Note 104 — DISSERTATION IV.
Reading edition
The Editor of Chaucer's Works before mentioned, remarks, "that a, in composition with words of Saxon original, is an abbreviation of as or of, at, on or in; and often a corruption of the prepositive particle ge or y." According to this writer, a is any thing and every thing; it has so many derivations and uses, that it has no certain derivation or meaning at all. In the phrase a coming, a seems now to be a mere expletive; but otherwise a, one, and an have the same meaning in all cases.