A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs: From the Fourteenth Century |
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Common terms and phrases
Antiq applied Arch Arthour and Merlin Ashmole Ben Jonson Bodl Brit called Cant Cantab Chaucer Chesh Chester Plays Chron Coll corn Cotgrave Cott Craven Cumb Cursor Cursor Mundi d'Arthur Devon dial dialect East Exmoor Florio Forme of Cury formerly Gloss Glossary Glouc Gower gret grete Gy of Warwike Hall Harl hath Hearne Hence herb herte Hist Holinshed horse Howell Huloet Jonson Kennett Kent kind Kyng Alisaunder Lanc Langtoft Lansd Linc Lincoln Lydgate Lydgate's Minor Poems mentioned Minsheu Morte Arthure Myst Nares Nominale Norf North occurs Palsgrave Parv person Peter Langtoft phrase Piers Ploughman Prompt Reliq Ritson Salop says schalle sche sense Sevyn Sages Shak Shakespeare Skelton Skinner Somerset Songs spelt Spenser Suffolk term thay ther thou Towneley Myst Trin verb Vespas Warw Weber Werwolf West Wilts wolde word Wright's wyth Yorksh Ywaine
Popular passages
Page 13 - When lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy, What art can wash her guilt away ? The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosom — is to die.
Page 192 - ... wee have in many alehouses of the citie and suburbs, tipt with silver, besides the great black jacks, and bombards at the court, which when the French-men first saw, they reported at their returne into their countrey, that the English-men used to drinke out of their bootes...
Page 88 - Now the storm begins to lower, (Haste, the loom of Hell prepare,) Iron sleet of arrowy shower Hurtles in the darken'd air.
Page xxix - Glossary of the Provincialisms in use in the County of Sussex," by WD Cooper, was printed in 1836, a neat little work, a copy of which, with numerous MS. additions, was kindly sent me by the author.
Page 256 - COCKLE BREAD Young wenches [Aubrey loquitur] have a wanton sport which they call moulding of Cockle-bread, viz., they get upon a table-board, and then gather up their knees and their coates with their hands as high as they can, and then they wabble to and fro, as if they were kneading of dowgh, and say these words, viz. : My dame is sick and gonne to bed, And I'le go mould my Cockle-bread.
Page 53 - A large tub is filled with water, and two stools placed on each side of it. Over the whole is thrown a tarpaulin, or old sail: this is kept tight by two persons, who are to represent the king and queen of a foreign country, and are seated on the stools.
Page 193 - The patient must lie upon his back on the bank of the river or brook of water, with a straight staff by his side between him and the water, and must have the following words repeated over him, viz. : Boneshave right, Boneshave straight. As the water runs by the stave Good for Boneshave.
Page 131 - Л mode of ploughing, in which the earth having been previously turned, is turned back again. Suffolk. BACKSUNDED. Shady. Dorset. BACK-SWANKED. Lean in the flank, a term applied to a horse. Miege. BACKSWORD. The game of single-stick. Wilts. A backsword, properly speaking, is a sword with one sharp edge. BACKWARD. (1) The state of things past.
Page 9 - ABOUT. Circularly; in a circle. See Macbeth, i. 3. It is singularly used in the phrase, " about, my brains," signifying, " brains, go to work," as in Hamlet, ii. 2. In the eastern counties it is current in the sense of near, as, " this horse is worth nothing about fourty pounds.
Page 245 - Baptism and for certain other unctions, composed of oyl and balm) after his Baptism. Now it is vulgarly taken for the white cloth put about or upon a Child newly christened, in token of his Baptism ; wherewith the women used to shrowd the Child, if dying within the month ; otherwise it is usually brought to Church at the Day of Purification.