xv. 13); but the one would have been as free to our early writers as

the other. There is a form, ‘to imbecile,’ used by Jeremy Taylor and others, which has the same meaning as this word.

Mr. Hackluit died, leaving a fair estate to an unthrift son, who _embezzled_ it.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Herefordshire_.

The collection of these various readings [is] a testimony even of the faithfulness of these later ages of the Church, and of the high reverence they had of these records, in that they would not so much as _embesell_ the various readings of them, but keep them still on foot for the prudent to judge of.--H. MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b. vii. c. 11.

If we are ambitious of having a property in somewhat, or affect to call anything our own, ’tis only by nobly giving that we can accomplish our desire; that will certainly appropriate our goods to our use and benefit; but from basely keeping or vainly _embezzling_ them, they become not our possession and enjoyment, but our theft and our bane.--BARROW, _The Duty and Reward of Bounty to the Poor_.

Be not _prodigal_ of your time on earth, which is so little in your power. ’Tis so precious a thing that it is to be redeemed; ’tis therefore too precious to be _embezzled_ and trifled away.--HOWE, _The Redeemer’s Dominion over the Invisible World_.

=EMULATION.= South in one of his sermons has said excellently well, ‘We ought by all means to note the difference between envy and emulation; which latter is a brave and noble thing, and quite of another nature, as consisting only in a generous imitation of something excellent; and that such an imitation as scorns to fall short of its copy, but strives if possible to outdo it. The emulator is impatient of a superior, not by depressing or maligning another but by perfecting himself. So that while that sottish thing envy sometimes fills the whole soul, as a great fog does the air: this on the contrary inspires it with a new life and vigour, whets and stirs up all the powers of it to action.’ But ‘emulation,’ though sometimes used by our early writers in this nobler sense, to express an honourable and generous rivalry, was by no means always so; it was often an exact equivalent to envy.

Zeal to promote the common good is welcomed with suspicion instead of love, and with _emulation_ instead of thanks.--_The Translators’ Preface to the Authorized Version._

So every step, Exampled by the first step that is sick Of his superior, grows to an envious fever Of pale and bloodless _emulation_.

SHAKESPEARE, _Troilus and Cressida_, act i. sc. 3.

And the patriarchs through _emulation_ [moved with _envy_, A.V.] sold Joseph into Egypt.--_Acts_ vii. 9. Rheims.

=ENDEAVOUR.= This, connected with ‘devoir,’ is used as a reflexive verb in our version of the New Testament and in the Prayer Book. Signifying now no more than to try, it signified once to bend all our energies, not to the attempt at fulfilling, but to the actual fulfilment of a duty. The force of such passages as Ephes. iv. 3, ‘_endeavouring_ to keep the unity of the Spirit,’ is greatly weakened by giving to ‘endeavour’ its modern sense. Attaching to it this, we may too easily persuade ourselves that the Apostle does no more than bid us to attempt to preserve this unity, and that he quite recognizes the possibility of our being defeated in this attempt.

This is called in Scripture ‘a just man,’ that _endeavoureth_ himself to leave all wickedness.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, p. 340.

One thing I do, I forget that which is behind, and _endevour_ myself into that which is before.--_Phil._ iii. 13. Geneva.

=ENGRAVE.= This word has now quite lost the sense of ‘to bury,’ which it once possessed. See ‘Grave.’

So both agree their bodies to _engrave_; The great earthes womb they open to the sky; ... They lay therein those corses tenderly.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 1, 60.

And now with happy wish he closely craved For ever to be dead, to be so sweet _ingraved_.

_Britain’s Ida_, iv. 2.

Thou death of death, oh! in thy death _engrave_ me.

PHINEAS FLETCHER, _Poetical Miscellanies_.

=ENJOY.= Not, when Wiclif wrote, nor till some time later, distinguished from ‘rejoice,’ which see.

And the pees of Crist _enioye_ [pax Christi _exsultet_, Vulgate] in youre hertis.--_Col._ iii. 15. WICLIF.

=ENORMOUS=, } ENORMITY. }

Now only applied to that which is irregular _in excess_, in this way transcending the established norm or rule. But departure from rule or irregularity in _any_ direction might be characterised as ‘enormous’ once.

O great corrector of _enormous_ times, Shaker of o’er-rank states, thou grand decider Of dusty and old titles, that heal’st with blood The earth when it is sick.

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, act v. sc. 1.

Wild above rule or art, _enormous_ bliss.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, v. 297.

Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the _irregularities_ of vain-glory, and wild _enormities_ of ancient magnanimity.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Hydriotaphia_.

=ENSURE.= None of our Dictionaries, as far as I can observe, have taken notice of an old use of this word, namely, to betroth, and thus to make _sure_ the future husband and wife to each other. See ‘Assure,’ ‘Sure.’

After his mother Mary was _ensured_ to Joseph, before they were coupled together, it was perceived she was with child.--_Matt._ i. 18. Sir JOHN CHEKE.

Albeit that she was by the king’s mother and many other put in good comfort to affirm that she was _ensured_ unto the king; yet when she was solemnly sworn to say the truth, she confessed that they were never _ensured_.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King Richard III._

=EPICURE.= Now applied only to those who devote themselves, yet with a certain elegance and refinement, to the pleasures of the table; ‘gourmets’ rather than ‘gourmands.’ We may trace two earlier stages in its meaning. By Lord Bacon and others the followers of Epicurus, whom we should call Epicureans, are often called ‘Epicures,’ after the name of the founder of their sect. From them it was transferred to all who were, like them, deniers of a divine Providence; and this is the common use of it by our elder divines. But inasmuch as those who have persuaded themselves that there is nothing above them, will seek their good, since men must seek it somewhere, in the things beneath them, in sensual delights, the name has been transferred, by that true moral instinct which is continually at work in speech, from the philosophical speculative atheist to the human swine for whom the world is but a feeding-trough.

So the _Epicures_ say of the Stoics’ felicity placed in virtue, that it is like the felicity of a player, who if he were left of his auditors and their applause, he would straight be out of heart and countenance.--BACON, _Colours of Good and Evil_, 3.

Aristotle is altogether an _Epicure_; he holdeth that God careth nothing for human creatures; he allegeth God ruleth the world like as a sleepy maid rocketh a child.--LUTHER, _Table-Talk_, c. 73.

The _Epicure_ grants there is a God, but denies his providence.--SYDENHAM, _The Athenian Babbler_, 1627, p. 7.

=EQUAL.= The ethical sense of ‘equal,’ as fair, candid, just, has almost, if not altogether, departed from it. Compare ‘Unequal.’

O my most _equal_ hearers, if these deeds May pass with suffrance, what one citizen But owes the forfeit of his life, yea, fame, To him that dares traduce him?

BEN JONSON, _The Fox_, act iv. sc. 2.

Hear now, O house of Israel; is not my way _equal_? are not your ways unequal?--_Ezek._ xviii. 25. (A. V.)

=EQUIVOCAL=, } EQUIVOCALLY, } EQUIVOCATION.}

The calling two or more different _things_ by one and the same _name_ (æque vocare) is the source of almost all error in human discourse. He who wishes to throw dust in the eyes of an opponent, to hinder his arriving at the real facts of a case, will often have recourse to this artifice, and thus ‘to equivocate’ and ‘equivocation’ have attained their present secondary meaning, very different from their original, which was simply the calling of two or more different things by one and the same word.

This visible world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in _equivocal_ shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substance in that invisible fabric.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Religio Medici_.

Which [courage and constancy] he that wanteth is no other than _equivocally_ a gentleman, as an image or a carcass is a man.--BARROW, _Sermon on Industry in our several Callings_.

He [the good herald] knows when indeed the names are the same, though altered through variety of writing in various ages; and where the _equivocation_ is untruly affected.--FULLER, _The Holy State_, b. ii. c. 22.

All words, being arbitrary signs, are ambiguous; and few disputers have the jealousy and skill which is necessary to discuss _equivocations_; and so take verbal differences for material.--BAXTER, _Catholic Theology_, Preface.

=ERR=, } ERROR. }

‘To err’ is still to wander; but it is now used always in a figurative and ethical sense, to deviate morally from the right way. In my first quotation from Chapman, it is Telemachus who speaks, and of course Ulysses of whom he speaks.

To thy knees therefore I am come, to attend Relation of the sad and wretched end My _erring_ father felt.

CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Odysseis_, b. iv. 435.

Even he is _error_-driven, If yet he lives, and sees the light of heaven.

Id., _ib._ xx. 323.

The extravagant and _erring_ spirit hies To his confine.

SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 1.

The characters of signs and _erring_ stars.

MARLOWE, _Faustus_, sc. 3.

=ESSAY.= There is no particular modesty now in calling a treatise or dissertation an ‘essay;’ but from many passages it is plain that there was so once; which indeed is only agreeable to the proper meaning of the word, an ‘essay’ being a trial, proof, specimen, taste of a thing, rather than the very and completed thing itself.

To write just treatises requireth leisure in the writer, and leisure in the reader; and therefore are not so fit neither in regard of your highness’ princely affairs, nor in regard of my continual service; which is the cause which hath made me choose to write certain brief notes, set down rather significantly than curiously, which I have called _Essays_. The word is late, but the thing is ancient.--BACON, _Intended Dedication of his Essays to Prince Henry_.

Yet modestly he does his work survey, And calls a finished poem an _essay_.

DRYDEN, _Epistle 5, To the Earl of Roscommon_.

=EXEMPLARY.= A certain vagueness in our use of ‘exemplary’ makes it for us little more than a loose synonym for excellent. We plainly often forget that ‘exemplary’ is strictly that which serves, or might serve, for an exemplar to others, while only through keeping this distinctly before us will passages like the following yield their exact meaning to us.

We are not of opinion, therefore, as some are, that nature in working hath before her certain _exemplary_ draughts or patterns.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. i. c. 3.

When the English, at the Spanish fleet’s approach in eighty-eight [1588], drew their ships out of Plymouth haven, the Lord Admiral Howard himself towed a cable, the least joint of whose _exemplary_ hand drew more than twenty men besides.--FULLER, _The Holy State_, b. iv. c. 17.

=EXEMPLIFY.= The use of ‘exemplify’ in the sense of the Greek παραδειγματίζειν (_Matt._ i. 19) has now passed away. Observe also in the passage quoted the curious use of ‘traduce.’

He is a just and jealous God, not sparing to _exemplify_ and _traduce_ his best servants [_i.e._ when they sin], that their blur and penalty might scare all from venturing.--ROGERS, _Matrimonial Honour_, p. 337.

=EXPLODE.= All our present uses of ‘explode,’ whether literal or figurative, have reference to bursting, and to bursting with noise; and it is for the most part forgotten that these are all secondary and derived; that ‘to explode,’ originally an active verb, means to drive off the stage with loud clappings of the hands: and that when one of our early writers speaks of an ‘exploded’ heresy, or an ‘exploded’ opinion, his image is not drawn from something which, having burst, has so perished; but he would imply that it has been contemptuously driven off from the world’s stage--the fact that ‘explosion’ in this earlier sense was with a great noise being the connecting link between that sense and our present.

A third sort _explode_ this opinion as trespassing on Divine Providence.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. iii. c. 18.

A man may with more facility avoid him that circumvents by money than him that deceives with glosing terms, which made Socrates so much abhor and _explode_ them.--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy; Democritus to the Reader_.

Thus was the applause they meant Turned to _exploding_ hiss, triumph to shame, Cast on themselves from their own mouths.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, x. 545; cf. xi. 699.

Shall that man pass for a proficient in Christ’s school, who would have been _exploded_ in the school of Zeno or Epictetus?--SOUTH, _Sermons_, vol. i. p. 431.

=EXTERMINATE=, } EXTERMINATION. }

This now signifies to destroy, to abolish; but our fathers, more true to the etymology, understood by it to drive men out of and beyond their own borders.

Most things do either associate and draw near to themselves the like, and do also drive away, chase, and _exterminate_ their contraries.--BACON, _Colours of Good and Evil_, 7.

We believe it to be the general interest of us all, as much as in us lies, with our common aid and succour to relieve our _exterminated_ and indigent brethren.--MILTON, _Letter written in Cromwell’s name on occasion of the persecutions of the Vaudois_.

The state of the Jews was in that depression, in that conculcation, in that consternation, in that _extermination_ in the captivity of Babylon.--DONNE, _Sermons_, 19.

=FACETIOUS=, } FACETIOUSNESS. }

It is certainly not a little remarkable that alike in Greek, Latin, and English, words expressive of witty festive conversation should have degenerated, though not all exactly in the same direction, and gradually acquired a worse signification than that with which they began; I mean εὐτραπελία, ‘urbanitas,’ and our own ‘facetiousness;’ this degeneracy of the words warning us how easily the thing itself degenerates: how sure it is to do so, to corrupt and spoil, if it be not seasoned with the only salt which will hinder this. ‘Facetiousness’ has already acquired the sense of buffoonery, of the making of ignoble mirth for others; there are plain indications that it will ere long acquire the sense of _indecent_ buffoonery: while there was a time, as the examples given below will prove, when it could be ascribed in praise to high-bred ladies of the court and to grave prelates and divines.

He [Archbishop Williams] demonstrated that his mind was the lighter, because his friends were about him, and his _facetious_ wit was true to him at those seasons, because his heart was true to his company.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p. 32.

A grave man, yet without moroseness, as who would willingly contribute his shot of _facetiousness_ on any just occasion.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Oxfordshire_.

The king easily took notice of her [Anne Boleyn]; whether more captivated by the allurements of her beauty, or the _facetiousness_ of her behaviour, it is hard to say.--HEYLIN, _History of Queen Mary_, Introduction.

=FACT.= This and ‘act’ or ‘deed’ have been usefully desynonymized. An ‘act’ or ‘deed’ implies now always a person as the actor or doer; but it is sufficient for a ‘fact’ that it exists, that it has been done, the author or doer of it falling altogether out of sight.

All the world is witnesse agaynst you, yea, and also your owne _factes_ and deedes.--BARNES, _Works_, 1572, p. 251.

But, when the furious fit was overpast, His cruel _facts_ he often would repent.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, 1, iv. 34.

Icetes took but a few of them to serve his turn, as if he had been ashamed of his _fact_, and had used their friendship by stealth.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, 1656, p. 228.

=FAIRY.= In whatever latitude we may employ ‘fairy’ now, this Romance word is generally restricted to the middle beings of Teutonic and Romanic popular mythology; being in no case applied, as it used to be, to the δαίμονες of classical antiquity.

Of the _fairy_ Manto [daughter of Tiresias] I cannot affirm any thing of truth, whether she were a _fairy_ or a prophetess.--Sir J. HARINGTON, _Orlando Furioso_, b. lxiii.

So long as these wise _fairies_ Μοῖρα and Λάχεσις, that is to say Portion and Partition, had the ordering of suppers, dinners, and great feasts, a man should never see any illiberal or mechanical disorder.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 679.

=FAME.= This is now generally applied to the reputation derived from the report of great actions, but was constantly used in our Authorized Version (_Gen._ xlv. 16; _1 Kin._ x. 7; _Jer._ vi. 24; _Matt._ ix. 26), and in contemporary writings, as equivalent to report alone. Compare the distinction in Quintilian (v. 3) between ‘fama’ and ‘rumor.’

The occasion which Pharaoh took to murder all the Hebrew males was from a constant _fame_ or prenotion that about this time there should a Hebrew male be born that should work wonders for the good of his people.--JACKSON, _Christ’s Everlasting Priesthood_, b. x. c. xl.

And his _fame_ [ἡ ἀκοὴ αὐτοῦ] went throughout all Syria.--_Matt._ iv. 24. (A. V.)

=FAMILY.= It is not a good sign that the ‘family’ has now ceased to include the servants; but for a long while the word retained the largeness of its classical use, indeed it has only very recently lost it altogether.

The same care is to extend to all of our _family_, in their proportions, as to our children: for as by S. Paul’s reasoning the heir differs nothing from a servant while he is in minority, so a servant should differ nothing from a child in the substantial part of the care.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Holy Living_, 3, 2.

He [Sir Matthew Hale] kept no greater a _family_ than myself.--BAXTER, _Life_, part 3, § 107.

A just master may have an unconscionable servant; and if he have a numerous _family_ and keep many, it is a rare thing if he have not some bad.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671, vol. i. p. 115.

To join to wife good _family_, And none to keep for bravery ... These be the steps unfeignedly To climb to thrift by husbandry.

TUSSER, _Hundred Points of Good Husbandry_, 9.

=FANCY.= The distinction between ‘fancy’ and ‘imagination,’ for which Wordsworth so earnestly contended, has obtained full recognition. It was the more easy for it to find acceptance from the fact that it fell in with a certain _clinamen_, a disposition already obscurely working in the minds of men, to ascribe different domains of meaning to these several words. But while what has been thus done has been well done, it would be a mistake to regard this as an old distinction that was now recovered from the oblivion into which it had fallen. The Greeks ascribed no such subordination of φαντασία (‘phantasy,’ ‘phansy,’ ‘fancy’) to some other word, as we now ascribe to ‘fancy’ in its relation to ‘imagination.’ Φαντασία was for Plato and Aristotle (see too Longinus, c. 15), all that ‘imagination’ is for us, the power which summons up before the mind’s eye of the poet, and of as many as he can carry along with him, the forms of things not present, shaping and moulding, dissolving and reuniting and fusing these at his will; while ‘fancy,’ as we now understand the word, with the humbler offices assigned to it, as the aggregative and associated power, more playful but less earnest, dealing often in prettinesses rather than in beauties, had not obtained any special word to express it. At the Revival of Learning both words found themselves in our English vocabulary; but far down into the seventeenth century there was no sense of any distinction between them; they were simply duplicates, one from the Greek and one from the Latin. They are constantly employed by Henry More as absolutely convertible; and where Milton makes any difference between them, it is to the advantage of ‘fancy,’ which includes ‘imagination’ as a greater includes a less. At a later day it was felt to be a waste of wealth to have two words absolutely identical in meaning for one and the same mental operation; above all, while another went without any to designate it at all; and thus the instinct which is ever at work in a language for the making the most of its resources began to work for the desynonymizing of ‘imagination’ and ‘fancy.’ This could only be effected by the coming down of one or the other from its height of place. The lot naturally fell on ‘fancy,’ the grand φαντάζεσθαι, on which it rested, being far more obscured to such as were not scholars, than the Latin ‘imago,’ on which ‘imagination’ reposed.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping _phantasies_, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends.

SHAKESPEARE, _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act v. sc. 1.

In the soul Are many lesser faculties that serve Reason as chief; among them _Fancy_ next Her office holds; of all external things Which the five watchful senses represent She forms _imaginations_, airy shapes.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, v. 300.

The devil can act upon the soul by suggesting the ideas and spiritual pictures of things to the _imagination_. For this is the grand repository of all the ideas and representations which the mind of man can work either upon or by. So that Satan, our skilful artist, can as easily slide his injections into the _fancy_ as present a deluding image to the eye.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1737, vol. i. p. 110.

=FASTIDIOUS.= Persons are ‘fastidious’ now, as feeling disgust; things, and indeed persons too, were ‘fastidious’ once, as occasioning disgust. The word has shifted from an objective to a subjective use. ‘Fastidiosus’ had both uses, but our modern quite predominated; indeed the other is very rare.

That thing for the which children be oftentimes beaten, is to them ever after _fastidious_.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b. i. c. 9.

=FEATURE.= This, the Old French ‘faiture,’ Latin ‘factura,’ is always the part now of a larger whole, a ‘feature’ of the landscape, the ‘features’ of the face; but there was no such limitation once; anything _made_, any ‘fattura,’ was a ‘feature’ once. ‘Facies’ in Latin, according to Aulus Gellius (xiii. 29), underwent a not very dissimilar change of meaning. In addition to the examples which follow, see Spenser, _Fairy Queen_, iv. 2, 44; iii. 9, 21.

A body so harmoniously composed, As if nature disclosed All her best symmetry in that one _feature_.

BEN JONSON, _The Forest_, xi.

We have not yet found them all [the scattered limbs of Truth], nor ever shall do, till her Master’s second coming; He shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal _feature_ of loveliness and perfection.--MILTON, _Areopagitica_.

So scented the grim _feature_, and upturned His nostril wide into the murky air.

Id. _Paradise Lost_, x. 278.

But this young _feature_ [a commentary on Scripture which Archbishop Williams had planned], like an imperfect embryo, was mortified in the womb by Star-chamber vexations.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p. 40.

=FEMININE.= The distinction between ‘feminine’ and ‘effeminate,’ that the first is ‘womanly,’ the second ‘womanish,’ the first what becomes a woman, and under certain limitations may without reproach be affirmed of a man, while the second under all circumstances dishonours a man, as ‘mannish’ would dishonour a woman, is of comparatively modern growth. Neither could ‘feminine’ now be used as an antithesis of ‘male,’ as by Milton (_Paradise Lost_, i. 423) it is.

Till at the last God of veray right Displeased was with his condiciouns, By cause he [Sardanapalus] was in every mannes sight So _femynyne_ in his affectiouns.

LYDGATE, _Poem against Idleness_.

But Ninias being esteemed no man of war at all, but altogether _feminine_, and subject to ease and delicacy, there is no probability in that opinion.--Sir W. RALEIGH, _History of the World_, b. ii. c 1, § 1.

Commodus, the wanton and _feminine_ son of wise Antoninus, gave a check to the great name of his father.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Apples of Sodom_.

=FIRMAMENT.= We now use ‘firmament’ only for that portion of the sky on all sides visible above the horizon, having gotten this application of the word from the Vulgate (_Gen._ i. 6), or at any rate from the Church Latin (‘_firmamentum_ cæleste,’ Tertullian, _De Bapt._ 3), as that had derived it from the Septuagint. This by στερέωμα had sought to express the firmness and stability of the sky-tent, which phenomenally (and Scripture for the most part speaks phenomenally) is drawn over the earth; and to reproduce the force of the original Hebrew word,--in which, however, there is rather the notion of expansion than of firmness (see H. More, _Defence of Cabbala_, p. 60). But besides this use of ‘firmament,’ totally strange to the classical ‘firmamentum,’ being derived to us from the ecclesiastical employment of the word, there is also an occasional use of it by the scholarly writers of the seventeenth century in the original classical sense, as that which makes strong or confirms.

I thought it good to make a strong head or bank to rule and guide the course of the waters; by setting down this position or _firmament_, namely, that all knowledge is to be limited by religion, and to be referred to use and action.--BACON, _Of the Interpretation of Nature_.

Religion is the ligature of all communities, and the _firmament_ of laws.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Ductor Dubitantium_, iii. 3, 8.

=FLICKER.= This, with its variant ‘flacker,’ can only be used now of the wavering motion of flames; but it was not so once.

But being made a swan, With snowy feathers in the air to _flicker_ he began.

GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. vii.

And the Cherubins _flackered_ with their wings, and lift themselves up from the earth.--_Ezek._ x. 19. COVERDALE.

=FLIRT.= This, or ‘flurt,’ as it used to be spelt, is a slightly contracted form of the French ‘fleureter,’ from ‘fleur,’ a flower, to flirt meaning to go as a bee from flower to flower, daintily sipping the sweets of one flower, and then passing on to another (see Cotgrave). At the same time much graver charges came to be often implied in the word than are implied at the present. See on it A. S. Palmer’s _Leaves from a Word-hunter’s Note Book_, pp. 33-40.

For why may not the mother be naught, a peevish, drunken _flurt_, a waspish choleric slut, a crazed piece, a fool, as soon as the nurse?--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part i. sect. 2.

Gadrouillette, _f._ A minx, gigle, _flirt_, callet, Gixie; (a feigned word, appliable to any such cattell).--COTGRAVE, _A French and English Dictionary_, ed. 1673.

=FLOUNCE.= This word, meaning ‘to plunge about,’ must not be confused with ‘flounce’ (a part of a dress); see Skeat’s Dictionary.

After an exhortation to his army, he [the Emperor Conrad] commanded them all at once to _flounce_ into the river.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. ii. c. 28.

Launch now into the whirlpool, or rather _flounce_ into the mud and quagmire.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, vol. ii. p. 200.

=FONDLING.= ‘Fond’ retains to this day, at least in poetry, not seldom the sense of foolish; but a ‘fondling’ is no longer a fool.

An epicure hath some reason to allege, an extortioner is a man of wisdom, and acteth prudently in comparison to him; but this _fondling_ [the profane swearer] offendeth heaven and abandoneth happiness he knoweth not why or for what.--BARROW, _Sermon_ 15.

We have many such _fondlings_, that are their wives’ pack-horses and slaves.--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part iii. sect. 3.

=FORGETFUL.= Exactly the converse of what has happened to ‘dreadful’ and ‘frightful’ (which see) has befallen ‘forgetful.’

It may be the _forgetful_ wine begot Some sudden blow, and thereupon this challenge.

WEBSTER, _A Cure for a Cuckold_, act iii. sc. 1.

If the sleepy drench Of that _forgetful_ lake benumb not still.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, ii. 73.

=FORLORN=, } FORLORN HOPE. }

There are two points of difference between the past use of ‘forlorn hope’ and the present. The first, that it was seldom used,--I can recall no single example,--in that which is now its only application, namely, of those who, being the first to mount the breach, thus set their lives upon a desperate hazard; but always of the skirmishers and others thrown out in front of an army about to engage. Here, indeed, the central notion of the word may be affirmed to agree with that it has now. These first come to hand-strokes with the enemy; they bear the brunt of their onset; with less likelihood therefore that they will escape than those who come after. This is quite true, and it comes remarkably out in my first quotation from Holland; just as in a retreat they are the ‘forlorn hope’ (_Swedish Intelligencer_, vol. i. p. 163), who bring up the rear. But in passages innumerable this of the greater hazard to which the ‘forlorn hope’ are exposed, has quite disappeared, and the ‘forlorn’ (for ‘hope’ is often omitted) are simply that part of the army which, being posted in the front, is first engaged. The phrase is an importation from Holland, and ‘hope’ is the Dutch ‘hoop,’ a heap, band, troop. I find it first in Gascoigne’s _Fruits of War_, st. 74.

The fearful are in the _forlorn_ [see _Rev._ xxi. 8] of those that march for hell.--GURNALL, _The Christian in Complete Armour_, c. 1.

They [the Enniskillen horse] offered with spirit to make always the _forlorn_ of the army.--DRYDEN (Scott’s edition), vol. vii. p. 303.

These [the Roman Velites] were loose troops, answerable in a manner to those which we call now by a French name _Enfans Perdues_, but when we use our own terms, _The Forlorn Hope_.--Sir W. RALEIGH, _History of the World_, v. 3, 8.

Before the main battle of the Carthaginians he sets the auxiliaries and aid-soldiers, a confused rabble and medley of all sorts of nations, who, as the _forlorn hope_, bearing the furious heat of the first brunt, might, if they did no other good, yet, with receiving many a wound in their bodies dull and turn the edge of the enemy’s sword.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 765.

Upon them the light-armed _forlorn hope_ [qui primi agminis erant] of archers and darters of the Roman host, which went before the battle to skirmish, charged forcibly with their shot.--Id., _ib._ p. 641; cf. pp. 1149, 1150, 1195.

Christ’s descent into hell was not ad prædicandum, to preach; useless, where his auditory was all the _forlorn hope_.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Hampshire_.

=FORMAL=, } FORMALLY, } FORMALITY. }

It has been observed already, _s. v._ ‘Common Sense,’ that a vast number of our words have descended to us from abstruse sciences and speculations, we accepting them often in a total unconsciousness of the quarter from which they came. Another proof of this assertion is here; only, as it was metaphysics there, it is logic here which has given us the word. It is curious to trace the steps by which ‘formality,’ which meant in the language of the Schools the essentiality, the innermost heart of a thing, that which gave it its form and shape, the ‘forma formans,’ should now mean something not merely so different, but so opposite.

Be patient; for I will not let him stir, Till I have used the approved means I have, With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers To make of him a _formal_ man again.

SHAKESPEARE, _Comedy of Errors_, act v. sc. 1.

Next day we behold our bride a _formal_ wife.--FULLER, _Of the Clothes and Ornaments of the Jews_, § 6.

There are many graces required of us, whose material and _formal_ part is repentance.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Doctrine and Practice of Repentance_, i. 3, 47.

It is not only as impious and irreligious a thing, but as senseless and as absurd a thing to deny that the Son of God hath redeemed the world, as to deny that God hath created the world; and he is as _formally_ and as gloriously a martyr that dies for this article, The Son of God is come, as he that dies for this, There is a God.--DONNE, _Sermons_, 1640, p. 69.

According to the rule of the casuists, the _formality_ of prodigality is inordinateness of our laying out, or misbestowing on what we should not.--WHITLOCK, _Zootomia_, p. 497.

When the school makes pertinacy or obstinacy to be the _formality_ of heresy, they say not true at all, unless it be meant the obstinacy of the will and choice; and if they do, they speak impertinently and inartificially, this being but one of the causes that make error become heresy; the adequate and perfect _formality_ of heresy is whatsoever makes the error voluntary and vicious.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Liberty of Prophesying_, § 2, 10.

Strong and importunate persuasions have not the nature and _formality_ of force: but they have oftentimes the effect of it; and he that solicits earnestly, sometimes determines as certainly as if he did force.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol. viii. p. 288.

=FRANCE=, } FRENCHMAN. }

We consider now, and consider rightly, that there was properly no ‘France’ before there were Franks; and, speaking of the land and people before the Frankish conquest, we use Gaul, Gauls, and Gaulish; just as we should not now speak of Cæsar’s ‘journey into _England_.’ Our fathers had not these scruples (North, _Plutarch’s Lives_). See the quotation from Milton, _s. v._ ‘Civil.’

When Cæsar saw his army prone to war, And fates so bent, lest sloth and long delay Might cross him, he withdrew his troops from _France_, And in all quarters musters men for Rome.

MARLOWE, _First Book of Lucan_.

A _Frenchman_ together with a _Frenchwoman_, likewise a Grecian man and woman, were let down alive into the beast-market into a vault under the ground, stoned all about.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 467.

=FRET.= This, the A.S. ‘fretan,’ the German ‘fressen,’ to eat, is with us restricted now, though once it was otherwise, to the eating of the heart through care, according to an image which we all can only too well understand; and which has given the Pythagorean ‘Cor ne edito,’ the French ‘dévoré de chagrins.’

Adam afterward ayeines his defence _Frette_ of that fruit.

_Piers Plowman_, B-text, xviii. 193 (Skeat).

He [Hercules] slough the cruel tirant Buserus, And made his hors to _frete_ him fleisch and boon.

CHAUCER, _The Monkes Tale_ (Morris, iii. p. 205).

I saugh how that his houndes han him [Actæon] caught, And _freten_ him, for that they knewe him naught.

Id., _Knightes Tale_ (Morris, ii. p. 64).

Thou makest his beauty to consume away, like as it were a moth _fretting_ a garment.--_Ps._ xxxix. 12. P. B. V.

=FRIGHTFUL.= Now always active, that which inspires fright; but formerly as often passive, that which is, or is liable to be, frightened. See ‘Dreadful,’ ‘Hateful.’

The wild and _frightful_ herds, Not hearing other noise, but this of chattering birds, Feed fairly on the lawns.

DRAYTON, _Polyolbion_, Song 13.

=FRIPPERY.= Now such trumpery, such odds and ends of cheap finery, as one might expect to meet at an old-clothes shop; but in our early dramatists and others of their time, the shop itself where old clothes were by the ‘fripper’ or broker scoured, ‘interpolated,’ and presented anew for sale (officina vestium tritarum, Skinner); nor had ‘frippery’ then the contemptuous subaudition of worthlessness in the objects offered for sale which its present use would imply. See Littré, _Dictionnaire_, s. v. _Friperie_.

_Trinculo._ O worthy Stephano, look what a wardrobe here is for thee.

_Caliban._ Let it alone, thou fool, it is but trash.

_Trinculo._ O, ho, monster! we know what belongs to a _frippery_.

SHAKESPEARE, _The Tempest_, act iv. sc. 1.

_Enter Luke, with shoes, garters, fans, and roses._

_Gold._ Here he comes, sweating all over, He shows like a walking _frippery_.

MASSINGER, _The City Madam_, act i. sc. 1.

Hast thou foresworn all thy friends in the Old Jewry? or dost thou think us all Jews that inherit there? Yet, if thou dost, come over, and but see our _frippery_. Change an old shirt for a whole smock with us.--BEN JONSON, _Every Man in his Humour_,