Note 109 — THE PROLOGUE. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Cavendish uses this word again in his poems:
“Wherin was found a certyn defuse clause Wrested by craft to a male intente.” p. 139.
See Fox’s Acts, &c. p. 1769:
“Cook. Then answere me, What sayest thou to the blessed sacrament of the altar? Tell me:
“Jackson. I answered; it is a diffuse question, to aske me at the first dash, you promising to deliver me.” See also p. 1574. “Diffuse and difficult.”
It appears to have been used in the sense of obscure, but difficult is the reading of Grove’s edition. I find diffused explained by Cotgrave “diffus, espars, OBSCURE.” And in a Latin Greek and English Lexicon by R. Hutton, printed at London by H. Bynneman, 1583, the Latin adverb, obscure, is interpreted “darkely, obscurely, DIFFUSELY.”