSSARY ETC.

[Abandon. Now only used in the sense of to give up absolutely, to forsake, or desert; but in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often found in the sense of to put to the ban, to proscribe, to cast out, reject. O. Fr. abandoner, to give up into the power of another, is due to the phrase mettre à bandon, to put under anyone’s jurisdiction; O. Fr. bandon (Low Lat. bandonem) is a derivative of Low Lat. bandum for older bannum; O. H. G. ban, an order, decree, proclamation. For O. Fr. bandon, used in the sense of free disposal, unfettered authority, compare Chanson de Roland, 2703: ‘All Spain will be to-day en lur bandun,’ i.e. in their power. The Germanic word bann, an open proclamation, survives in our ‘banns of marriage.’ The word bandit, It. bandito, means properly a proclaimed, proscribed man.]

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

Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, act i. sc. 1.

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

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

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

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

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

Pope, Essay on Man, ep 2.

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

Romaunt of the Rose, 1182 (ed. Morris).

Shakespeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream, act ii. sc. 1.

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

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

Falstaff (to Bardolph).—Thou art our admiral; thou bearest the lantern in the poop—but ’tis the nose of thee; thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.—Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV., act iii. sc. 3.

Lincoln spake what was fit for comfort, and did what he was able for redress. He looked like the lanthorn in the admiral, by which the rest of the fleet did steer their course.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part ii. p. 143.

Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 292.

The admiral of the Spanish Armada was a Flemish ship.—Hawkins, Observations, &c., 1622, p. 9.

Admire, }

Admirable,

Admiration.

It now always implies to wonder with approval; but was by no means restrained to this wonder in bonam partem of old.

Neither is it to be admired that Henry [the Fourth], who was a wise as well as a valiant prince, should be pleased to have the greatest wit of those times in his interests, and to be the trumpet of his praises.—Dryden, Preface to the Fables.

Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 690.

It may justly seem admirable how that senseless religion [Mahometanism] should gain so much on Christianity.—Fuller, Holy War, part i. c. 6.

In man there is nothing admirable but his ignorance and weakness.—Bishop Taylor, Dissuasive from Popery, part ii. b. i. § 7.

I understand that you be in great admirations of me, and take very grievously my manner of writing to you.—Latimer, Sermons and Remains, vol. ii. p. 419.

And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints ... and when I saw her I wondered with great admiration.—Rev. xvii. 6. (A.V.)

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

As for those gildings and paintings that were in the palace of Alcyna, though the show of it were glorious, the substance of it was dross, and nothing but alchymy and cosenage.—Sir J. Harington, A brief Allegory of Orlando Furioso.

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

Milton, Paradise Lost, ii. 516.

Such were his arms, false gold, true alchemy.—P. Fletcher, Purple Island, vii. 39.

Allow, }

Allowance,

Allowable.

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

Mine enemy, say they, is not worthy to have gentle words or deeds, being so full of malice or frowardness. The less he is worthy, the more art thou therefore allowed of God, and the more art thou commended of Christ.—Homilies; Against Contention.

The hospitality and alms of abbeys is not altogether to be allowed, or dispraised.—Pilkington, The Burning of Paul’s, § 12.

Truly ye bear witness that ye allow [συνευδοκεῖτε] the deeds of your fathers.—Luke xi. 48. (A. V.)

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, act ii. sc. 3.

Though I deplore your schism from the Catholic Church, yet I should bear false witness if I did not confess your decency, which I discerned at the holy duty, was very allowable in the consecrators and receivers.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part ii. p. 211.

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

Shakespeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream, act iv. sc. 1.

How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts.—Ps. lxxxiv. 1. (A.V.)

Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. 248.

Amuse, }

Amusement.

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

Camillus set upon the Gauls, when they were amused in receiving their gold.—Holland, Livy, p. 223.

Being amused with grief, fear, and fright, he could not find a house in London (otherwise well known to him), whither he intended to go.—Fuller, Church History of Britain, b. ix. § 44.

A siege of Maestricht or Wesel (so garrisoned and resolutely defended), might not only have amused, but endangered the French armies.—Sir W. Temple, Observations on the United Provinces, c. 8.

To amuse, to stop or stay one with a trifling story, to make him lose his time, to feed with vain expectations, to hold in play.—Phillips, New World of Words.

In a just way it is lawful to deceive the unjust enemy, but not to lie; that is, by stratagems and semblances of motions, by amusements and intrigues of actions, by ambushes and wit, by simulation and dissimulation.—Bishop Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, b. iii. c. 2.

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

Here will be some need of assistants in this live, and to the quick, dissection, to deliver me from the violence of the anatomy.—Whitlock, Zootomia, p. 249.

Antiquity held too light thoughts from objects of mortality, while some drew provocatives of mirth from anatomies, and jugglers showed tricks with skeletons.—Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia.

Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, act v. sc. 1.

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

When her [the crocodile’s] young be newly hatched, such as give some proof of animosity, audacity, and execution, those she loveth, those she cherisheth.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 977.

Doubtless such as are of a high-flown animosity affect fortunas laviniosas, as one calls it, a fortune that sits not strait and close to the body, but like a loose and a flowing garment.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part i. p. 30.

In these cases consent were conspiracy; and open contestation is not faction or schism, but due Christian animosity.—Hales, Tract concerning Schism.

Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of the night in reading the Immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt.—Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia.

Annoy, }

Annoyance.

Now rather to vex and disquiet than seriously to hurt and harm. But until comparatively a late day, it admitted no such mitigation of meaning. [The subst. annoy is the O. Fr. anoi (Mod. Fr. ennui), Sp. enojo, O. It. inodio, from Lat. in odio, lit. in hatred, used in the phrase in odio habui, I had in hatred, i.e. I was sick and tired of.]

For the Lord Almygti anoyede [nocuit, Vulg.] hym, and bitook him into the hondes of a womman.—Judith xvi. 7. Wiclif.

Thanne cometh malignité, thurgh which a man annoieth his neighebor, as for to brenne his hous prively, or empoysone him, or sleen his bestis, and semblable thinges.—Chaucer, The Persones Tale (Morris, p. 306).

Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, act i. sc. 3.

Id. Macbeth, act v. sc. 1.

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

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, act v. sc. 4.

Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1323.

Apparent, }

Apparently.

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

Shakespeare, King John, act iv. sc. 2.

At that time Cicero had vehement suspicions of Cæsar, but no apparent proof to convince him.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. 718.

The laws of God cannot without breach of Christian liberty, and the apparent injury of God’s servants, be hid from them in a strange language, so depriving them of their best defence against Satan’s temptations.—Fuller, Twelve Sermons concerning Christ’s Temptations, p. 59.

Milton, Paradise Lost, x. 111.

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

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

Webster, Appius and Virginius, act v. sc. 3.

She, being an handsome, witty, and bold maid, was both apprehensive of the plot, and very active to prosecute it.—Fuller, The Profane State, b. v. c. 5.

Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster, act v. sc. 1.

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

Spenser, Fairy Queen, iv. 4, 15.

Earl of Surrey, Poems, p. 35 (ed. 1717).

Herrick, Hesperides.

Artificial, }

Artificially.

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

Queen Elizabeth’s verses, some extant in the elegant, witty, and artificial book of The Art of English Poetry, are princely as her prose.—Bolton, Hypercritica.

Shakespeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream, act iii. sc. 2.

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

This he did the rather, because having at his coming out of Britain given artificially, for serving his own turn, some hopes in case he obtained the kingdom, to marry Anne, inheritress to the duchy of Britany.—Bacon, History of Henry VII.

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

The Parthians, having all their hope in artillery, overcame the Romans ofter than the Romans them.—Ascham, Toxophilus, p. 106 (ed. 1761).

So the Philistines, the better to keep the Jews thrall and in subjection, utterly bereaved them of all manner of weapon and artillery, and left them naked.—Jewel, Reply to Mr. Harding, article xv.

Fairfax, Tasso, b. 17, s. 49.

And Jonathan gave his artillery (weapons, R.V.) unto his lad, and said unto him, Go, carry them to the city.—1 Sam. xx. 40. (A.V.)

Artisan, }

Artist,

Artful.

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

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

Waller, Lines to Van Dyck.

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, act i. sc. 3.

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

Some will make me the pattern of ignorance for making this Scaliger [Julius] the pattern of the general artist, whose own son Joseph might have been his father in many arts.—Fuller, Holy State, b. ii. c. 8.

Pope, Temple of Fame.

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

Sometimes an evil or an obnoxious person hath so secured and ascertained a mischief to himself, that he that stays in his company or his traffic must also share in his punishment.—Bishop Taylor, The Return of Prayers.

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

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

The book of Job, and many places of the prophets, have great aspersion of natural philosophy.—Bacon, Fiium Labyrinthi.

Shakespeare, Tempest, act iv. sc. 1.

Assassin, }

Assassinate.

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

These assassins were a precise sect of Mahometans, and had in them the very spirits of that poisonous superstition.—Fuller, Holy War, b. ii. c. 34.

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

Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1108.

Assure, }

Assurance.

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

Shakespeare, King John, act ii. sc. 2.

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

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

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

Shakespeare, Lucrece.

The knaves that lay in wait behind rose up and rolled down two huge stones, whereof the one smote the king upon the head, the other astonished his shoulder.—Holland, Livy, p. 1124.

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

In matters of religion, blind, astonished, and struck with superstition as with a planet; in one word, monks.—Milton, History of England, b. ii.

Astrology, }

Astrologer.

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

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

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

Astronomy, }

Astronomer.

See ‘Astrology.’

Shakespeare, Sonnets, 14.

Bowe ye not to astronomyers, neither axe ye onything of fals dyvynours.—Levit. xix. 31. Wiclif.

If astronomers say true, every man at his birth by his constellation hath divers things and desires appointed him.—Pilkington, Exposition upon the Prophet Aggeus, c. i.

Atone, }

Atonement.

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

Shakespeare, Coriolanus, act iv. sc. 6.

His first essay succeeded so well, Moses would adventure on a second design, to atone two Israelites at variance.—Fuller, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, vol. ii. p. 92.

Having more regard to their old variance than their new atonement.—Sir T. More, History of King Richard III.

Bishop Hall, Sat. 3. 7.

If Sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of the Church, and will be glad to do my benevolence, to make atonements and compromises between you.—Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, act i. sc. 1.

Attire. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries specially head-dress, head-gear. ‘Attired with stars’ in Milton’s beautiful lines On Time is not, clothed with stars, but, crowned with them; compare Rev. xii. 1: ‘upon her head a crown of twelve stars.’

She tore her attire from her head, and rent her golden hair.—The Seven Champions, b. ii. c. 13.

With the linen mitre shall he be attired.—Lev. xvi. 4. (A. V.)

Girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads.—Ezek. xxiii. 15 (A. V.)

The heralds call the Horns of a Stag or Buck his Attire.—Bradley, Fam. Dict. s. v.

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

Our everlasting and only High Bishop; our only attorney, our mediator, only peacemaker between God and men.—A Short Catechism, 1553.

Shakespeare, King Richard II. act ii. sc. 3.

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

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

Davenant, Gondibert, b. ii.

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

Which letter in the copy his lordship read over, and carried the authentic with him.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part ii. p. 24.

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

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

Men ought to fly all pedantisms, and not rashly to use all words that are met with in every English writer, whether authentic or not.—Phillips, New World of Words, Preface.

Awful, }

Awfulness.

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

Milton, On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.

The highest flames are the most tremulous, and so are the most holy and eminent religious persons more full of awfulness, of fear and modesty and humility.—Bishop Taylor, Life of Christ, part i. § 5.

Awkward. In its present signification, unhandy, ungainly, maladroit; but formerly7 untoward, and that, whether morally or physically, perverse, contrary, sinister, unlucky.

Marlowe, Edward II. act iv. sc. 7.

Marlowe, The First Book of Lucan.

Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI. act iii. sc. 2.

Id., Pericles, Prince of Tyre, act v. sc. 1.

Babe, }

Baby.

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

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

Babes of clouts are good enough to keep children from crying.—Fuller, Holy War, b. iv. c. 17.

Spenser, The Shepherd’s Calendar, May.

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

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

Do not ye, like those heathen in their bacchanals, inflame yourselves with wine.—Hammond, Paraphrase on the N. T., Ephes. v. 18.

So bacchanals of drunken riot were kept too much in London and Westminster, which offended many, that the thanks due only to God should be paid to the devil.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part i. p. 165.

Pope, Satires of Dr. Donne.

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

Spenser, Fairy Queen, v. 3, 37.

He that suffers himself to be ridden, or through pusillanimity or sottishness will let every man baffle him, shall be a common laughing-stock to flout at.—Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part ii. § 3.

Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, act v. sc. 1.

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

I durst not venture to sit at supper with you; should I have received you then, coming as you did with armed men to banquet with me? [Convivam me tibi committere ausus non sum; comissatorem te cum armatis venientem recipiam?]—Holland, Livy, p. 1066.

Then was the banqueting-chamber in the tilt-yard at Greenwich furnished for the entertainment of these strangers, where they did both sup and banquet.—Cavendish, Life of Cardinal Wolsey.

Massinger, The Unnatural Combat, act iii. sc. 1.

Base, }

Baseness.

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

Spenser, Fairy Queen, v. 5, 25.

He that is ashamed of base and simple attire, will be proud of gorgeous apparel, if he may get it.—Homilies; Against Excess of Apparel.

By this means we imitate the Lord Himself, who hath abased Himself to the lowest degree of baseness in this kind, emptying Himself (Phil. ii. 8), that he might be equal to them of greatest baseness.—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 461.

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

Shakespeare, King Henry V. act iv. Chorus.

Richard led the vanguard of English; Duke Odo commanded in the main battle over his French; James of Auvergne brought on the Flemings and Brabanters in the rear.—Fuller, Holy War, b. iii. c. 11.

Where divine blessing leads up the van, and man’s valour brings up the battle, must not victory needs follow in the rear?—Id., A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, vol. i. p. 174.

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

Chaucer, The Freres Tale.

One Lamb, a notorious impostor, a fortune-teller, and an employed bawd.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part ii. p. 81.

P. Fletcher, The Purple Island, c. viii.

Beastly, }

Beastliness.

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

It is sowun a beestli bodi; it schal rise a spiritual bodi.—1 Cor. xv. 44. Wiclif.

These ben, whiche departen hemsilf, beestli men, not havynge spirit.—Jude 19. Wiclif.

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

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

Shakespeare, Henry V. act v. sc. 1.

Rogers, Naamam the Syrian, p. 30.

Benefice, }

Beneficial.

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

Richard Rolle de Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 5582.

Nowe thanne, Lord, Thou art God, and hast spoke to thy servant so grete benefices.—1 Chron. xvii. 26. Wiclif.

The proper nature of God is always to be helpful and beneficial.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 600.

Shakespeare, Henry VIII. act i. sc. 1.

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

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

Close unto the front of the chariot marcheth all the sort of weavers and embroderers; next unto whom goeth the black guard and kitchenry.—Holland, Ammianus, p. 12.

A lousy slave, that within this twenty years rode with the black guard in the Duke’s carriage, ’mongst spits and dripping-pans!—Webster, The White Devil.

Thieves and murderers took upon them the cross to escape the gallows; adulterers did penance in their armour. A lamentable case that the devil’s black guard should be God’s soldiers!—Fuller, Holy War, b. i. c. 12.

Where the apologist meets with this black guard, these factors for error and sin, these agitators for the Prince of darkness, God forbid he should give place to them, or not charge them home, and resist them to the face.—Gauden, Hieraspistes, To the Reader.

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

We have neither school nor hospital for the distressed children, called the black guard.—Nelson, Address to Persons of Quality, p. 214.

Bleak. This, a northern form, the equivalent of O.E. blāc (cp. O.N. bleikr, Mod. German bleich, pale, colourless), comes out clearly in its original relationship with ‘bleach’ in the following quotations.

When she came out, she looked as pale and as bleak as one that were laid out dead.—Foxe, Book of Martyrs; The Escape of Agnes Wardall.

And as I looked forth, I beheld a pale horse, whom I took for the universal synagogue of hypocrites, pale as men without health, and bleak as men without that fresh spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus.—Bale, The Image of Both Churches, P. S. p. 321.

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

We could now wish we had a discreet and intelligent adversary, and not such a hare-brained blunderbuss as you, to deal with.—Milton, A Defence of the People of England, Preface.

Pope, Dunciad, b. iii. 150.

Boistous, }

Boisterous.

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

No man putteth a clout of buystous clothe [panni rudis, Vulg.] into an elde clothing.—Matt. ix. 16. Wiclif.

Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI. act ii. sc. 1.

Sylvester, Du Bartas’ Weeks, The Magnificence, p. 460.

The greatest danger indeed is from those that are stolide feroces, full of those boisterous, rude, and brutish passions, which grow as bristles upon hogs’ backs, from ignorance, pride, rusticity, and prejudice.—Gauden, Hieraspistes. To the Reader.

Dryden, Sigismunda and Guiscardo, 159, 160.

The other thing in debate seemed very hard and boisterous to his Majesty, that sundry leaders in the House of Commons would provoke him to proclaim open war with Spain.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part i. p. 79.

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

Certain I am there was never any kind of apparel ever invented, that could more disproportion the body of man than these doublets, stuffed with four, five, or six pound of bombast at the least.—Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses, p. 23.

Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, act v. sc. 2.

Bombast, the cotton-plant growing in Asia.—Phillips, New World of Words.

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

His coach being come, he causeth him to be laid in softly, and so he in one boot, and the two chirurgeons in the other, they drive away to the very next country house.—Reynolds, God’s Revenge against Murder, b. i. hist.

He [James the First] received his son into the coach, and found a slight errand to leave Buckingham behind, as he was putting his foot in the boot.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part i. p. 196.

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

Chaucer, Clerkes Tale (Morris, p. 283).

Nourishing meats and drinks in a sick body do lose their bounty, and augmenteth malady.—Sir T. Elyot, The Governor, b. ii. c. 7.

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

Gascoigne, De Profundis.

Tusser, Points of Good Husbandry.

Brave, }

Bravery.

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

The habit also and attire of his body, manly and soldier-like, not brave nor tricked up daintily and delicately, much adorned and set him out.—Plutarch, Lives, 695.

His clothes [St. Augustine’s] were neither brave, nor base, but comely.—Fuller, Holy State, b. iv. c. 10.

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

Traffic encreaseth wonderfully here, with all kind of bravery and building.—Howell, Letters, i. 6, 36.

Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, not omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature.—Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia.

There is a great festival now drawing on, a festival designed chiefly for the acts of a joyful piety, but generally made only an occasion of bravery.—South, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 285.

Bribe, }

Bribery.

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

They that delight in superfluity of gorgeous apparel and dainty fare, commonly do deceive the needy, bribe, and pill from them.—Cranmer, Instruction of Prayer.

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

Britain, }

Britany.

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

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

The letter of Quintus Cicero, which he wrote in answer to that of his brother Marcus, desiring of him an account of Britany.—Sir T. Browne, Musæum Clausum.

Cowley, The Extasy.

Brook. This, the O.E. brūcan (cp. German brauchen), has now obtained a special limitation, meaning not so much, as once it did, to use, as to endure to use.

Spenser, Fairy Queen, iii. 4, 44.

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

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

Pinkerton, Scotch Comic Ballads, p. 149.

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

Marlowe, Hero and Leander. First Sestyad.

William Hodgson, Verses on Ben Jonson.

Sylvester, Du Bartas’ Weeks, Babylon.

Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 699.

Burial. This designates now the act, but formerly the place, of interment, being the O.E. byrgels, a tomb, see N.E.D. (s. v. buriels).

And the kyng seide, What is this biriel which Y se? And the citeseyns of that citee answerèd ento him, It is the sepulcre of the man of God that cam fro Juda.—2 Kin. xxiii. 17. Wiclif.

And birielis weren openyd, and many bodies of seyntis that hadden slepte rysen up, and thei yeden out of her birielis.—Matt. xxvii. 51, 52. Wiclif.

It happed after that upon the buryels grewe a right fayr flourdelis.—Caxton, Legenda Aurea, 151. 2.

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

Al thing that is seld in the bocherie ete ye, axynge nothing for conscience.—1 Cor. x. 25. Wiclif.

Whence came it that they call the shambles or butcherie at Rome where flesh is to be sold, macellum?—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 869.

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

show that already for them the true meaning of the word, common enough in our earlier writers, was passing away; yet Milton still uses it in its proper sense in Paradise Lost,—‘winnowing the buxom air,’ that is, the yielding air.

I submit myself unto this holy Church of Christ, to be ever buxom and obedient to the ordinance of it, after my knowledge and power, by the help of God.—Foxe, Book of Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe.

Buxom, kind, tractable, and pliable one to the other.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, 316.

Spenser, Fairy Queen, iii. 2, 23.

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

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

Foxe, Book of Martyrs; Examination of Elizabeth Young by Martin Hussie.

This angry prior told the archbishop to his face, in a good audience, concerning what he had preached of the bishop of Rome’s vices, that he knew no vices by none of the bishops of Rome.—Strype, Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, b. i. c. 8.

Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, act iv. sc. 3.

I know nothing by myself [οὐδὲν ἐμαυτῷ σύνοιδα]; yet am I not hereby justified; but He that judgeth me is the Lord.—1 Cor. iv. 4 (A. V.) R. V. has here ‘against myself.’

God is said to be greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things. He knows more by us than we by ourselves.—Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour, iii. 2, 8.

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

And some counselled the archbishop to burn me by and by, and some other counselled him to drown me in the sea, for it is near hand there.—Foxe, Book of Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe.

Give me by and by [ἐξαυτῆς] in a charger the head of John the Baptist.—Mark vi. 25 (A.V.) [R. V. has forthwith.]

These things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by [εὐθέως].—Luke xxi. 9 (A.V.) [R. V. has immediately.]

When Demophantus fell to the ground, his soldiers fled by and by [εὐθὺς ἔφυγον] upon it.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. 308.

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

Aristark, myne evene caytyf [concaptivus meus, Vulg.], greetith you wel.—Col. iv. 10. Wiclif (earlier version).

Chaucer, The Knightes Tale.

Avarice doth tyrannize over her caitiff and slave, not suffering him to use what she commanded him to win.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 208.

Shakespeare, Othello, act iv. sc. 1.

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

Gelon the tyrant, after he had defeated the Carthaginians near to the city Himera, when he made peace with them, capitulated, among other articles of treaty, that they should no more sacrifice any infants to Saturn.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 405.

He [the Emperor Charles V.] makes a voyage into England, and there capitulates with the King, among other things, to take to wife his daughter Mary.—Heylin, History of the Reformation.

Wonder He will condescend to it! To capitulate with dust and ashes! To article with his own creature, with whom He may do what He will!—Howe, The Redeemer’s Dominion, &c.

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

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

Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI. act i. sc. 4.

Herbert, The Temple.

Careful, }

Carefulness.

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

The stretes of Sion mourn; her priests make lamentacions, her maydens are carefull, and she herself is in great hevynesse.—Lament. i. 4. Coverdale.

He shall be as a tree planted by the waters, ... and shall not be careful in the year of drought.—Jer. xvii. 8. (A.V.)

Hamilton, The Braes of Yarrow.

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

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

Piers Plowman, B Passus, xix. 65 (Skeat).

Now we leven the kyng, and of Joseph carpen.—Joseph of Arimathie, 212.

Gower, Confessio Amantis, 1.

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

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

Private men’s halls were hung with altar-cloths; their tables and beds covered with copes, instead of carpets and coverlets.—Fuller, Church History of Britain, b. vii. § 2, 1.

And might not these [copes] be handsomely converted into private uses, to serve as carpets for their tables, coverlids to their beds, or cushions to their chairs or windows?—Heylin, History of the Reformation, To the Reader.

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

Spartacus charged his [Lentulus’] lieutenants that led the army, gave them battle, overthrew them, and took all their carriage [τὴν ἀποσκευὴν ἅπασαν, LXX.].—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. 470.

And David left his carriage [τὰ σκεύη αὐτοῦ, LXX.] in the hand of the keeper of the carriage.—1 Sam. xvii. 22 (A.V.)

An index is a necessary implement, and no impediment of a book, except in the same sense in which the carriages of an army are termed impedimenta.—Fuller, Worthies of England: Norfolk.

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

Though a man give al the catel of his hous [omnem substantiam, domûs suæ, Vulg.] for love, he schal despise that catel as nought.—Cant. viii. 7. Wiclif.

A womman that hadde a flux of blood twelve yeer, and hadde spendid all hir catel [omnem substantiam suam, Vulg.] in leechis.—Luke viii. 43, 44. Wiclif.

The avarous man hath more hope in his catel than in Jhesu Crist.—Chaucer, The Persones Tale (Morris, p. 330).

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

Shakespeare, Hamlet, act i. sc. 3.

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

Which could not be past over without this censure; for it is an ill thrift to be parsimonious in the praise of that which is very good.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part ii. p. 13.

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

That no man overgo, nethir disseyve his brothir in chaffaring [in negotio, Vulg.].—1 Thess. iv. 6. Wiclif.

He comaundide his servauntis to be clepid, to whiche he hadde yive monei; to wite hou myche ech hadde wonne bi chaffaryng.—Luke xix. 15. Wiclif.

Spenser, Shepherd’s Calendar, September.

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

Beside all these things, between us and you there is fixed a great chaos, that they which will pass from hence to you may not.—Luke xvi. 26. Rheims.

And look what other thing soever besides cometh within the chaos of this monster’s mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goeth incontinently that foul great swallow of his.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 975.

Milton, Paradise Lost, vi. 51.

Cheat, }

Cheater.

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

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

This man who otherwise beforetime was but poor and needy, by these windfalls and unexpected cheats became very wealthy.—Id. Plutarch’s Morals, p. 1237.

Falstaff. Here’s another letter to her. She bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me.—Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, act i. sc. 2.

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

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

In swoot of thi cheer thou schalt ete thi breed, till thou turne ayen in to the erthe of which thou art takun.—Gen. iii. 19. Wiclif.

And Cayn was wrooth greetli, and his cheer felde doun.—Gen. iv. 5. Wiclif.

Surrey, Ecclesiastes, c. 3.

Chemist, }

Chemistry.

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

Five sorts of persones he [Sir Edward Coke] used to foredesign to misery and poverty; chemists, monopolizers, concealers,10 promoters, and rythming poets.—Fuller, Worthies of England: Norfolk.

I have observed generally of chymists and theosophists, as of several other men more palpably mad, that their thoughts are carried much to astrology.—H. More, A Brief Discourse of Enthusiasm, sect. 45.

Cowley, Use of Reason in Divine Matters.

Pope, The Dunciad, b. iii. 9-12.

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

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

Chaucer, The Clerkes Prologue.

Hawes, Pastime of Pleasure, cap. 14.

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

And hise feet [were] lijk to latoun as in a brennynge chymney.—Rev. i. 15. Wiclif.

The Son of Man shall send his angels, and shall gather all hindrances out of his kingdom and all that worketh unlawfulness, and shall cast them into the chimney of fire.—Matt. xiii. 50. Sir John Cheke.

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

Abymalach forsothe aroos, and Phicol, the prince of his chyvalrye [princeps exercitûs ejus, Vulg.], and turneden ayen into the loond of Palestynes.—Gen. xxi. 33. Wiclif.

Sobach, the prynce of chyvalrye [principem militiæ].—2 Kings x. 18. Wiclif.

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

About this time the Turks proposed at the instigation of the French ambassador to send a chiaus into France, England, and Holland, to acquaint those princes with the advancement of Sultan Solyman to the throne.—Rycaut, History of the Turks, vol. iii. p. 261.

Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, act i. sc. 1.

Christen, }

Christendom.

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

Most part of England in the reigne of King Ethelbert was christened, Kent onely except, which remayned long after in mysbeliefe and unchristened.—E. K., Glossary to Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar, September.12

Sothli we ben togidere biried with him bi christendom [per baptismum, Vulg.] in to death.—Rom. vi. 4. Wiclif (earlier version).

He that might have his body wrapped in one of their old coats at the houre of death, it were as good to him as his christendom.—Tyndale, Exposition upon Matthew VI.

Sir J. Harington, Orlando Furioso, b. xliii. c. 189.

The draughts of intemperance would wash off the water of my christendom; every unclean lust does as it were bemire and wipe out my contract with my Lord.—Allestree, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 161.

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

And, lo, the veil of the church was torn in two parts from the top downwards.—Matt. xxvii. 51. Sir John Cheke.

Golding, Ovid’s Metamorphosis, b. xi.

Marlowe, First Book of Lucan.

Civil, }

Civility,

Civilian.

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

That wise and civil Roman, Julius Agricola, preferred the natural wits of Britain before the laboured studies of the French.—Milton, Areopagitica.

As for the Scythian wandering Nomades, temples sorted not with their condition, as wanting both civility and settledness.—Fuller, The Holy State, b. iii. c. 24.

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

Let us remember also that civility and fair customs were but in a narrow circle till the Greeks and Romans beat the world into better manners.—Bishop Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, b. ii. c. 1, § 19.

The last step in this [spiritual] death is the death of civility. Civil men come nearer the saints of God than others, they come within a step or two of heaven, and yet are shut out.—Preston, Of Spiritual Death and Life, 1636, p. 59.

I proceed to the second, that is to the mere naturalist or civilian; by whom I mean such an one as lives upon dregs, the very reliques and ruins of the image of God decayed.—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 104.

Clergy. [The use of clergy in the abstract for learning is quite obsolete. Strictly speaking, it is not the same word as clergy, the collective name for the ministers of God. Clergy (learning) represents Old French clergie, whereas clergy (ministers) is due to Old French clergié (now clergé) = Late Latin clericatum.]

Richard Rolle de Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 4832.

Hawes, Pastime of Pleasure.

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

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

The superficialtee of the erthe is departed in 7 parties for the 7 planetes, and tho parties ben clept clymates.—Mandeville, p. 186.

The longitude of a clymat ys a lyne ymagined fro est to west, illike distant by-twene them alle.—Chaucer, Treatise on the Astrolabe, 2, 39, 17 (Skeat, E.E.T.S. xvi).

The Funerals of King Edward VI.

Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, act i. sc. 3.

This climate of Gaul [hanc Galliarum plagam] is enclosed on every side with fences that environ it naturally.—Holland, Ammianus, p. 47.

Climate, a portion of the earth contained between two circles parallel to the equator.—Phillips, New World of Words.

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

Rigido: Starke, stiffe, or num through cold, clumzie.—Florio, New World of Words (A.D. 1611).

Havi de froid: Stiffe, clumpse, benummed.—Cotgrave, A French and English Dictionary.

The Carthaginians followed the enemies in chase as far as Trebia, and there gave over; and returned into the camp so clumsy and frozen [ita torpentes gelu] as scarcely they felt the joy of their victory.—Holland, Livy, p. 425.

This bloome of budding beauty loves not to be handled by such nummed and so clomsie hands.—Florio, Montaigne’s Essays, b. iii. c. 5, p. 536 (ed. 1603).

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

And that that lefte to hem of brokun metis was takun up, twelve cofyns.—Luke ix. 17. Wiclif.

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

Comfort, }

Comfortable.

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

And the child wexide, and was coumfortid [confortabatur Vulg.] in spirit.—Luke i. 80. Wiclif.

And there appered an angell unto Hym from heven, confortynge Hym [ἐνισχύων αὐτόν].—Luke xxii. 43. Tyndale.

O comfortable friar! where is my lord?—Shakespeare, Romeo, act v. sc. 3.

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

The senses receive indifferently, without discretion and judgement, white and black, sweet and sour, soft and hard; for their office is only to admit their several objects, and to carry and refer the judgement thereof to the common sense.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. 732.

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

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

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

Companion. This had once the same contemptuous use which its synonym ‘fellow’ still retains (for a curious use of this see 2 Pet. ii. 14, Geneva Version), and which ‘gadeling,’ a word of the same meaning, had, so long as it survived in the language. Clarendon speaks of the Privy Council as at one time composed of upstarts, factious, indigent companions (b. iv.). The notion originally involved in companionship, or accompaniment, would appear to have been rather that of inferiority than of equality. A companion was an attendant.

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.’

Shakespeare, A Lover’s Complaint.

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.

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.

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.

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.