Chapter IV: Part 4

=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_ 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_,
act i. sc. 1.

=FULSOME=, }
FULSOMENESS. }

I have seen it questioned whether in the first syllable of ‘fulsome’ we are to find ‘foul’ or ‘full.’ There should be no question on the matter; seeing that ‘fulsome’ is properly no more than ‘full,’ and then secondly that which by its fulness and overfulness produces first satiety, and then loathing and disgust. This meaning of ‘fulsome’ is still retained in our only present application of the word, namely to compliments and flattery, which by their grossness produce this effect on him who is their object; but the word had once many more applications than this. See the quotation from Pope, _s. v._ ‘Bacchanal.’

His lean, pale, hoar, and withered corpse, grew _fulsome_, fair,
and fresh.

GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. vii.

The next is Doctrine, in whose lips there dwells
A spring of honey, sweeter than its name,
Honey which never _fulsome_ is, yet _fills_
The widest souls.

BEAUMONT, _Psyche_, b. xix. st. 210.

Chaste and modest as he [Persius] is esteemed, it cannot be
denied but that in some cases he is broad and _fulsome_. No
decency is considered; no _fulsomeness_ omitted.--DRYDEN,
_Dedication of Translations from Juvenal_.

Making her soul to loathe dainty meat, or putting a surfeit and
_fulsomeness_ into all which she enjoys.--ROGERS, _Naaman the
Syrian_, p. 32.

=GARB.= One of many words, all whose meaning has run to the surface. A man’s dress was once only a portion, and a very insignificant portion, of his ‘garb,’ which included his whole outward presentment to other men; now it is all.

First, for your _garb_, it must be grave and serious,
Very reserved and locked; not tell a secret
On any terms, not to your father.

BEN JONSON, _Volpone_, act iv. sc. 1.

The greatest spirits, and those of the best and noblest
breeding, are ever the most respective and obsequious in their
_garb_, and the most observant and grateful in their language
to all.--FELTHAM, _Resolves_, lxxxv.

Have thy observing eyes
E’er marked the spider’s _garb_, how close she lies
Within her curious web, and by and by
How quick she hastes to her entangled fly?

QUARLES, _History of Samson_, sect. 19.

A σεμνοπρέπεια in his person, a grave and a smiling _garb_
compounded together to bring strangers into a liking of their
welcome.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p. 32.

Horace’s wit and Virgil’s state
He did not steal but emulate,
And when he would like them appear,
Their _garb_, but not their clothes, did wear.

DENHAM, _On the Death of Cowley_.

=GARBLE.= Writings only are ‘garbled’ now; and ‘garbled’ extracts are extracts dishonestly made, so shifted, mutilated, or in other ways tampered with, that, while presented as fair specimens, they convey a false impression. It is not difficult to trace the downward progress of the word. It is derived from the Low Latin ‘garbellare,’ to sift or cleanse corn from any dust or rubbish which may have become mingled with it. It was then applied to any separation of the good from the bad, retaining that, rejecting this, and used most commonly of spices; then generally to picking and choosing, but without any intention to select the better and to dismiss the worse: and lastly, as at present, to picking and choosing with the distinct purpose of selecting that which should convey the worse impression, and dismissing that which should have conveyed a truer and a better. It is a very favourite word in its earlier uses with Fuller.

_Garbling_ of bow-staves (anno 1 R. 3, cap. 11) is the sorting
or culling out of the good from the bad.--COWELL, _The
Interpreter_, s. v.

There was a fair hospital, built to the honour of St. Anthony
in Bennet’s Fink, in this city; the protectors and proctors
whereof claimed a privilege to themselves, to _garble_ the live
pigs in the markets of the city; and such as they found starved
or otherwise unwholesome for man’s sustenance they would slit
in the ear, tie a bell about their necks, and turn them loose
about the city.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: London_.

_Garbling_ men’s manners you did well divide,
To take the Spaniards’ wisdom, not their pride;
With French activity you stored your mind,
Leaving to them their fickleness behind;
And soon did learn, your temperance was such,
A sober industry even from the Dutch.

Id., _Worthies of England. A Panegyric on Charles II._

To _garble_, to cleanse from dross and dirt, as grocers do
their spices, to pick or cull out.--PHILLIPS, _New World of
Words_.

=GARLAND.= At present we know no other ‘garlands’ but of flowers; but ‘garland’ was at one time a technical name for the royal crown or diadem, and not a poetical one, as might at first sight appear; as witness these words of Matthew of Paris in his _Life of Henry III._: Rex veste deauratâ, et coronulâ aureâ, quæ vulgariter _garlanda_ dicitur, redimitus.

In the adoption and obtaining of the _garland_, I being seduced
and provoked by sinister counsel did commit a naughty and
abominable act.--GRAFTON, _Chronicle of King Richard III._

In whose [Edward the Fourth’s] time, and by whose occasion,
what about the getting of the _garland_, keeping it, losing and
winning again, it hath cost more English blood than hath twice
the winning of France.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King Richard
III._ p. 107.

What in me was purchased,
Falls unto thee in a more fairer sort;
So now the _garland_ wear’st successively.

SHAKESPEARE, _2 Henry IV._ act iv. sc. 4.

=GARRET.= The Old French ‘garite,’ which is our ‘garret,’ is properly a place of refuge or safety, being derived from the verb ‘garir;’ thus ‘gagner la guérite,’ to save oneself by flight. But this place of safety would be often on a high wall, in a watch-tower, upon the tops of houses; and thus the notion of the ‘garret’ was connected with that of the highest stage or storey. The subaudition of its being the poorest and meanest place in the house is an afterthought, and certainly has no place in any of the following uses of the word.

Thanne walkede y ferrer, and went al abouten,
And seigh halles full hyghe, and houses ful noble
With gaie _garites_ and grete, and iche hole y-glased.

_Peres the Plowman’s Crede_, l. 214 (Skeat).

The _garettes_ aboven the ghates bryght
Of the ceté of heven, I lyken thus ryght
Tylle the _garettes_ of a ceté of gold,
That wroght war als I before told.

RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 9101-9104.

It is nat possible algate to have highe _garettes_, or toures,
or highe places for watche men; therefor it nedethe to have out
watche.--VEGETIUS, quoted in Way’s _Promptorium_, p. 187.

=GAZETTE.= The French form of an Italian word ‘gazzetta,’ designating a small piece of tin money current at Venice, of the value of less than a farthing (see Florio). This word ‘gazzetta’ may possibly be quite distinct in origin from ‘gazzetta,’ the name of a monthly bill of news printed commonly at Venice (see Skeat’s _Dictionary_). We see the word in this latter sense, but not as yet thoroughly at home in English, for it still retains [as it retained much later] an Italian termination, in Ben Jonson’s _Volpone_ (act v. sc. 2), of which the scene is laid at Venice. Curiously enough the same play gives also an example, quoted below, of ‘gazette’ in the sense of a coin.

If you will have a stool, it will cost you a gazet, which is
almost a penny.--CORYAT, _Crudities_, vol. ii. p. 15.

What monstrous and most painful circumstance
Is here to get some three or four _gazets_,
Some threepence in the whole.

BEN JONSON, _Volpone_, act ii. sc. 2.