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.

What should the wars do with these jigging fools? _Companion_, hence.

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.’

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyn Which had on it _conceited_ characters.

SHAKESPEARE, _A Lover’s Complaint_.

Triumphal arches the glad town doth raise, And tilts and tourneys are performed at court, _Conceited_ masques, rich banquets, witty plays.

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.

Art thou that traitor angel? art thou he That first broke peace in heaven, and faith till then Unbroken, and, in proud rebellious arms, Drew after him the third part of Heaven’s sons, _Conjured_ against the Highest?

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.

I do not mock, nor lives there such a villain, That can do anything _contemptible_ To you; but I do kneel, because it is An action very fit and reverent In presence of so pure a creäture.

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.

Keep off that great concourse, whose violent hands Would ruin this stone-building and drag hence This impious judge, piecemeal to tear his limbs, Before the law _convince_ him.

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._

Be _copy_ now to men of grosser blood, And teach them how to war.

SHAKESPEARE, _Henry V._ act iii. sc. 1.

Drayton’s Heroical Epistles are well worth the reading also, for the purpose of our subject, which is to furnish an English historian with choice and _copy_ of tongue.--BOLTON, _Hypercritica_, p. 235.

The sun, the prince of all the bodies of light, is the principal, the rule and the _copy_, which they in their proportions imitate and transcribe.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Exhortation to the Imitation of Christ_.

=COQUET.= At present all our ‘coquets’ are female. But, as in the case with so many other words instanced in this volume, what once belonged to both sexes is now restricted to one.

_Cocquet_; a beau, a gallant, a general lover; also a wanton girl that speaks fair to several lovers at once.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.

=CORPSE.= Now only used for the body abandoned by the spirit of life, but once for the body of the living equally as of the dead; now only = ‘cadaver,’ but once ‘corpus’ as well. It will follow that ‘dead corpses’ (_2 Kings_ xix. 35 and often) is not a tautology.

A valiant _corpse_, where force and beauty met.

SURREY, _On the Death of Sir T. Wyatt_.

Night is the sabbath of mankind, To rest the body and the mind: Which now thou art denied to keep, And cure thy laboured _corpse_ with sleep.

BUTLER, _Hudibras_, iii. 1. 1349.

Women and maids shall particularly examine themselves about the variety of their apparell, their too much care of their _corps_.--_Richeome’s Pilgrim of Loretto, by G. W._

Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of trades Could not relieve your _corps_ with so much linen Would make you tinder, but to see a fire.

BEN JONSON, _The Alchemist_, act i. sc. 1.

=COUNTERFEIT.= Now, to imitate with the purpose of passing off the imitation as the original; but no such dishonest intention was formerly implied in the word.

I wol noon of thapostles _counterfete_: I wol have money, wolle, chese and whete, Al were it yeven of the prestes page, Or of the porest wydow in a village.

CHAUCER, _The Pardoner’s Prologue_ (Morris, p. 90).

Christ prayseth not the unrighteous stuard, neither setteth him forth to us to _counterfeit_, because of his unrighteousness, but because of his wisdom only, in that he with unright so wisely provided for himself.--TYNDALE, _The Parable of the Wicked Mammon_.

But for the Greek tongue they do note in some of his epistles that he [Brutus] _counterfeited_ that brief compendious manner of speech of the Lacedæmonians.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 818.

=COURTESAN.= The Low Latin ‘cortesanus’ was once one haunting the court, a courtier, ‘aulicus,’ though already in Shakespeare we often meet the word in its present use.

By the wolf, no doubt, was meant the Pope, but the fox was resembled to the prelates, _courtesans_, priests, and the rest of the spirituality.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs_, ed. 1641, vol. i. p. 511.

=COURTSHIP.= We now assign to this and to ‘courtesy’ their own several domains of meanings; but they were once promiscuously used. See for another example of the same the quotation from Fuller, _s. v._ ‘Defalcation.’

As he [Charles I.], to acquit himself, hath not spared his adversaries, to load them with all sorts of blame and accusation, so to him, as in his book alive, there will be used no more _courtship_ than he uses.--MILTON, _Iconoclastes_, The Preface.

=CUMBER=, } CUMBROUS. }

This word, the Old French _combrer_, has lost much of the force which it once possessed; it means now little more than passively to burden. It was once actively to annoy, disquiet, or mischief. It was as possessing this force that our Translators rendered ἵνα τί καὶ τὴν γῆν καταργεῖ; ‘why _cumbereth_ it the ground?’ (_Luke_ xiii. 7.)

The archers in the forefront so wounded the footmen, so galled the horses, and so _combred_ the men of arms that the footmen durst not go forward.--HALL, _Henry V._ fol. 17, 6.

We have herde that certayne of oures are departed, and have troubled you and have _combred_ [ἀνασκευάζοντες] your myndes, sayenge, Ye must be circumcised and must keep the law.--_Acts_ xv. 24. COVERDALE.

But Martha was _cumbered_ [περιεσπᾶτο, cf. ver. 41: μεριμνᾷs καὶ τυρβάζῃ] about much serving.--_Luke_ x. 40. (A.V.)

A cloud of _combrous_ gnats do him molest, All striving to infix their feeble stings.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, i. 1. 23.

=CUNNING.= The fact that so many words implying knowledge, art, skill, obtain in course of time a secondary meaning of crooked knowledge, art that has degenerated into artifice, skill used only to circumvent, which meanings partially or altogether put out of use their primary, is a mournful witness to the way in which intellectual gifts are too commonly misapplied. Thus there was a time when the Latin ‘dolus’ required the epithet ‘malus,’ as often as it signified a treacherous or fraudful device; but it was soon able to drop this as superfluous, and to stand by itself. Other words which have gone the same downward course are the following: τέχνη, ‘astutia,’ ‘calliditas,’ ‘List,’ ‘Kunst,’ and our English ‘craft’ and ‘cunning,’--the last, indeed, as early as Lord Bacon, who says, ‘We take _cunning_ for a sinister or crooked wisdom,’ had acquired what is now its only acceptation; but not then, nor till long after, to the exclusion of its more honourable use. How honourable that use sometimes was, my first quotation will testify.

I believe that all these three Persons [in the Godhead] are even in power and in _cunning_ and in might, full of grace and of all goodness.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe_.

So the number of them, with their brethren, that were instructed in the songs of the Lord, even all that were _cunning_, was two hundred fourscore and eight.--_1 Chron._ xxv. 7. (A.V.)

=CURATE.= Rector, vicar, every one having _cure_ of souls in a parish, was a ‘curate’ once. Thus ‘bishops and _curates_’ in the Liturgy.

They [the begging friars] letten _curats_ to know Gods law by holding bookes fro them, and withdrawing of their vantages, by which they shulden have books and lerne.--WICLIF, _Treatise against the Friars_, p. 56.

If there be any man wicked because his _curate_ teacheth him not, his blood shall be required at the _curate’s_ hands.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, p. 525.

Henry the Second of England commanded all prelates and _curates_ to reside upon their dioceses and charges.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Ductor Dubitantium_, b. iii. c. 1.

_Curate_, a parson or vicar, one that serves a cure, or has the charge of souls in a parish.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.

=CUSTOMER.= One sitting officially at the receipt of customs, that is, of dues customably paid, and receiving these, and not one repairing customably to a shop to purchase there, was a ‘customer’ two and three centuries ago.

He healeth the man of the palsye, calleth Levi the _customer_, eateth with open synners, and excuseth his disciples.--_What S. Marke conteyneth._ COVERDALE.

The extreme and horrible covetousness of the farmers, _customers_, and Roman usurers devoured it [Asia].--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 432.

We hardly can abide publicans, _customers_, and toll-gatherers, when they keep a ferreting and searching for such things as be hidden.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 138.

=DANGER=, } DANGEROUS. }

A feudal term, beset with many difficulties when we seek to follow it as it passes to its present use; but very well worth some study bestowed upon it. Ducange has written on the subject, and Diez, and Littré (_Hist. de la Langue Franç._ vol. i. p. 49). [The Old French _dangier_, _dongier_, power, lordship, refusal, danger, is of Late Latin origin, representing a form _dominiarium_ (from Latin _dominium_) which signified properly the strict right of the suzerain in regard to the fief of the vassal]; thus, ‘fief de _danger_,’ a fief held under a lord on strict conditions, and therefore in peril of being forfeited (juri stricto atque adeo confiscationi obnoxium; Ducange). There is no difficulty here; but there is another early use of ‘danger’ and ‘dangerous’ which is not thus explained, nor yet the connexion between it and the modern meaning of the words. I refer to that of ‘danger’ in the sense of ‘coyness,’ ‘sparingness,’ ‘niggardliness,’ and of ‘dangerous’ in the sense of haughty, difficult to please.

And if thi voice is faire and clere, Thou shalt maken no grete _daungere_, Whanne to synge they goodly preye; It is thi worship for tobeye.

_Romaunt of the Rose_, 2317.

We ourselves also were in times past unwise, disobedient, deceived, in _danger_ to lusts [δουλεύοντες ἐπιθυμίαις].--_Tit._ iii. TYNDALE.

Come not within his _danger_ by thy will.

SHAKESPEARE, _Venus and Adonis_.

My wages ben full streyt and eek ful smale; My lord to me is hard and _daungerous_.

CHAUCER, _The Freres Tale_ (Morris, p. 250).

But nathelesse, for hys beauté So fyers and _daungerous_ was he, That he nolde graunte hir askyng, For weepyng, ne for faire praiyng.

_Romaunt of the Rose_, 1480.

=DEADLY.= This and ‘mortal’ (which see) are sometimes synonyms now; thus, ‘a _deadly_ wound’ or ‘a _mortal_ wound;’ but they are not invariably so; ‘deadly’ being always active, while ‘mortal’ is far oftenest passive, signifying not that which inflicts death, but that which suffers death; thus, ‘a _mortal_ body,’ or body subject to death, but not now ‘a _deadly_ body.’ It was otherwise once. ‘Deadly’ is the constant word in Wiclif’s Bible, wherever in the later Versions ‘mortal’ occurs.

Elye was a _deedli_ man lijk us, and in preier he preiede that it schulde not reyne on the erthe, and it reynede not three yeeris and sixe monethis.--_Jam._ v. 17. WICLIF.

Many holy prophets that were _deadly_ men were martyred violently in the Old Law.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe_.

=DEBATE=, } DEBATER. }

This word was only true to its etymology (débattre) so long as an element of strife, of war waged by the tongue or by the sword, was included in it. Thus, in some memorable lines attributed to Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots is described as ‘_the daughter of debate_.’ It has now a far more harmless meaning, the element of strife having quite gone out of the word.

It is not the possession of a man’s own, but the usurping of another man’s right that hath brought injustice, _debate_, and trouble into the world.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 680.

Prevy bacbiteris, detractouris, hateful to God, _debateris_ [contumeliosi, Vulg.], proude.--_Rom._ i. 30. WICLIF.

=DECEIVABLE=, } DECEIVABLENESS. }

So far as we use ‘deceivable’ at all now, we use it in the passive sense, as liable to be, or capable of being, deceived. It was active when counted exchangeable with ‘deceitful’ as at _2 Pet._ i. 16, where the ‘deceivable’ of Tyndale appears as the ‘deceitful’ of Cranmer’s Bible. It has fared in like manner with ‘discernible,’ ‘contemptible,’ which see, and with other words which, active once, are passive now.

This world is fikel and _desayvable_, And fals and unsiker, and unstable.

RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 1088.

The most uncertain and _deceivable_ proof of the people’s good will and cities’ toward kings and princes are the immeasurable and extreme honours they do unto them.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 743.

For we folowed not _decevable_ fables, when we openned unto you the power and commynge of our Lorde Jesus Christ.--_2 Pet._ i. 16. Geneva Version.

Whose coming is after the working of Satan with all _deceivableness_ of unrighteousness in them that perish.--_2 Thess._ 9, 10. (A.V.)

=DEFALCATION.= A word at present of very slovenly and inaccurate use. We read in the newspapers of a ‘defalcation’ of the revenue, not meaning thereby an active _lopping off_ (‘defalcatio’) of certain taxes with their proceeds, which would be the only correct use, but a passive falling short in its returns from what they previously were. Can it be that some confusion of ‘defalcation’ with ‘default,’ or at least a seeing of ‘fault’ and not ‘falx’ in its second syllable (there was once a verb ‘to defalk’), has led to this?

My first crude meditations, being always hastily put together, could never please me so well at a second and more leisurable review, as to pass without some additions, _defalcations_, and other alterations, more or less.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671, Preface.

As for their conjecture that Zorobabel, at the building of this temple purposely abated of those dimensions assigned by Cyrus, as too great for him to compass, in such _defalcation_ of measures by Cyrus allowed, he showed little courtship to his master the emperor, and less religion to the Lord his God.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, b. iii. c. 2.

=DEFEND=, } DEFENCE. }

Now, to protect, but once to protect by prohibiting or fencing round, to forbid, as ‘défendre’ is still in French.

Now wol I you _defenden_ hasardrye.--CHAUCER, _The Pardoneres Tale_. (Clar. Press.)

Whan sawe ye in eny maner age That highe God _defendide_ mariage By expres word?

Id., _The Wife of Bath’s Tale_.

And oure Lord _defended_ hem that thei scholde not tell that avisioun till that He were rysen.--Sir JOHN MANDEVILLE, _Voiage and Travaile_, p. 114.

O sons, like one of us man is become, To know both good and evil, since his taste Of that _defended fruit_.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, xi. 84.

Adam afterward ayeines his _defence_, Frette of that fruit.

_Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus xviii. 193.

=DEFY=, } DEFIANCE. }

This means now to dare to the uttermost hostility, and so, as a consequence which will often follow upon this, to challenge. But in earlier use ‘to defy’ is, according to its etymology, to pronounce all bonds of _faith_ and fellowship which existed previously between the defier and the defied to be wholly dissolved, so that nothing of treaty or even of the natural faith of man to man shall henceforth hinder extremest hostility between them. But still, when we read of one potentate sending ‘defiance’ to another, the challenge to conflict did not lie necessarily in the word, however such a message might provoke and would often be the prelude to this: it meant but the releasing of himself from all which hitherto had mutually obliged; and thus it came often to mean simply to disclaim, or renounce.

No man speaking in the Spirit of God _defieth_ Jesus [λέγει ἀνάθεμα Ἰησοῦν].--_1 Cor._ xii. 3. TYNDALE.

Despise not an hungry soul, and _defy_ not the poor in his necessity.--_Ecclus._ iv. 2. COVERDALE.

All studies here I solemnly _defy_, Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke.

SHAKESPEARE, _1 Henry IV._ act i. sc. 8.

There is a double people-pleasing. One sordid and servile, made of falsehood and flattery, which I _defy_ and detest.--FULLER, _Appeal of Injured Innocence_, p. 38.

Now although I instanced in a question which by good fortune never came to open _defiance_, yet there have been sects formed upon lighter grounds.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Liberty of Prophesying_, § 3, 5.

=DELAY.= Like the French ‘délayer,’ used often in old time where we should now employ ‘allay.’ Out of an ignorance of this, and assuming it a misprint, some modern editors of our earlier authors have not scrupled to change ‘delay’ into ‘allay.’ This is quite a different word from _delay_, to put off.

Wine _delayed_ with water.--HOLLAND’S _Camden_, p. 20.

The watery showers _delay_ the raging wind.

EARL OF SURREY, _The Faithful Lover_, p. 34 (ed. 1717).

Even so fathers ought to _delay_ their eager reprehensions and cutting rebukes with kindness and clemency.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 16.

Cup-bearers know well enough, and in that regard can discern and distinguish, when they are to use more or less water to the _delaying_ of wines.--Id., _Ib._ p. 652.

=DELICACY=, } DELICATE, } DELICATELY, } DELICIOUS, } DELICIOUSLY.}

In the same way as self-indulgence creeps over us by unmarked degrees, so there creeps over the words that designate it a subtle change; they come to contain less and less of rebuke and blame; the thing itself being tolerated, nay allowed, it must needs be that the words which express it should be received into favour too. It has been thus, as I shall have occasion to note, with ‘luxury;’ it has been thus also with this whole group of words. See the quotation from Sir W. Raleigh, _s. v._ ‘Feminine.’

Thus much of _delicacy_ in general; now more particularly of his first branch, gluttony.--NASH, _Christ’s Tear’s over Jerusalem_, p. 140.

Cephisodorus, the disciple of Isocrates, charged him with _delicacy_, intemperance, and gluttony.--BLOUNT, _Philostratus_, p. 229.

The most _delicate_ and voluptuous princes have ever been the heaviest oppressors of the people, riot being a far more lavish spender of the common treasure than war or magnificence.--HABINGTON, _History of King Edward IV._, p. 196.

And drynk nat ouer _delicatliche_, ne to depe neither.

_Piers Plowman_, C-text, Passus vii. 166 (Skeat).

She that liveth _delicately_ [σπαταλῶσα] is dead while she liveth.--_1 Tim._ v. 6. A.V. (margin).

Yea, soberest men it [idleness] makes _delicious_.--SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas, Second Week, Eden_.

How much she hath glorified herself and lived _deliciously_ [ἐστρηνίασε], so much torment and sorrow give her.--_Rev._ xviii. 7. (A.V.)

=DEMERIT.= It was plainly a squandering of the wealth of the language, that ‘merit’ and ‘demerit’ should mean one and the same thing; however this might be justified by the fact that ‘mereor’ and ‘demereor,’ from which they were severally derived, were scarcely discriminated in meaning. It has thus come to pass, according to the desynonymizing processes ever at work in a language, that ‘demerit’ has ended in being employed only of _ill_ desert, while ‘merit’ is left free to good or ill, having predominantly the sense of the former.

I fetch my life and being From men of royal siege; and my _demerits_ May speak, unbonneted, to as proud a fortune As this that I have reached.

SHAKESPEARE, _Othello_, act i. sc. 2.

By our profane and unkind civil wars the world is grown to this pass, that it is reputed a singular _demerit_ and gracious act, not to kill a citizen of Rome, but to let him live.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 456.

But the Rhodians, contrariwise, in a proud humour of theirs, reckoned up a beadroll of their _demerits_ toward the people of Rome.--Id., _Livy_, p. 1179.

=DEMURE=, } DEMURENESS. }

Used by our earlier writers without the insinuation, which is now always latent in it, that the external shows of modesty and sobriety rest upon no corresponding realities. On the contrary the ‘demure’ was the truly modest and virtuous and good. It is one of the many words to which the suspicious nature of man, with the warrants to a certain extent which these suspicions find, has given a turn for the worse.

These and other suchlike irreligious pranks did this Dionysius play, who notwithstanding fared no worse than the most _demure_ and innocent, dying no other death than what usually other mortals do.--H. MORE, _Antidote against Atheism_, b. iii. c. 1.

Which advantages God propounds to all the hearers of the Gospel, without any respect of works or former _demureness_ of life, if so be they will but now come in and close with this high and rich dispensation.--Id., _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b. viii. c. 5.

She is so nice and so _demure_, So sober, courteous, modest, and precise.

_True History of King Leir_, 1605.

In like manner women also in comely attire; with _demureness_ [cum verecundiâ, Vulg.] and sobriety adorning themselves.--_1 Tim._ ii. 9. Rheims.

His carriage was full comely and upright, His countenance _demure_ and temperate.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 1, 6.

=DEPART.= Once used as equivalent with ‘to separate’ (divido, partior, _Promptorium Parvulorum_)--a fact already forgotten, when, at the last revision of the Prayer-Book in 1662, the Puritan divines objected to the form as it then stood in the Marriage Service, ‘till death us _depart_;’ in condescension to whose objection the words, as we now have them, ‘till death us _do part_,’ were introduced.

And he schal _departe_ hem atwynne, as a scheepherde _departith_ scheep fro kidis.--_Matt._ xxv. 32. WICLIF.

And whanne he hadde seid this thing, dissencioun was maad bitwixe the Fariseis and the Saduceis, and the multitude was _departid_.--_Acts_ xxiii. 7. Id.

If my neighbour neede and I geve him not, neyther _depart_ liberally with him of that which I have, than withholde I from him unrighteously that which is hys owne.--TYNDALE, _Parable of the Wicked Mammon_.

Neither did the apostles put away their wives, after they were called unto the ministry; but they continued with their wives lovingly and faithfully, till death _departed_ them.--BECON, _An Humble Supplication unto God_ (1554).

=DEPLORED.= It is well known that ‘deploratus’ obtained in later Latin, through a putting of effect for cause, the sense of desperate or past all hope, and was technically applied to the sick man given over by his physicians, ‘deploratus a medicis.’

The physicians do make a kind of scruple and religion to stay with the patient after the disease is _deplored_; whereas, in my judgement, they ought both to inquire the skill, and to give the attendances, for the facilitating and assuaging of the pains and agonies of death.--BACON, _Advancement of Learning_, ii. 10. 5.

If a man hath the mind to get the start of other sinners, and desires to be in hell before them, he need do no more but open his sails to the wind of heretical doctrine, and he is like to make a short voyage to hell; for these bring upon their maintainers a swift destruction. Nay, the Spirit of God the more to aggravate their _deplored_ state, brings on three most dreadful instances of divine justice that ever were executed upon any sinners.--GURNALL, _The Christian in Complete Armour_, pt. ii. p. 317.

=DEPRAVE.= As ‘pravus’ is literally crooked, we may say that ‘to deprave’ was formerly ‘untruly _to present_ as crooked,’ to defame; while it is now ‘wickedly _to make_ crooked.’ See the quotation from Bacon, _s. v._ ‘Disable.’

Their intent was none other than to get him [Cardinal Wolsey] from the king out of the realm; then might they sufficiently adventure, by the help of their chief mistress, to _deprave_ him with the king’s highness, and so in his absence to bring him in displeasure with the king.--CAVENDISH, _Life of Cardinal Wolsey_.

That lie, and cog, and flout, _deprave_, and slander.

SHAKESPEARE, _Much Ado about Nothing_, act v. sc. 1.

I am _depraved_ unjustly; who never deprived the Church of her authority.--FULLER, _Appeal of Injured Innocence_, pt. i. p. 45.

Unjustly thou _depravest_ it with the name Of servitude, to serve whom God ordains, Or nature.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, vi. 174.

=DERIVE.= Tropical uses of the verb ‘to derive’ have quite superseded the literal, so that we now ‘derive’ anything rather than waters from a river.

An infinite deal of labour there is to lade out the water that riseth upon the workmen, for fear it choke up the pits; for to prevent which inconvenience they _derive_ it by other drains.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_.

Nor may the industry of the citizens of Salisbury be forgotten, who have _derived_ the river into every street therein, so that Salisbury is a heap of islets thrown together.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Wiltshire_.

=DESCRY.= This verb had a technical meaning in the seventeenth century, which it afterwards lost; its loss leading to the introduction of the French verb ‘to reconnoitre,’ ridiculed as an outlandish term by Addison (1711), and more than half a century later not admitted by Johnson into his _Dictionary_. It was exactly this which ‘to descry,’ as used by Shakespeare and by Milton, meant. [The verb is the equivalent of the Old French _descrire_, _descrivre_, Latin _describere_, to describe.]

Who hath _descried_ the number of the foe?

SHAKESPEARE, _Richard III._ act v. sc. 3.

The house of Israel sent to _descry_ (to spy out, R.V.) Bethel.--_Judg._ i. 23. (A.V.)

Scouts each coast light-armed scour, Each quarter to _descry_ the distant foe, Where lodged or whither fled; or, if for fight, In motion or in halt.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, vi. 530.

=DESIRE.= ‘To desire’ is only to look _forward_ with longing now; the word has lost the sense of regret or looking _back_ upon the lost but still loved. This it once possessed in common with ‘desiderium’ and ‘desiderare,’ from which more remotely, and ‘désirer,’ from which more immediately, we derive it.

He [Jehoram] reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed without being desired.--_2 Chron._ xxi. 20. (A.V.)

She that hath a wise husband must entice him to an eternal dearness by the veil of modesty and the grave robes of chastity, and she shall be pleasant while she lives, and _desired_ when she dies.--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Marriage Ring_, Sermon 18.

So unremovéd stood these steeds, their heads to earth let fall, And warm tears gushing from their eyes, with passionate _desire_ Of their kind manager.

CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, xvii. 379.

=DETEST.= For the writers of the seventeenth century ‘to detest’ still retained often the sense of its original ‘detestari,’ openly to witness against, and not merely to entertain an inward abhorrence of, a thing; as in ‘attest’ and ‘protest’ the etymological meaning still survives. It is not easy to adduce passages which absolutely prove this against one who should be disposed to deny it. There can, however, be no doubt whatever of the fact. In Du Bartas’ _Weeks_, 1621, p. 106, an invective against avarice is called in the margin ‘_Detestation_ of Avarice, for her execrable and cruel effects.’

Wherefore God hath _detested_ them with his own mouth, and clean given them over unto their own filthy lusts.--BALE, _The Image of both Churches_, c. 11.

She cast herself upon him [her dead husband], and with fearful cries _detested_ the governor’s inhuman and cruel deceit.--GRIMESTON, _History of Lewis XI._, 1614, p. 228.

Satyrs were certain poems, _detesting_ and reproving the misdemeanours of people and their vices.--HOLLAND, _Explanation of certain obscure words_.

E’en to vice They [women] are not constant, but are changing still One vice but of a minute old, for one Not half so old as that. I’ll write against them, _Detest_ them, curse them.

SHAKESPEARE, _Cymbeline_, act ii. sc. 5.

=DIAMOND.= This, or ‘diamant’ as it used to be spelt, is a popular form of ‘adamant.’ The Greek ἀδάμας, originally used of the hardest steel, was, about the time of Theophrastus, and, so far as we know, first in his writings, transferred to the diamond, as itself also of a hardness not to be subdued; the cutting or polishing of this stone being quite a modern invention; and the Latin ‘adamas’ continued through the Middle Ages to bear this double meaning. But if ‘adamant’ meant diamond, then ‘diamond,’ by a reactive process frequent in language, would be employed for adamant as well. So far as I know, Milton is the last writer who so uses it.

Have harte as hard as _diamaunt_, Stedfast, and nauht pliaunt.

_Romaunt of the Rose._

This little care and regard did at length melt and break asunder those strong _diamond_ chains with which Dionysius the elder made his boast that he left his tyranny chained to his son.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, 1656, p. 800.

But wordes and lookes and sighes she did abhore, As rock of _diamond_ stedfast evermore.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, i. 6. 4.

Prince Arthur gave a boxe of _diamond_ sure.

SPENSER, ib. i. 9. 19.

Zeal, whose substance is ethereal, arming in complete _diamond_, ascends his fiery chariot drawn with two blazing meteors, figured like beasts, but of a higher breed than any the zodiack yields, resembling two of those four, which Ezekiel and St. John saw, the one visaged like a lion to express power, high authority, and indignation; the other of countenance like a man to cast derision and scorn upon perverse and fraudulent seducers; with these the invincible warrior Zeal shaking loosely the slack reins drives over the heads of scarlet prelates, and such as are insolent to maintain traditions, bruising their stiff necks under his flaming wheels.--MILTON, _Defence of Smectymnuus_.

On each wing Uriel and Raphaël his vaunting foe, Though huge and in a rock of _diamond_ armed, Vanquished, Adramelech and Asmodai.

Id., _Paradise Lost_, vi. 363.

=DIFFIDENCE=, } DIFFIDENTLY. }

‘Diffidence’ expresses now a not unbecoming distrust of one’s own self, with only a slight intimation, such as ‘verecundia’ obtained in the silver age of Latin literature, that perhaps this distrust is carried too far; but it was once used for distrust of others, and sometimes for distrust pushed so far as to amount to an entire withholding of all faith from them, being nearly allied to despair; as indeed in _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ Mistress Diffidence is Giant Despair’s wife.

Of the impediments which have been in the affections, the principal whereof hath been despair or _diffidence_, and the strong apprehension of the difficulty, obscurity, and infiniteness, which belongeth to the invention of knowledge.--BACON, _Of the Interpretation of Nature_, c. 19.

Every sin smiles in the first address, and carries light in the face, and honey in the lip; but when we have well drunk, then comes that which is worse, a whip with ten strings, fears and terrors of conscience, and shame and displeasure, and a caitiff disposition, and _diffidence_ in the day of death.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Life of Christ_.

That affliction grew heavy upon me, and weighed me down even to a _diffidence_ of God’s mercy.--DONNE, _Sermons_, 1640, vol. i. p. 311.

Mediators were not wanting that endeavoured a renewing of friendship between these two prelates, which the haughtiness, or perhaps the _diffidence_ of Bishop Laud would not accept; a symptom of policy more than of grace, not to trust a reconciled enemy.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, pt. ii. p. 86.

It was far the best course to stand _diffidently_ against each other, with their thoughts in battle array.--HOBBES, _Thucydides_, b. iii. c. 83.

=DIGEST.= Scholars of the seventeenth century often employ a word of their own language in the same latitude which its equivalent possessed in the Greek or the Latin; as though it entered into all the rights of its equivalent, and corresponded with it on all points, because it corresponded in one. Thus ‘coctus’ meaning ‘digested,’ why should not ‘digested’ mean all which ‘coctus’ meant? but one of the meanings of ‘coctus’ is ‘ripened;’ ‘digested’ therefore might be employed in the same sense.

Repentance is like the sun; it produces rich spices in Arabia, it _digests_ the American gold, and melts the snows from the Riphæan mountains.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Doctrine and Practice of Repentance_, ch. 10, § 8.

Splendid fires, aromatic spices, rich wines, and well-_digested_ fruits.--Id., _Discourse of Friendship_.

=DISABLE.= Our ancestors felt that to injure the character of another was the most effectual way of disabling him; and out of a sense of this they often used ‘to disable’ in the sense of to disparage, to speak slightingly of.

Farewell, mounsieur traveller. Look, you lisp, and wear strange suits: _disable_ all the benefits of your own country.--SHAKESPEARE, _As You Like It_, act. iv. sc. 1.

If affection lead a man to favour the less worthy in desert, let him do it without depraving or _disabling_ the better deserver.--BACON, _Essays_, 49.

=DISCOURSE.= It is very characteristic of the slight acquaintance with our elder literature--the most obvious source for elucidating Shakespeare’s text--which was possessed by many of his commentators down to a late day, that the phrase ‘discourse of reason,’ which he puts into Hamlet’s mouth, should have perplexed them so greatly. Gifford, a pitiless animadverter on the real or imaginary mistakes of others, and who tramples upon Warburton for attempting to explain this phrase as though Shakespeare could have ever written it, declares ‘“discourse _of_ reason” is so poor and perplexed a phrase that I should dismiss it at once for what I believe to be his genuine language;’ and then proceeds to suggest the obvious but erroneous correction ‘discourse _and_ reason’ (see his _Massinger_, vol. i. p. 148); while yet, if there be a phrase of continual recurrence among the writers of our Elizabethan age and down to Milton, it is this. I have little doubt that it occurs fifty times in Holland’s translation of Plutarch’s _Moralia_. What our fathers intended by ‘discourse’ and ‘discourse of reason,’ the following passages will abundantly declare.

There is not so great difference and distance between beast and beast, as there is odds in the matter of wisdom, _discourse_ of reason, and use of memory between man and man.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 570; cf. pp. 313, 566, 570, 752, 955, 966, 977, 980.

If you mean, by _discourse_, right reason, grounded on Divine Revelation and common notions, written by God in the hearts of all men, and deducing, according to the never-failing rules of logic, consequent deductions from them; if this be it which you mean by _discourse_, it is very meet and reasonable and necessary that men, as in all their actions, so especially in that of greatest importance, the choice of their way to happiness, should be left unto it.--CHILLINGWORTH, _The Religion of Protestants_, Preface.

As the intuitive knowledge is more perfect than that which insinuates itself into the soul gradually by _discourse_, so more beautiful the prospect of that building which is all visible at one view than what discovers itself to the sight by parcels and degrees.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Canterbury_.

Whence the soul Reason receives, and reason is her being, Discursive or intuitive; _discourse_ Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, v. 486.

You, being by nature given to melancholic _discoursing_, do easilier yield to such imaginations.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 830.

The other gods, and knights-at-arms, all slept, but only Jove Sweet slumber seized not; he _discoursed_ how best he might approve His vow made for Achilles’ grace.

CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, b. ii.

=DISCOVER.= This word has lost the sense of uncover, which once it had, and in which it occurs several times in our Bible.

Whether any man hath pulled down or _discovered_ any church, chancel or chapel, or any part of them.--Archbishop GRINDAL, _Articles of Enquiry_, 1576.

The voice of the Lord _discovereth_ the forests.--_Ps._ xxix. 9. A.V. and P.B.V.

=DISEASE.= Our present limitation of ‘disease’ is a very natural one, seeing that nothing so effectually wars against ease as a sick and suffering condition of body. Still the limitation is modern, and by ‘disease’ was once meant any distress or discomfort whatever, and the verb had a corresponding meaning.

Wo to hem that ben with child, and norishen in tho daies, for a greet _diseese_ [pressura magna, Vulg.] schal be on the erthe and wraththe to this puple.--_Luke_ xxi. 23. WICLIF.

Thy doughter is deed; why _diseasest_ thou the master eny further?--_Mark_ v. 35. TYNDALE.

This is now the fourteenth day they [the Cardinals] have been in the Conclave, with such pain and _disease_ that your grace would marvel that such men as they would suffer it.--_State Papers_ (_Letter to Wolsey from his Agent at Rome_), vol. vi. p. 182.

His double burden did him sore _disease_.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 2, 12.

=DISMAL.= Minsheu’s derivation of ‘dismal,’ that it is ‘dies malus,’ the unlucky, ill-omened day, is exactly one of those plausible etymologies which one learns after a while to reject with contempt. Yet there can be no doubt that our fathers so understood the word, and that this assumed etymology often overrules their usage of it.

Why should we then be bold to call them evil, infortunate, and _dismal_ days? If God rule our doings continually, why shall they not prosper on those days as well as on other?--PILKINGTON, _Exposition on Aggeus_, c. 1.

Then began they to reason and debate about the _dismal_ days [tum de diebus _religiosis_ agitari cœptum]. And the fifteenth day before the Kalends of August, so notorious for a twofold loss and overthrow, they set this unlucky mark upon it, that it should be reputed unmeet and unconvenient for any business, as well public as private.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 217.

The particular calendars, wherein their [the Jews’] good or _dismal_ days are distinguished, according to the diversity of their ways, we find, Leviticus 26.--JACKSON, _The Eternal Truth of Scriptures_, b. i. c. 22.

=DISOBLIGE.= Release from obligation lies at the root of all uses, present and past, of this word; but it was formerly more the release from an oath or a duty, and now rather from the slighter debts of social life, to which kindness and courtesy on the part of another would have held us bound or ‘obliged;’ while the contraries to these are ‘disobliging.’

He did not think that Act of Uniformity could _disoblige_ them [the Non-Conformists] from the exercise of their office.--BATES, _Mr. Richard Baxter’s Funeral Sermon_.

Many that are imprisoned for debt, think themselves _disobliged_ from payment.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Holy Dying_, c. 5, § 3.

He hath a very great obligation to do that and more; and he can noways be _disobliged_, but by the care of his natural relations.--Id., _Measures and Offices of Friendship_.

=DITTY.= By the ‘ditty’ were once understood the words of a song as distinguished from the musical accompaniment.

They fell to challenge and defy one another, whereupon he commanded the musician Eraton to sing unto the harp, who began his song on this wise out of the works of Hesiodus:--

Of quarrel and contention There were as then more sorts than one;

for which I commended him in that he knew how to apply the _ditty_ of his song so well unto the present time.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 786.

So that, although we lay altogether aside the consideration of _ditty_ or matter, the very harmony of sounds being framed in due sort, and carried by the ear to the spiritual faculties of the soul, is by a native puissance and efficacy greatly available to bring to a perfect temper whatsoever is there troubled.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. v. c. 38.

=DOCUMENT.= Now used only of the _material_, and not, as once, of the _moral_ proof, evidence, or means of instruction.

They were forthwith stoned to death, as a _document_ unto others.--Sir W. RALEIGH, _History of the World_, b. v. c. 2, § 3.

This strange dejection of these three great apostles at so mild and gentle a voice [Matt. xvii. 6], gives us a remarkable _document_ or grounded observation of the truth of that saying of St. Paul, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.--JACKSON, _Of the Primeval State of Man_, b. ii. c. 12.

It was a rare _document_ of divine justice to ordain, and of divine wisdom so to contrive, that the dogs should lap King Ahab’s blood in the same place where they had lapped the blood of Naboth.--Id., _Of the Divine Essence and Attributes_, b. vi. ch. iii. 3.

=DOLE.= This and ‘deal’ are one and the same word, and answer to the German ‘Theil,’ a part or portion.[14] It has now always the subaudition of a _scanty_ portion, as ‘to dole’ is to deal scantily and reluctantly forth (‘pittance’ has acquired the same); but Sanderson’s use of ‘dole’ is instructive, as showing that ‘distribution or division’ is all which once lay in the word.

There are certain common graces of illumination, and those indeed are given by _dole_, knowledge to one, to another tongues, to another healings; but it is nothing so with the special graces of sanctification. There is no distribution or division here; either all or none.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671, vol. ii. p. 247.

=DRAUGHT.= Many ‘draughts’ we still acknowledge, but not the ‘draught’ or drawing of a bow.

A large _draught_ up to his eare He drew, and with an arrow ground Sharpe and new, the queene a wound He gave.

CHAUCER, _Dreame_, 788.

Then spake another proud one, Would to heaven I might at will get gold till he hath given That bow his _draught_.

CHAPMAN, _The Odysseis of Homer_, xxi. 533.

=DREADFUL.= Now that which _causes_ dread, but once that which _felt_ it. See ‘Frightful,’ ‘Hateful.’

Forsothe the Lord shall gyve to thee there a _dreedful_ herte and faylinge eyen.--_Deut._ xxviii. 65. WICLIF.

And to a grove faste ther beside With _dredful_ foot than stalketh Palamon.

CHAUCER, _The Knightes Tale_.

All mankind lo! that _dreadful_ is to die, Thou dost constrain long death to learn by thee.

HEYWOOD, _Translation of Seneca’s Hercules Furens_.

Thou art so set, as thou hast no cause to be Jealous, or _dreadful_ of disloyalty.

DANIEL, _Panegyric to the King_.

=DREARY=, } DREARINESS. }

This word has slightly shifted its meaning. In our earlier English it was used exactly as its German cognate ‘traurig’ is now, to designate the heaviness at once of countenance and of heart; very much the σκυθρωπός of the Greeks, though not admitting the subaudition of anger, which in that word is often contained. [Its Old English form was _dréorig_.]

And the king seide to me, Whi is thi chere _dreri_, sithen I see thee not sick?--_2 Esdras_ ii. 2. WICLIF.

All _drery_ was his chere and his loking.

CHAUCER, _The Clerkes Tale_, pt. 3.

Bowe down to the pore thin ere withoute _dreryness_ [sine tristitiâ, Vulg.]--_Ecclus._ iv. 8. WICLIF.

Now es a man light, now es he hevy, Now es he blithe, now es he _drery_.

RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 1454.

=DRENCH.= As ‘to _fell_’ is to make to _fall_, and ‘to _lay_’ to make to _lie_, so ‘to _drench_’ is to make to _drink_, though with a sense now very short of ‘to drown;’ but ‘drench’ and ‘drown,’ though desynonymized in our later English, were once perfectly adequate to one another.

He is _drenched_ in the flod, Abouten his hals an anker god.

_Havelok the Dane_, 669.

Thei that wolen be maad riche, fallen in to temptacioun, and in to snare of the devil, and in to many unprofitable desiris and noyous, whiche _drenchen_ men in to deth and perdicioun.--_1 Tim._ vi. 9. WICLIF.

Well may men knowe it was no wyght but he That kepte peple Ebrayk fro hir _drenching_, With drye feet thurgh-out the see passing.

CHAUCER, _The Man of Lawes Tale_, 488 (Skeat).

=DRIFT.= A drove of sheep or cattle was once a ‘drift;’ so too the act of driving.

Hoc armentum, Anglice, a _dryfte_.--_Wright-Wülcker, Vocab._ 814. 11.

By reason of the foulness and deepness of the way divers of the said sheep died in driving; partly for lack of meat and feeding, but especially by mean of the said unreasonable _drift_ the said sheep are utterly perished.--_Trevelyan Papers_, p. 130.

And Anton Shiel he loves me not, For I gat twa _drifts_ of his sheep; The great Earl of Whitfield he loves me not, For nae gear fra me he could keep.

_Scotch Ballad._

=DUKE.= One of Shakespeare’s commentators charges him with an anachronism, the incongruous transfer of a modern title to an ancient condition of society, when he styles Theseus ‘_Duke_ of Athens.’ It would be of very little consequence if the charge was a true one; but it is not, as his English Bible might have sufficiently taught him; _Gen._ xxxvi. 15-19. ‘Duke’ has indeed since Shakespeare’s time become that which this objector supposed it to have been always; but all were ‘dukes’ once who were ‘duces,’ captains and leaders of their people.

He [St. Peter] techith christen men to be suget to kyngis and _dukis_, and to ech man for God.--WICLIF, _Prologe on the first Pistel of Peter_.

Hannibal, _duke_ of Carthage.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b. i. c. 10.

These were the _dukes_ and princes of avail That came from Greece.

CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, b. ii.

=DUNCE=. I have sought elsewhere (_Study of Words_, 20th edit. p. 143) to trace at some length the curious history of this word. Sufficient here to say that Duns Scotus, whom Hooker styles ‘the wittiest of the school divines,’ has given us this name, which now ascribes hopeless ignorance, invincible stupidity, to him on whom it is affixed. The course by which this came to pass was as follows. When at the Reformation and Revival of Learning the works of the Schoolmen fell into extreme disfavour, alike with the Reformers and with the votaries of the new learning, Duns, a standard-bearer among those, was so often referred to with scorn and contempt by these, that his name gradually became that byeword which ever since it has been. See the quotation from Stanyhurst, _s. v._ ‘Trivial.’

Remember ye not how within this thirty years, and far less, and yet dureth unto this day, the old barking curs, _Dunce’s_ disciples, and like draff called Scotists, the children of darkness, raged in every pulpit against Greek, Latin, and Hebrew?--TYNDALE, _Works_, 1575, p. 278.

We have set _Dunce_ in Bocardo and have utterly banished him Oxford for ever with all his blind glosses.... The second time we came to New College after we had declared your injunctions, we found all the great Quadrant Court full of the leaves of _Dunce_, the wind blowing them in every corner.--_Wood’s Annals_, A.D. 1535, 62.

What _Dunce_ or Sorbonist cannot maintain a paradox?--G. HARVEY, _Pierce’s Supererogation_, p. 159.

As for terms of honesty or civility, they are gibberish unto him, and he a Jewish Rabbin or a Latin _dunce_ with him that useth any such form of monstrous terms.--Id., _ib._ p. 175.

_Maud._ Is this your tutor?

_Tutor._ Yes surely, lady; I am the man that brought him in league with logic, And read the _Dunces_ to him.

MIDDLETON, _A Chaste Maid in Cheapside_, act iii. sc. 1.

=DUTCH=, } DUTCHMAN. }

Till late in the seventeenth century ‘Dutch’ (‘deutsch,’ lit. belonging to the people) meant generally ‘German,’ and a ‘Dutchman’ a native of Germany, while what we now term a Dutchman was then a Hollander. In America this with so many other usages is retained, and Germans are now often called ‘Dutchmen’ there.

Though the root of the English language be _Dutch_, yet she may be said to have been inoculated afterwards upon a French stock.--HOWELL, _Lexicon Tetraglotton_, Preface.

_Germany_ is slandered to have sent none to this war [the Crusades] at this first voyage; and that other pilgrims, passing through that country, were mocked by the _Dutch_, and called fools for their pains.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. i. c. 13.

At the same time began the _Teutonic_ Order, consisting only of _Dutchmen_, well descended.--Id. _ib._ b. ii. c. 16.

=EAGER=, } EAGERNESS. }

The physical and literal sense of ‘eager,’ that is, sharp or acrid (Fr. _aigre_, Lat. _acrem_), has quite departed from the word. It occasionally retained this, long after it was employed in the secondary meaning which is its only one at present.

She was lyk thyng for hungre deed, That ladde hir lyf oonly by breed Kneden with eisel[15] strong and _egre_.

_Romaunt of the Rose_, 215.

Bees have this property by nature to find and suck the mildest and best honey out of the sharpest and most _eager_ flowers.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 43.

Now on the _eager_ razor’s edge for life or death we stand.

CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Iliad_, b. x.

_Asproso_, full of sowrenesse or _eagernesse_.--FLORIO, _New World of Words_ (A.D. 1611).

=EBB.= Nothing ‘ebbs,’ unless it is figuratively, except water now. But ‘ebb,’ oftenest an adjective, was continually used in our earlier English with a general meaning of shallow. There is still a Lancashire proverb, ‘Cross the stream where it is _ebbest_.’

Orpiment, a mineral digged out of the ground in Syria, where it lieth very _ebb_.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. ii. p. 469.

This you may observe ordinarily in stones, that those parts and sides which lie covered deeper within the ground be more frim and tender, as being preserved by heat, than those outward faces which lie _ebb_, or above the earth.--Id., _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 747.

It is all one whether I be drowned in the _ebber_ shore, or in the midst of the deep sea.--Bishop HALL, _Meditations and Vows_, cent. ii.

=ECSTASY.= We still say of madmen that they are _beside themselves_; but ‘ecstasy,’ or a standing out of oneself, is no longer used as an equivalent to madness.

This is the very coinage of your brain; This bodiless creation _ecstasy_ Is very cunning in.

SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, act iii. sc. 4.

=EDIFY.= ‘From the Christian Church being called the temple or house of God, this word acquired a metaphorical and spiritual meaning, and is applied in the N. T. and in modern language to mental or spiritual advancement. Old English writers used it in its original sense of _build_’ (_Bible Word Book_). For some quotations which mark the coming up of the secondary or metaphorical meaning see my _English Past and Present_, 14th edit. p. 186.

I shall overtourne this temple, and adown throwe, And in thre dayes after _edifie_ it newe.

_Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus xvi. 131 (Skeat).

And the Lord God _edifiede_ the rib, the which he toke of Adam, into a woman.--_Gen._ ii. 22. WICLIF.

What pleasure and also utility is to a man which intendeth to _edify_, himself to express the figure of the work that he purposeth, according as he hath conceived it in his own fantasy.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b. i. c. 8.

A little wyde There was an holy chappell _edifyde_.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, i. 1, 34.

=EGREGIOUS.= This has generally now an uncomplimentary subaudition, which it was very far from having of old.

_Egregious_ viceroys of these eastern parts!

MARLOWE, _Tamburlaine the Great_, part i. act i. sc. 1.

It may be denied that bishops were our first reformers, for Wickliffe was before them, and his _egregious_ labours are not to be neglected.--MILTON, _Animadversions upon the Remonstrants’ Defence_.

=ELDER.= The German ‘eltern’ still signifies parents; as ‘elders’ did once with us, though now the word has quite let this meaning go.

And hise disciplis axiden hym, Maistir, what synnede, this man or hise _eldris_, that he schulde be borun blynd?--_John_ ix. 2. WICLIF.

And his _elders_ went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of Easter.--_Luke_ ii. 41. COVERDALE.

Disobedient to their elders [γονεῦσιν ἀπειθεῖς].--_Rom._ i. 30. COVERDALE.

So, or much like, our rebel _elders_ driven For aye from Eden, earthly type of heaven, Lie languishing near Tigris’ grassy side.

SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas, The Handycrafts_.

=ELEMENT.= The air, as that among the four elements which is most present everywhere, was frequently ‘_the_ element’ in our earlier literature.

When Pompey saw the dust in the _element_, and conjectured the flying of his horsemen, what mind he was of then it was hard to say.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 553.

The face therefore of the _element_ you have skill to discern, and the signs of times can you not?--_Matt._ xvi. 3. Rheims.

There is no stir or walking in the streets, And the complexion of the _element_ In favour is like the work we have in hand, Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.

SHAKESPEARE, _Julius Cæsar_, act i. sc. 3.

I took it for a faery vision Of some gay creatures of the _element_, That in the colours of the rainbow live, And play in the plighted clouds.

MILTON, _Comus_, 298.

=ELEPHANT.= I have little doubt that ‘elephant’ as an equivalent for ivory is a Grecism not peculiar to Chapman, in whose translations from Homer it several times occurs; but I cannot adduce an example from any other. The use of ‘olifant’ in this sense is quite common in the older French (see Didot’s _Glossary_ in Ducange, ed. 1887).

I did last afford The varied ornament, which showed no want Of silver, gold, and polished _elephant_.

CHAPMAN, _The Odysseis of Homer_, b. xxiii. l. 306.

=ELEVATE.= There are two intentions with which anything may be lifted from the place which it occupies; either with that of setting it in a more conspicuous position; or else of removing it out of the way, or, figuratively, of withdrawing all importance and significance from it. We employ ‘to elevate’ now in the former intention; our ancestors for the most part, especially those whose style was influenced by their Latin studies, in the latter.

Withal, he forgat not to _elevate_ as much as he could the fame of the foresaid unhappy field fought, saying, That if all had been true, there would have been messengers coming thick one after another upon their flight to bring fresh tidings still thereof.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1199.

Audience he had with great assent and applause; not more for _elevating_ the fault and trespass of the common people, than for laying the weight upon those that were the authors culpable.--Id., _ib._ p. 1207.

Tully in his oration Pro Flacco, to _elevate_ or lessen that conceit which many Romans had of the nation of the Jews, objects little less unto them than our Saviour in this place doth, to wit that they were in bondage to the Romans.--JACKSON, _Of the Primeval Estate of Man_, b. x. c. 14.

=EMBEZZLE.= A man can now only ‘embezzle’ another man’s property; he might once ‘embezzle’ his own. Thus, while we might now say that the Unjust Steward ‘embezzled’ his lord’s goods (_Luke_ xvi. 1), we could not say that the Prodigal Son ‘embezzled’ the portion which he had received from his father, and which had thus become his own (_Luke_