A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century, 1. köideJ.R. Smith, 1850 |
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Common terms and phrases
According ancient Antiq applied Arch armes Ashmole Brit called Cant Cantab Chaucer cloth Coll common corn Cotgrave Cott counties Craven Devon dial dialect early East England explained Florio formerly Gawayne give given Glossary Glouc Gower ground Hall hand Harl hath head Hearne Hence Henry herb Holinshed horse Kennett Kent kind King Kyng Kyng Alisaunder land Lansd Linc Lincoln Lord Lydgate meaning mentioned Morte Arthure Myst Nares never North occurs Palsgrave Parv perhaps person phrase piece Piers Ploughman play Poems Prompt reads Reliq Robin Hood Sages Salop says seems sense Shak Shakespeare Skinner Somerset sometimes Songs South stone Suffolk term thay ther thing thou tree Trin verb Weber West Wilts Wright's Yorksh
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 68 - Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach, Of being taken by the insolent foe And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence, And portance in my travel's history; Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven, It was my hint to speak, — such was the process: And of the Cannibals that each other eat, The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders.
Page 143 - It was played by six people, (three of each sex,) who were coupled by lot. A piece of ground was then chosen, and divided into three compartments, of which the middle one was called hell. It was the object of the couple condemned to this division to catch the others, who advanced from the two extremities ; in which case a change of situation took place, and hell was filled by the couple who were excluded by preoccupation from the other places : in this catching...
Page 194 - City and suburbs, tipt with silver, besides the great black-jacks, and bombards at the Court, which when the Frenchmen first saw, they reported, at their return into their country, that the Englishmen used to drink out of their boots...
Page 146 - a kind of embroidered mantle which hung down from the middle to about the knees or lower, worn by knights on horseback
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. The person intended to be ducked plays the Ambassador, and after repeating a ridiculous speech dictated to him, is led in great form up to the throne, and seated between the king and queen, who rising suddenly as soon as he is seated, he falls backwards...
Page 260 - 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 32 - January, take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater Noster, or (Our Father) sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him, or her, you shall marry.
Page 67 - To follow like a tantony pig,' ie to follow close at one's heels. Some derive this saying from a privilege enjoyed by the friars of certain convents in England and France, sons of St Anthony, whose swine were permitted to feed in the streets. These swine would follow any one having greens or other provisions, till they obtained some of them ; and it was in those days considered an act of charity and religion to feed them. St Anthony was invoked for the pig.
Page 277 - Large boughs of trees. CRAMBLY. Lame. North. CRAMBO. A diversion in which one gives a word, to which another finds a rhyme. If the same word is repeated, a forfeit is' demanded, which is called a crambo. It was also a term in drinking, as appears from Dekker. CRAME. (1) To bend. Lane. (2) To join, or mend. North. CRAMER. A tinker. North. CRAMMELY. Awkwardly. North. CRAMMOCK. To hobble".