Note 393 — ENGLAND.
Reading edition
i. e. Pinch severely. The Ang.-Sax. o joined to a verb or part. answers to the German zu or zer. o-becan is to break to pieces, o-ian to drive asunder, scatter. Verbs of this kind occur in the Vision of Piers Ploughman, in Chaucer and elsewhere. The part. is often preceded by all, in the sense of the German ganz, quite, with which some ignorantly join the to as all-to ruffled in Comus, 380, instead of all to-ruffled. In Golding's Ovid (p. 15) we meet "With rugged head as white as down, and garments all to-torn;" in Judges ix. 53, "and all to-brake his skull." See also Faerie Queene, iv. 7, 8; v. 8, 4, 43, 44; 9, 10.
