Chapter IX: Part 9

[=SHED.= This verb was once in common use in the sense of to separate, divide, or part. This ‘shed’ is the representative of the O.E. ‘sceādan’ (scādan), the equivalent of the modern German ‘scheiden.’ With these words is connected the modern geographical term ‘watershed,’ i.e. water-divider. ‘To shed’ is still used in the North in the sense of to divide or separate (Halliwell). From this verb comes the word ‘sheeding,’ the name of a territorial division in the Isle of Man. Probably our modern ‘shed,’ to scatter, pour, may be the same word as ‘shed,’ to separate, with a development of meaning, but the relation of the two words has not been satisfactorily made out yet.]

They say also that the manner of making the _shed_
[διακρίνεσθαι] of new-wedded wives’ hair with the iron head of
a javelin came up then likewise.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_,
p. 22.

They were never so careful to comb their heads as when they
should to the battle; for then they did noint their selves with
sweet oils, and did _shed_ their hair.--Id., _ibid._ p. 45.

=SHEER.= It is curious that Christopher Sly’s declaration that he was ‘fourteen pence on the score for _sheer_ ale’ (_Taming of the Shrew, Induction_, sc. 2) should have given so much trouble to some of the early commentators upon Shakespeare. ‘Sheer,’ which is pure, unmixed, was used of things concrete once, although mostly of things abstract now.

They had scarcely sunk through the uppermost course of sand
above, when they might see small sources to boil up, at the
first troubled, but afterward they began to yield _sheer_ and
clear water in great abundance.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1911.

Thou _sheer_, immaculate, and silver fountain,
From whence this stream through muddy passages
Hath held his current.

SHAKESPEARE, _King Richard II._, act v. sc. 3.

Thou never hadst in thy house, to stay men’s stomachs,
A piece of Suffolk cheese, or gammon of bacon,
Or any esculent, but _sheer_ drink only,
For which gross fault I here do damn thy license.

MASSINGER, _A New Way to pay Old Debts_, act iv. sc. 2.

=SHELF.= ‘To shelve’ as to shoal, still remains; but not so, except in mariners’ charts, ‘shelf’ as = shallow or sandbank. This ‘shelf’ is quite a distinct word from the ‘shelf’ (of a cupboard).

I thought fit to follow the rule of coasting maps, where
the _shelves_ and rocks are described as well as the safe
channel.--DAVENANT, _Preface to Gondibert_.

God wisheth none should wreck on a strange _shelf_;
To Him man’s dearer than t’ himself.

BEN JONSON, _The Forest_, iii.

The watchful hero felt the knocks, and found
The tossing vessel sailed on shoaly ground.
Sure of his pilot’s loss, he takes himself
The helm, and steers aloof, and shuns the _shelf_.

DRYDEN, _Virgil’s Æneid_, b. v.

=SHREW.= There are at the present no ‘shrews’ save female ones; but the word, like so many others which we have met with, now restrained to one sex, was formerly applied to both. It conveyed also of old a much deeper moral reprobation than now or in the Middle English it did. Thus Lucifer is a ‘shrew’ in _Piers Plowman_, and two murderers are ‘shrews’ in the quotation from Chaucer which follows.

And thus accorded ben these _schrewes_ twayn
To sle the thridde, as ye han herd me sayn.

CHAUCER, _The Pardoneres Tale_.

If Y schal schewe me innocent, He schal preve me a _schrewe_
[_pravum_ me comprobabit, Vulg.].--_Job_ ix. 20. WICLIF.

I know none more covetous _shrews_ than ye are, when ye have
a benefice.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of William
Thorpe_.

=SHREWD=, }
SHREWDNESS. }

The weakness of the world’s moral indignation against evil causes a multitude of words which once conveyed intensest moral reprobation gradually to convey none at all, or it may be even praise. ‘Shrewd’ and ‘shrewdness’ must be numbered among these.

An ant is a wise creature for itself; but it is a _shrewd_
thing in an orchard or garden.--BACON, _Essay 23_.

Is he _shrewd_ and unjust in his dealings with others?--SOUTH,
_Sermons_, 1737, vol. vi. p. 106.

Forsothe the erthe is corupt before God, and is fulfilled with
_shrewdness_ [iniquitate, Vulg.].--_Gen._ vi. 12. WICLIF.

The prophete saith: Flee _schrewednesse_ [declinet _a malo_,
Vulg.], and doo goodnesse; seeke pees, and folwe it.--CHAUCER,
_The Tale of Melibeus_ (Morris, iii. p. 187).

=SIEGE.= A ‘siege’ is now _the sitting down_ of an army before a fortified place with the purpose of taking it; and has no other meaning but this. It had once the double meaning, abstract and concrete, of the French ‘siège,’ a seat.

Whanne mannus sone schal come in his _majeste_ and alle hise
aungels with hym, thanne he schal sitte on the _sege_ of his
majeste, and alle folkis schulen be gaderid bifor hym.--_Matt._
xxv. 31. WICLIF.

A stately _siege_ of soveraine majestye;
And thereon sat a woman gorgeous gay.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 7, 44.

Besides, upon the very _siege_ of justice
Lord Angelo hath to the common ear
Professed the contrary.

SHAKESPEARE, _Measure for Measure_, act iv. sc. 2.

=SIGHT.= The use of ‘sight’ to signify a multitude, a great quantity (that is, to see), has now a touch of vulgarity about it, which once it was very far from possessing.

A noble _sighte_ of bookes (nobilissimam librorum
bibliothecam).--Harleian translation of Higden, vi. 239. (Rolls
Series, No. 41.)

Ye are come unto the mounte Sion, and to the citie of the
livinge God, the celestiall Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
_sight_ of angels.--_Heb._ xii. 22. TYNDALE.

Clodius was ever about him in every place and street he went,
having a _sight_ of rascals and knaves with him.--NORTH,
_Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 722.

=SILLY=, }
SILLINESS. }

A deep conviction of men that he who departs from evil will make himself a prey, that none will be a match for the world’s evil who is not himself evil, has brought to pass the fact that a number of words, signifying at first goodness, signify next well-meaning simplicity; the notions of goodness and foolishness, with a strong predominance of the last, for a while interpenetrating one another in them; till at length the latter quite expels the former, and remains as the sole possessor of the word. I need hardly mention the Greek ἄκακος, εὐήθης, εὐήθεια: while the same has happened in regard of the O.E. ‘sǽlig,’ which (the same word as the German ‘selig’) has successively meant, (1) blissful, (2) innocent, harmless, (3) weakly foolish.

Oh God, quod she, so worldly _selynesse_,
Which clerkes callen fals felicite,
Imedled is with many a bitternesse.

CHAUCER, _Troylus and Cryseyde_ (Morris, p. 258).

O _sely_ woman, ful of innocence.

CHAUCER, _Legend of Fair Women_, 1252.

This Miles Forest and John Dighton about midnight (the _silly_
children lying in their beds) came into the chamber, and
suddenly lapped them up among the clothes.--Sir T. MORE,
_History of King Richard III._

=SINCERE=, }
SINCERITY. }

The etymology of ‘sincerus’ being uncertain, it is impossible to say what is the primary notion of our English ‘sincere.’ These words belong now to an ethical sphere exclusively, and even there their meaning is not altogether what once it was; but the absence of foreign admixture which they predicate might be literal once.

The mind of a man, as it is not of that content or receipt to
comprehend knowledge without helps and supplies, so again, it
is not _sincere_, but of an ill and corrupt tincture.--BACON,
_Of the Interpretation of Nature_, c. xvi.

The Germans are a people that more than all the world, I think,
may boast _sincerity_, as being for some thousands of years a
pure and unmixed people.--FELTHAM, _A brief Character of the
Low Countries_, p. 59.

=SKELETON.= Now the framework of bones as entirely denuded of the flesh; but in early English, and there in stricter agreement with the meaning of the word in Greek, the _dried_ mummy.

_Scelet_; the dead body of a man artificially dried or tanned
for to be kept or seen a long time.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s
Morals; An Explanation of certain obscure Words_.

=SMUG.= One of many words which have been spoilt for poetic use through being drawn into our serio-comic vocabulary. It still means neat, trim, being connected with the German ‘schmuck,’ trim, spruce; but seeks to present the very neatness which it implies in a ridiculous ignoble point of view. Any such intention was very far from it once.

And here the _smug_ and silver Trent shall run
In a new channel, fair and evenly.

SHAKESPEARE, _1 Henry IV._, act iii. sc. 1.

Twelve sable steeds, _smug_ as the old raven’s wing,
Of even stature and of equal pride,
Sons of the wind, or some more speedy thing,
To his fair chariot all abreast were tied.

BEAUMONT, _Psyche_, ix. 176.

I like the _smugness_ of the Cathedral (Winchester), and
the profusion of the most beautiful Gothic tombs.--WALPOLE,
_Letters_, i. 442 (1755).

=SNAIL.= It is curious what different objects men will be content for long to confuse under a common name. Thus in some provincial dialects of Germany they have only one name, ‘padde’ (compare our ‘paddock’), for frog and toad. So too ‘snail’ (cochlea) and ‘slug’ (limax) with us were both to a comparatively recent period included under the former name. ‘Slug’ indeed, in the sense of slothful, is an old word in the language; but only at the end of the seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century was it transferred to that familiar pest of our gardens which we now call by this name. Indeed up to the present day in many of our provincial dialects slugs and snails are invariably both included under the latter name; the snail proper being sometimes distinguished from the other as the ‘_shell_-snail’ (see Holland’s _Plutarch_, p. 212). See an interesting discussion in the Philological Society’s _Transactions_, 1860-1, pp. 102-106.

There is much variety even in creatures of the same kind. See
these two _snails_. One hath a house, the other wants it;
_yet both are snails_, and it is a question whether case is
the better. That which hath a house hath more shelter, that
which wants it hath more freedom.--Bishop HALL, _Occasional
Meditations_.

_Snails_, a soft and exosseous animal, whereof in the _naked_
and greater sort, as though she would requite the loss of a
shell on their back, nature near the head hath placed a flat
white stone. Of the great grey _snails_ I have not met with any
that wanted it.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Vulgar Errors_, b. iii. c. 13.

=SNUB.= To check or cut short; now never used save in a figurative sense and in familiar language; but this was not always so.

If we neglect them [the first stirrings of corruption] but a
little, out of a thought that they can do no great harm yet,
or that we shall have time enough to _snub_ them hereafter,
we do it to our own certain disadvantage, if not utter
undoing.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671, vol. ii. p. 241.

=SOFT=, }
SOFTNESS. }

It is not an honourable fact that ‘soft’ and ‘softness’ should now be terms of slight, almost of contempt, when ethically employed; although indeed it is only a repetition of what we find in χρηστός, εὐήθης, ‘gutig,’ ‘bonhomie,’ and other words not a few.

That they speak evil of no man, that they be no fighters, but
_soft_ [ἐπιεικεῖς], showing all meekness unto all men.--_Titus_
iii. 2. TYNDALE.

The meek or _soft_ shall inherit the earth; even as we say, Be
still and have thy will.--TYNDALE, _Exposition on the Fifth
Chapter of Matthew_.

Let your _softness_ [τὸ ἐπιεικὲς ὑμῶν] be known unto all
men.--_Phil._ iv. 5. CRANMER.

=SONNET.= A ‘sonnet’ now must consist of exactly fourteen lines, neither more nor less; and these with a fixed arrangement, though admitting a certain relaxation, of the rhymes; but ‘sonnet’ used often to be applied to _any_ shorter poem, especially of an amatory kind.

He [Arion] had a wonderful desire to chaunt a _sonnet_ or hymn
unto Apollo Pythius.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 343.

If ye will tell us a tale, or play a jig, or show us a play and
fine sights, or sing _sonnets_ in our ears, there we will be
for you.--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 492.

=SOT=, }
SOTTISH, }
SOTTISHNESS. }

He only is a ‘sot’ now whose stupor and folly is connected with, and the result of, excessive drink; but _any_ fool would once bear this name.

In Egypt oft has seen the _sot_ bow down,
And reverence some deified baboon.

OLDHAM, _Eighth Satire of Boileau_.

I do not here speak of a legal innocence (none but _sots_ and
Quakers dream of such things), for as St. Paul says, ‘By the
works of the law shall no flesh living be justified;’ but I
speak of an evangelical innocence.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, vol. ii.
p. 427.

He [Perseus] commanded those poor divers to be secretly
murdered, that no person should remain alive that was privy to
that _sottish_ commandment of his.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1177.

A leper once he lost, and gained a king,
Ahaz his _sottish_ conqueror, whom he drew
God’s altar to disparage and displace
For one of Syrian mode.

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, i. 471.

_Sottishness_ and dotage is the extinguishing of reason in
phlegm or cold.--H. MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b.
viii. c. 14.

[=SPARKLE.= It is probable that ‘to sparkle’ in the sense of to scatter is not the same word as our modern ‘sparkle,’ the diminutive of ‘spark,’ a small particle of fire. I think that it is almost certain that the ‘sparkle’ in the passages given below is a later form of ‘sparple,’ to scatter, see Trevisa, v. 287 (Rolls Series), and _Promptorium_. The Middle English ‘sparplen’ is the same word as the French ‘esparpiller,’ to scatter, disparkle asunder (see Cotgrave); compare also Italian ‘sparpagliare’ (Florio). For the etymology of ‘sparple’ see Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of Middle English_ (s. v. ‘disparplen’). For a late use of ‘disparple,’ to scatter, see Davies, _Suppl. Gloss._]

The Lansgrave hath _sparkled_ his army without any further
enterprise.--_State Papers_, vol. x. p. 718.

Cassandra yet there sawe I how they haled
From Pallas’ house, with _spercled_ tresse undone.

SACKVILLE, _Induction to a Mirrour for Magistrates_.

And awhile chawing all those things in his mouth, he spitteth
it upon him whom he desireth to kill; who being _sparkled_
therewith, dieth by force of the poison within the space of
half an hour.--_Purchas’s Pilgrims_, part ii. p. 1495.

=SPECIOUS.= Like the Latin ‘speciosus,’ it simply signified beautiful once; it now means always presenting a deceitful appearance of that beauty which is not really possessed, and is never used in any but an ethical sense.

This prince hadde a dowter dere, Asneth was her name,
A virgine ful _specious_, and semely of stature.

_Metrical Romance of the Fourteenth Century._

And they knew him, that it was he which sate for alms at the
_Specious_ Gate of the temple.--_Acts_ iii. 10. Rheims.

His mind as pure and neatly kept
As were his nurseries, and swept
So of uncleanness or offence
That never came ill odour thence;
And add his actions unto these,
They were as _specious_ as his trees.

BEN JONSON, _Epitaph on Master Vincent Corbet_.

Which [almug-trees], if odoriferous, made that passage as sweet
to the smell as _specious_ to the sight.--FULLER, _Α Pisgah
Sight of Palestine_, b. iii. c. 2, § 5.

=SPICE.= We have in English a double adoption of the Latin ‘species,’ namely ‘spice’ and ‘species’. ‘Spice,’ the earlier form (Old French ‘espice’), is now limited to certain aromatic drugs, which, as consisting of various _kinds_, have this name of ‘spices.’ But ‘spice’ was once employed as ‘species’ is now.

Absteyne you fro al yvel _spice_ [ab omni _specie_ malâ,
Vulg.]--_1 Thess._ v. 22. WICLIF.

The _spices_ of envye ben these.--CHAUCER, _The Persones Tale_
(Morris, p. 304).

Justice, although it be but one entire virtue, yet is
described in two kinds of _spices_. The one is named justice
distributive, the other is called commutative.--Sir T. ELYOT,
_The Governor_, b. iii. c. 1.

=SPILL.= Nothing appears so utterly and irrecoverably lost as liquid poured upon the ground; and thus it has come to pass that ‘to spill,’ the Ο. E. ‘spillan,’ which had once the meaning of to waste, to squander, to consume, to destroy, and that in any way, is now restricted to this single meaning.

O litel child, alas! what is thi gilt,
That never wroughtest synne as yet, parde?
Why wil thyn harde fader han the _spilt_?

CHAUCER, _The Man of Lawes Tale_.

If the colors ... be not well tempered or not well laid, or be
used in excess, or never so little disordered and misplaced,
they disfigure the stuff, and _spill_ the whole workmanship,
taking away all beauty and good liking from it.--PUTTENHAM,
_Art of English Poesy_, b. iii. c. 1.

_Spill_ not the morning, the quintessence of the day, in
recreations.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. iii. c. 13.

=SPINSTER.= A name that was often applied to women of evil life, in that they were set to enforced labour of spinning in the Spittle or House of Correction (it is still called ‘The _Spinning_ House’ at Cambridge), and thus were ‘spinsters.’ None of our Dictionaries, so far as I have observed, take note of this use of the word.

Many would never be indicted _spinsters_, were they spinsters
indeed, nor come to so public and shameful punishments, if
painfully employed in that vocation.--FULLER, _Worthies of
England: Kent_.

_Geta._ These women are still troublesome;
There be houses provided for such wretched women,
And some small rents to set ye a spinning.

_Drusilla._ Sir,
We are no _spinsters_, nor, if you look upon us,
So wretched as you take us.

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, _The Prophetess_, act iii. sc. 1.

=SPRUCE.= The exploits of the Teutonic Knights against the Pruzzi, the stubborn heathen of Lithuania, made Prussia to be very familiar on the lips of men in the later Middle Ages (see Weigand, _s. v._ Preuszen). This Prussia, Sprutia very often in medieval Latin, appears now as ‘Pruce’ (so in Chaucer), and now as ‘Spruce’ (see Skeat’s _Dictionary_); and in this latter form it survives in our _spruce_ fir, which was brought from Northern Europe, in _spruce_ beer, and in _spruce_, more vaguely applied to a certain neatness and smartness of outward appearance; one which it is implied had reached us from those quarters.

They were apparelled after the fashion of Prussia or
_Spruce_.--HALL, _Chronicle, Henry VIII._

Norway in that age, the _sprucest_ of the three kingdoms of
Scandia, and best tricked up with shipping, sent her fleet of
tall soldiers to Syria.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. v. c. 22.

=SQUANDER.= The examples which follow will show that ‘to squander’ had once, if not a different, yet a much wider use than it now, at least in our classical English, retains. In the northern dialects it is still used as equivalent to ‘disperse.’

He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies;
... he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other
ventures he hath, _squandered_ abroad.--SHAKESPEARE, _Merchant
of Venice_, act i. sc. 3.

The minister is not to come into the pulpit, as a fencer upon
the stage, to make a fair flourish against sin, but rather as
a captain into the field, to bend his forces specially against
the strongest troops of the enemy, and to _squander_ and break
through the thickest ranks.--SANDERSON, _Sermon 2, ad Clerum_.

They charge, recharge, and all along the sea
They chase and _squander_ the huge Belgian fleet.

DRYDEN, _Annus Mirabilis_, st. 67.

=STAPLE.= A curious change has come over this word. We should now say, Cotton is the great ‘staple,’ that is, the established merchandize, of Manchester; our ancestors would have reversed this and said, Manchester is the great ‘staple,’ or established mart, of cotton. We make the goods prepared or sold the ‘staple’ of the place; they made the place the ‘staple’ of the goods. See Cowell, _The Interpreter_, s. v.

Men in all ages have made themselves merry with singling out
some place, and fixing the _staple_ of stupidity and stolidity
therein.--FULLER, _Worthies of England: Nottinghamshire_.

_Staple_; a city or town, where merchants jointly lay up their
commodities for the better uttering of them by the great; a
public storehouse.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.

=STARVE.= This word, the O.E. ‘steorfan,’ the German ‘sterben,’ to die, is only by comparatively modern use restricted to dying _by cold or by hunger_; in this restriction of use, resembling the French ‘noyer,’ to kill _by drowning_, while ‘necare,’ from which it descends, is to kill by any manner of death. But innumerable words are thus like rivers, which once pouring their waters through many channels, have now left dry and abandoned them all, save one, or, as in the present instance it happens, save two.

For wele or woo sche wol him not forsake:
Sche is not wery him to love and serve,
Theigh that he lay bedred til that he _sterve_.

CHAUCER, _The Marchaundes Tale_.

But, if for me ye fight, or me will serve,
Not this rude kind of battell, nor these armes
Are meet, the which doe men in bale to _sterve_.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 6, 34.

=STATE.= Used often by our old writers for a raised dais or platform, on which was placed a chair or throne with a canopy (the German ‘Thronhimmel’) above it; being the chiefest seat of honour; thus in Massinger’s _Bondman_, act i. sc. 3, according to the old stage-direction Archidamus ‘offers Timoleon the _state_.’ But there is another use of ‘state’ not unfrequent in the seventeenth century, though altogether unknown in our own. A ‘state’ was a republic, as contradistinguished from a monarchy. This usage, which the States of Holland may have contributed to bring about, does not seem to have lasted very long.

But for a canopy to shade her head,
No _state_ which lasts no longer than ’tis stayed,
And fastened up by cords and pillars’ aid.

_Beaumont_, PSYCHE, can. xix. st. 170.

Their majesties were seated as is aforesaid under their
canopies or _states_, whereof that of the Queen was somewhat
lesser and lower than that of the King, but both of them
exceeding rich.--_History of the Coronation of King James II._,
1687, p. 61.

When he went to court, he used to kick away the _state_, and
sit down by his prince cheek by jowl. Confound these _states_,
says he, they are a modern invention.--SWIFT, _History of John
Bull_, part ii. c. 1.

What say some others? A government of _states_ would do much
better for you than a monarchy.--ANDREWES, _Sermon 6, Of the
Gunpowder Treason_.

Dull subjects see too late
Their safety in monarchal reign;
Finding their freedom in a _state_
Is but proud strutting in a chain.

DAVENANT, _The Dream_.

Those very Jews, who, at their very best
Their humour more than loyalty expressed,
Thought they might ruin him, they could create;
Or melt him to a golden calf, a _state_.

DRYDEN, _Absalom and Achitophel_, 66.

=STATIONER.= There was a time when ‘stationer,’ meaning properly no more than one who had his _station_, that is, in the market-place or elsewhere, included the bookseller and the publisher, as well as the dealer in the raw material of books. But when, in the division of labour, these became separate businesses, the name was restrained to him who dealt in the latter articles alone.

_Stacyonere_, or he that sellythe bokys, stacionarius,
bibliopola.--_Promptorium._

I doubt not but that the Animadverter’s _stationer_ doth
hope and desire that he hath thus pleased people in his
book, for the advancing of the price and quickening the sale
thereof.--FULLER, _Appeal of Injured Innocence_, p. 38.

The right of the printed copies (which the _stationer_ takes
as his own freehold), was dispersed in five or six several
hands.--OLEY, _Preface to Dr. Jackson’s Works_.

Quarles, Chapman, Heywood, Wither had applause,
And Wild, and Ogilby in former days;
But now are damned to wrapping drugs and wares,
And cursed by all their broken _stationers_.

OLDHAM, _A Satire_.

=STICKLE=, }
STICKLER. }

Now to stand with a certain pertinacity to one’s point, refusing to renounce or go back from it; but formerly to interpose between combatants and separate them, when they had sufficiently satisfied the laws of honour. Our present meaning of the word connects itself with the past in the fact that the ‘sticklers,’ or seconds, as we should call them now, often fulfilled another function, being ready to maintain in their own persons and by their own arms the quarrel of their principals, and thus to ‘stickle’ for it. [The word ‘stickle’ represents the Middle English ‘stightlen,’ to order, arrange; for an interesting account of its cognates see Skeat’s _Dictionary_.]

I _styckyll_ betwene wrastellers, or any folkes that prove
mastries to se that none do other wronge, or I parte folkes
that be redy to fyght.--PALSGRAVE.

Betwixt which three a question grew,
Which should the worthiest be;
Which violently they pursue,
And would not _stickled_ be.

DRAYTON, _Muses’ Elysium, Nymph. 6_.

The same angel [in Tasso], when half of the Christians are
already killed, and all the rest are in a fair way of being
routed, _stickles_ betwixt the remainders of God’s hosts and
the race of fiends; pulls the devils backwards by the tails,
and drives them from their quarry.--DRYDEN, _Dedication of
Translations from Juvenal_, p. 122.

In ancient times they were wont to employ third persons as
_sticklers_, to see no treachery nor disorder were used, and to
bear witness of the combat’s success.--FLORIO, _Montaigne_, ii.
27.

The dragon wing of night o’erspreads the earth,
And, _stickler_-like, the armies separates.

SHAKESPEARE, _Troilus and Cressida_, act v. sc. 9.

Our former chiefs, like _sticklers_ of the war,
First fought to inflame the parties, then to poise;
The quarrel loved, but did the cause abhor,
And did not strike to hurt, but make a noise.

DRYDEN, _On the Death of Oliver Cromwell_.

=STOMACH.= Already in classical Latin ‘stomachus’ had all the uses, courage, pride, indignation, ill-will, which ‘stomach’ may be seen in the following quotations to have once possessed, but which at this day have nearly or quite departed from it.

And sence we herde therof oure hert hath failed us, neither
is there a good _stomache_ more in eny man, by the reasone of
youre commynge.--_Josh._ ii. 11. COVERDALE.

He was a man
Of an unbounded _stomach_, ever ranking
Himself with princes.

SHAKESPEARE, _Henry VIII._, act iv. sc. 2.

Arius, discontented that one should be placed before him in
honour, whose superior he thought himself in desert, became
through envy and _stomach_ prone unto contradiction, and bold
to broach that heresy wherein the Deity of our Lord Jesus
Christ was denied.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. v. § 42.

[=STOUT.= This word is now generally used in the sense of corpulent, less frequently in the sense of strong, robust. In provincial use ‘stout’ has sometimes the meaning of proud, and this is probably the original meaning of the word. ‘Stout’ is the same word as the Old French _estout_, bold, proud, which represents a Germanic base _stolto_-; compare modern German _stolz_, proud (see Kluge, _s. v._). In the passages below the word retains its old meaning.]

Commonly it is seen that they that be rich are lofty and
_stout_.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, p. 545.

I _stout_ and you _stout_,
Who will carry the dirt out?

_Old Proverb._

Come all to ruin; let
Thy mother rather feel thy pride, than fear
Thy dangerous _stoutness_; for I mock at death
With as big heart as thou.

SHAKESPEARE, _Coriolanus_, act iii. sc. 2.

=STOVE.= This word, which was probably introduced from Holland, has much narrowed its meaning. Bath, hothouse, any room where air or water was artificially heated, was a ‘stove’ once.

When a certain Frenchman came to visit Melanchthon, he found
him in his _stove_, with one hand dandling his child in the
swaddling-clouts, and the other holding a book and reading
it.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. ii. c. 9.

How tedious is it to them that live in _stoves_ and caves
half a year together, as in Iceland, Muscovy, or under the
pole!--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part i. sect. 2.

When most of the waiters were commanded away to their supper,
the parlour or _stove_ being nearly emptied, in came a company
of musketeers, shot every one his man, and so proceeded to
an apothecary’s house, where Wallenstein lay.--_Letters and
Despatches of Thomas Earl of Strafford_, vol. i. p. 226.

=STREET.= This, one of the words which the Romans left behind them when they quitted Britain, and which the Saxons learned from the Britons, is more properly a road or causeway (‘via _strata_’) than a street, in our present sense of the word; and as late as Coverdale was so used.

For they soughte them thorow every _strete_, and yet they
founde them not.--_Josh._ ii. 22. COVERDALE.

But when one sawe that all the people stode there still, he
removed Amasa from the _strete_ unto the felde.--_1 Sam._ xx.
12. COVERDALE.

=SUBLIME.= There is an occasional use of ‘sublime’ by our earlier poets, a use in which it bears much the meaning of the Greek ὑπερήφανος, or perhaps approaches still more closely to that of μετέωρος, high and lifted up, as with pride; which has now quite departed from it.

For the proud Soldan, with presumptuous cheer
And countenance _sublime_ and insolent,
Sought only slaughter and avengément.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, v. 8, 30.

Their hearts were jocund and _sublime_,
Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine.

MILTON, _Samson Agonistes_, 1669.

=SUE.= One now ‘sues’ or _follows_ another into the courts of law, being, as in the legal language of Greece, ὁ διώκων, the ‘pursuer;’ but ‘to sue’ was once to follow, without any such limitation of meaning.

If thou wolt be perfite, go, and sille alle thingis that thou
hast, and come, and _sue_ me.--_Matt._ xix. 21. WICLIF.

And anoon thei leften the nettis and _sueden_ hym.--_Mark_ i.
19. Id.

=SURE.= Used once in the sense of affianced, or, as it would be sometimes called, ‘hand-fasted.’ See ‘Assure,’ ‘Ensure.’

The king was _sure_ to dame Elizabeth Lucy, and her husband
before God.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King Richard III._

=SUSPECT=, }
SUSPICION. }

To ‘suspect’ is properly to look under, and out of this fact is derived our present use of the word; but in looking _under_ you may also look _up_, and herein lies the explanation of an occasional use of ‘suspect’ and ‘suspicion’ which we find in our early writers.

Pelopidas being sent the second time into Thessaly, to make
accord betwixt the people and Alexander, the tyrant of
Pheres, was by this tyrant (not _suspecting_ the dignity of
an ambassador, nor of his country) made prisoner.--NORTH,
_Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 927.

If God do intimate to the spirit of any wise inferiors that
they ought to reprove, then let them _suspect_ their own
persons, and beware that they make no open contestation, but be
content with privacy.--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 330.

Cordeilla, out of mere love, without the _suspicion_ of
expected reward, at the message only of her father in distress,
pours forth true filial tears.--MILTON, _History of England_,
b. i.

=SYCOPHANT.= The early meaning of ‘sycophant,’ when it was employed as equivalent to informer, delator, calumniator, ‘promoter’ (which see), agreed better with its use in the Greek than does our present. Employing it now in the sense of false and fawning flatterer, we might seem at first sight to employ it in a sense not merely altogether unconnected with, but quite opposite to, its former. Yet indeed there is a very deep inner connexion between the two uses. It is not for nothing that Jeremy Taylor treats of these two, namely ‘Of Slander and Flattery,’ in one and the same course of sermons; seeing that, as the Italian proverb has taught us, ‘He who flatters me before, spatters me behind.’

The poor man, that hath nought to lose, is not afraid of the
_sycophant_ or promoter.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 261.

He [St. Paul] in peril of the wilderness, that is of wild
beasts; they [rich men] not only of the wild beast called
the _sycophant_, but of the tame beast too, called the
flatterer.--ANDREWES, _Sermon preached at the Spittle_.

Sanders, that malicious _sycophant_, will have no less than
twenty-six wain-load of silver, gold, and precious stones
to be seized into the king’s hands by the spoil of that
monument.--HEYLIN, _History of the Reformation_, 1849, vol. i.
p. 20.

=SYMBOL.= The employment of ‘symbol’ in its proper Greek sense of contribution thrown into a common stock, as in a pic-nic or the like, is frequent in Jeremy Taylor, and examples of it may be found in other scholarly writers of the seventeenth century.

The consideration of these things hath oft suggested, and
at length persuaded me to make this attempt, to cast in my
mite to this treasury, my _symbolum_ toward so charitable a
work.--HAMMOND, _A Paraphrase on the Psalms_, Preface.

Christ hath finished his own sufferings for expiation of
the world; yet there are ‘portions that are behind of the
sufferings’ of Christ, which must be filled up by his body
the Church; and happy are they that put in the greatest
_symbol_; for ‘in the same measure you are partakers of the
sufferings of Christ, in the same shall ye be also of the
consolation.’--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Faith and Patience of the
Saints_.

There [in Westminster Abbey] the warlike and the peaceful,
the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and the despised
princes, mingle their dust and pay down their _symbol_ of
mortality.--Id., _Holy Dying_, c. i. § 2.

=TABLE.= The Latin ‘tabula’ had for one of its meanings picture or painting; and this caused that ‘table’ was by our early writers used often in the same meaning.

The _table_ wherein Detraction was expressed, he [Apelles]
painted in this form.--Sir T. ELYOT, _The Governor_, b. iii. c.
27.

You shall see, as it were in a _table_ painted before your
eyes, the evil-favouredness and deformity of this most
detestable vice.--_Homilies: Against Contention._

Learning flourished yet in the city of Sicyon, and they
esteemed the painting of _tables_ in that city to be the
perfectest for true colours and fine drawing, of all other
places.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 843.

=TAINT.= This and ‘tint’ or ‘teint,’ the one connected more closely with the French, the other with the Italian form of the word, have divided off from one another, but own a common origin--‘tingo,’ ‘tinctus.’ The fact that discoloration commonly accompanies decay explains our present use of ‘taint.’

A most delicate and beautiful young lady, slender of body, tall
of stature, fair of _taynt_ and complexion.--REYNOLDS, _God’s
Revenge against Murther_, b. i. hist. 1.

But in the court be quainter dames than she,
Whose faces are enrich’d with honour’s _taint_.

GREENE, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, sc. 1.

And Nero will be _tainted_ with remorse.

SHAKESPEARE, _3 Henry VI._, act iii. sc. 1.

=TALENT.= The original meaning, as of ‘talent’ in Old French, ‘talento’ in Italian, ‘talante’ in Spanish, was will, inclination, from ‘talentum’ (τάλαντον), balance, scales, and then inclination of balance; thus in Spenser (_Fairy Queen_, iii. 4, 61), ‘maltalent’ is grudge or ill-will (compare Old French ‘maltalant’ in the _Chanson de Roland_, 271). It is probably under the influence of the Parable of the Talents (_Matt._ xxv.) that it has travelled to its present meaning. Clarendon still employs it very distinctly in its older sense.

Whoso then wold wel understonde these peines, and bethinke him
wel that he hath deserved these peines for his sinnes, certes
he shold have more _talent_ for to sighe and to wepe than for
to singe and playe.--CHAUCER, _The Persones Tale_.

The meaner sort rested not there, but creating for their leader
Sir John Egremond, a factious person and one who had of a long
time borne an ill _talent_ towards the king, entered into open
rebellion.--BACON, _History of King Henry VII._

Though the nation generally was without any ill _talent_ to the
Church, either in the point of the doctrine or the discipline,
yet they were not without a jealousy that Popery was not enough
discountenanced.--CLARENDON, _History of the Rebellion_, b. i.
c. 194.

=TALL.= [This word occurs in earlier English with a great variety of meanings. A very common meaning is seemly, fine, elegant; for examples see Oliphant’s _New English_ (index). In old plays it often meant valiant, brave, great (Halliwell). In the _Complaint of Mars_ ‘talle’ occurs, apparently in the sense of obedient, docile (see Skeat, _Minor Poems of Chaucer_, iv. 38). The word in the sense of lofty in stature may perhaps be distinct from the above ‘tall’; at any rate the modern sense of tall seems to be the primary one in the Welsh and Cornish _tal_, high. See Skeat’s _Dictionary_.]

_Tal_, or semely, Decens, elegans.--_Promptorium._

He [the Earl of Richmond’s] companions being almost in
despair of victory were suddenly recomforted by Sir William
Stanley, which came to succours with three thousand _tall_
men.--GRAFTON, _Chronicle_.

_Tamburlaine._ Where are my common soldiers now, that fought
So lionlike upon Asphaltis’ plains?

_Soldier._ Here, my lord.

_Tamburlaine._ Hold ye, _tall_ soldiers, take ye queens apiece.

MARLOWE, _Tamburlaine the Great_, part ii. act iv. sc. 4.

He [Prince Edward] would proffer to fight with any mean person,
if cried up for a _tall_ man.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. iv. c. 29.

=TARPAULIN.= Not any longer used in the sense of sailor, except in the shorter form of ‘tar.’ See the quotation from Smollett, _s. v._ ‘Companion.’

The Archbishop of Bordeaux is at present General of the French
naval forces, who though a priest, is yet permitted to turn
_tarpaulin_ and soldier.-_-Turkish Spy_, Letter 2.

=TAWDRY.= ‘Tawdry’ laces and such like were cheap and showy articles of finery bought at St. Etheldrida’s or St. Awdry’s fair; but it is only in later times that this cheapness, showiness, with a further suggestion of vulgarity, made themselves distinctly felt in the word. [The Old English form of ‘Etheldrida’ was ‘Æthelthry̅th,’ which means noble strength. See Sweet, _Oldest English Texts_, p. 638.]

Bind your fillets fast,
And gird in your waist
For more fineness with a _tawdry_ lace.

SPENSER, _Shepherd’s Calendar, Fourth Eclogue_.

Come, you promised me a _tawdry_ lace and a pair of sweet
gloves.--SHAKESPEARE, _Winter’s Tale_, act iv. sc. 3.

=TEMPER.= What has been said under ‘Humour,’ which see, will also explain ‘Temper,’ and the earlier uses of it which we meet. The happy ‘temper’ would be the happy mixture, the blending in due proportions, of the four principal ‘humours’ of the body.

The exquisiteness of his [the Saviour’s] bodily _temper_
increased the exquisiteness of his torment, and the ingenuity
of his soul added to his sensibleness of the indignities
and affronts offered to him.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of
Palestine_, vol. i. p. 345.

Concupiscence itself follows the crasis and temperature of the
body. If you would know why one man is proud, another cruel,
another intemperate or luxurious, you are not to repair so much
to Aristotle’s ethics, or to the writings of other moralists,
as to those of Galen, or of some anatomists, to find the reason
of these different _tempers_.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol. ii.
p. 5.

=TEMPERAMENT.= The Latin ‘temperamentum’ had sometimes very nearly the sense of our English ‘compromise’ or the French ‘transaction,’ and signified, as these do, a middle term reached by mutual concession, by a _tempering_ of the extreme claims upon either side. This same use of ‘temperament’ appears from time to time in such of our writers as have allowed their style to be modified by their Latin studies.

Safest, therefore, to me it seems that none of the Council
be moved unless by death, or just conviction of some crime.
However, I forejudge not any probable expedient, any
_temperament_ that can be found in things of this nature, so
disputable on either side.--MILTON, _The Ready and Easy Way to
establish a Free Commonwealth_.

Many _temperaments_ and explanations there would have been, if
ever I had a notion that it [_Observations on the Minority_]
should meet the public eye.--BURKE, _Letter to Lawrence_.

=TERMAGANT.= A name at this present applied only to _women_ of fierce temper and ungoverned tongue, but formerly to men and women alike; and indeed predominantly to men; ‘Termagant’ in the popular notion being the name of one of the three gods of the Saracens. [See Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of Middle English_ (_s. v._ ‘Tervagant’).]

Art thou so fierce, currish, and churlish a Nabal, that even
when thou mightest live in the midst of thy people (as she told
Elisha [_2 Kings_ iv. 13]), thou delightest to play the tyrant
and _termagant_ among them?--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p.
270.

This would make a saint swear like a soldier, and a soldier
like _Termagant_.--BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, _King or No King_.

=THEWS.= It is a remarkable evidence of the influence of Shakespeare upon the English language, that while, so far as yet has been observed, every other writer, one single instance excepted, employs ‘thews’ in the sense of manners, qualities of mind and disposition, his employment of it in the sense of nerves, muscular vigour, has quite overborne the other; which, once so familiar in our literature, has now quite passed away. See a valuable note in Craik’s _English of Shakespeare_, p. 117.

To alle gode _thewes_ born was she;
As lyked to the goddes, or she was born,
That of the shefe she sholde be the corn.

CHAUCER, _Legend of Good Women_ (Skeat, p. 118).

For well ye worthy bene forworth and gentle _thewes_.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 1, 33.

Faire Helena, the fairest living wight,
Who in all godly _thewes_ and goodly prayse
Did far excell.

Id., _ib._, 10, 59.

=THINK=, }
THOUGHT, }
THOUGHTFUL. }

Many, as they read or hear in our English Bible these words of our Lord, ‘Take no _thought_ for your life’ (_Matt._ vi. 25; cf. _1 Sam._ ix. 5), are perplexed, for they cannot help feeling that there is some exaggeration in them, that He is urging here something which is impossible, and which, if possible, would not be desirable, but a forfeiting of the true dignity of man. Or perhaps, if they are able to compare the English with the Greek, they blame our Translators for having given an emphasis to the precept which it did not possess in the original. But neither is the fact. ‘Thought’ is constantly _anxious_ care in our earlier English, as the examples which follow will abundantly prove; and ‘to think,’ though not so frequently, is to take _anxious_ care. To this day they will say in Yorkshire, ‘it was _thought_ that did for her,’ meaning that it was care that killed her.

_Cleopatra._ What shall we do, Enobarbus?

_Enobarbus._ _Think_ and die.

SHAKESPEARE, _Antony and Cleopatra_, act iii. sc. 13.

Yet, for his love that all hath wrought,
Wed me, or else I die for _thought_.

SKELTON, _Manerly Margery_.

He so plagued and vexed his father with injurious indignities,
that the old man for very _thought_ and grief of heart pined
away and died.--HOLLAND, _Camden’s Ireland_, p. 120.

In five hundred years only two queens have died in childbirth.
Queen Catherine Parr died rather of _thought_.--_Somers’
Tracts_ (_Reign of Elizabeth_), vol. i. p. 172.

Harris, an alderman of London, was put in trouble, and died
of _thought_ and anxiety before his business came to an
end.--BACON, _History of Henry VII._

O _thoughtful_ herte, plungyd in dystres.

LYDGATE, _Lyf of Our Lady_.

=THRIFTY.= The ‘thrifty’ is on the way to be the thriving; yet ‘thrifty’ does not mean thriving now, as once it did. It still indeed retains this meaning in provincial use; as I have heard a newly-transplanted tree, which was doing well, described as ‘thrifty.’ See ‘Unthrifty;’ and the quotation from Tusser, _s. v._ ‘Family.’

No grace hath more abundant promises made unto it than this
of mercy, a sowing, a reaping, a _thrifty_ grace.--Bishop
REYNOLDS, _Sermon 30_.

=TIDY.= This, identical with the German ‘zeitig,’ has lost that reference to _time_ which in ‘noon_tide_,’ ‘even_tide_,’ and some other compounds still survives.

Seven eares wexen fette of coren
On an busk ranc and wel _tidi_.

_Genesis and Exodus_, 2104.

Lo an erthetilier abidith preciouse fruyt of the erthe,
paciently suffrynge til he resseyve tymeful and lateful
fruit--that is _tidi_ and ripe.--_James_ v. 7. WICLIF.

=TINSEL.= This (the Old French ‘estincelle,’ a spark) is always now _cheap_ finery, flashing like silver and gold, but at the same time pretending a value and a richness which it does not really possess. There lay no such insinuation of pretentious splendour in its earlier uses. A valuable note in Keightley’s _Milton_, vol. i. p. 126, makes it, I think, clear that by ‘tinsel’ was commonly meant ‘a _silver_ texture, less dense and stout than cloth of silver;’ yet not always, for see my first quotation.

Under a duke, no man to wear cloth of gold _tinsel_.--_Literary
Remains of King Edward VI._, 1551, 2.

Every place was hanged with cloth of gold, cloth of silver,
_tinsel_, arras, tapestry, and what not.--STUBBES, _Anatomy of
Abuses_, p. 18.

[He] never cared for silks or sumptuous cost,
For cloth of gold, or _tinsel_ figurie,
For baudkin, broidery, cutworks, nor conceits.

GASCOIGNE, _The Steel Glass_.

Her garments all were wrought of beaten gold,
And all her steed with _tinsel_-trappings shone.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, iii. 1, 15.

=TOBACCONIST.= Now the seller, once the smoker, of tobacco.

Germany hath not so many drunkards, England _tobacconists_,
France dancers, Holland mariners, as Italy alone hath jealous
husbands.--BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part iii. sect. 3.

Hence it is that the lungs of the _tobacconist_ are
rotted.--BEN JONSON, _Bartholomew Fair_.

But let it be of any truly said,
He’s great, religious, learned, wise or staid,
But he is lately turned _tobacconist_,
Oh what a blur! what an abatement is’t!

SYLVESTER, _Tobacco Battered_.

=TORY.= It is curious how often political parties have ended by assuming to themselves names first fastened on them by their adversaries in reproach and scorn. The ‘Gueux’ or ‘Beggars’ of Holland are perhaps the most notable instance of all; so too ‘tories’ was a name properly belonging to the Irish bogtrotters, who during our Civil War robbed and plundered, professing to be in arms for the maintenance of the royal cause; and from them transferred, about the year 1680, to those who sought to maintain the extreme prerogatives of the Crown. There is an Act of the 6th of Anne with this title: ‘For the more effectual suppressing _Tories_ and Rapparees; and for preventing persons becoming _Tories_ or resorting to them.’ For the best account of the ‘tories’ see Prendergast, _Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland_, pp. 163-183; and compare Carte’s _Life of the Duke of Ormonde_, vol. ii. p. 481.

That Irish Papists who had been licensed to depart this nation,
and of late years have been transplanted into Spain, Flanders,
and other foreign parts, have nevertheless secretly returned
into Ireland, occasioning the increase of _tories_ and other
lawless persons.--_Irish State Papers_, 24th January, 1656.

Let such men quit all pretences to civility and breeding.
They are ruder than _tories_ and wild Americans.--GLANVILLE,
_Sermons_, p. 212.

In the open or plain countries the peasants are content to live
on their labour; the woods, bogs, and fastnesses fostering
and sheltering the robbers, _tories_, and woodkerns, who are
usually the offspring of gentlemen, that have either misspent
or forfeited their estates; who, though having no subsistance,
yet contemn trade, as being too mean and base for a gentleman
reduced never so low.--_MS. Account of the State of the County
of Kildare_, of date 1684, in Trinity College Library, Dublin.

Mosstroopers, a sort of rebels in the northern part of
Scotland, that live by robbery and spoil, like the _tories_ in
Ireland, or the banditti in Italy.--PHILLIPS, _New World of
Words_, ed. 1706.

=TRADE.= Properly that path which we ‘tread,’ and thus the ever recurring habit and manner of our life, whatever this may be.

A postern with a blinde wicket there was,
A common _trade_ to passe through Priam’s house.

EARL OF SURREY, _Translation of the Æneid_, b. ii. l. 592.

For him that lacketh nothing necessary, nor hath cause to
complain of his present state, it is a great folly to leave his
old acquainted _trade_ of life, and to enter into another new
and unknown.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 53.

Teach a child in the _trade_ of his way, and when he is old, he
shall not depart from it.--_Proverbs_ xxii. 6. Geneva.

There those five sisters had continuall _trade_,
And used to bath themselves in that deceiptful shade.

SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 12, 30.

As shepheardes curre, that in darke evenings shade
Hath tracted forth some salvage beastes _trade_.

Ib., ii. 6, 39.

=TREACLE.= This at present means only the sweet syrup of molasses, but was once of far wider reach and far nobler significance, having come to us from afar, and by steps which are curious to trace. They are these. The Greeks, in anticipation of modern homœopathy, called a fancied antidote to the viper’s bite, which was composed of the viper’s flesh, θηριακά--from θηρίον, a name often given to the viper (_Acts_ xxviii. 5); of this came the Latin ‘theriaca,’ from the Old French form of which--namely, ‘triacle’--came our ‘triacle’ and ‘treacle.’ See _Promptorium_, and Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of Middle English_, p. 237.

For a most strong _treacle_ against these venomous heresies
wrought our Saviour many a marvellous miracle.--Sir T. MORE, _A
Treatise on the Passion, Works_, p. 1357.

There is no more _triacle_ at Galaad, and there is no phisician
that can heale the hurte of my people.--_Jer._ viii. 22.
COVERDALE.

At last his body [Sir Thomas Overbury’s] was almost come by use
of poisons to the state that Mithridates’ body was by the use
of _treacle_ and preservatives, that the force of the poisons
was blunted upon him.--BACON, _Charge against Robert, Earl of
Somerset_.

The saints’ experiences help them to a sovereign _treacle_ made
of the scorpion’s own flesh (which they through Christ have
slain), and that hath a virtue above all others to expel the
venom of Satan’s temptations from the heart.--GURNALL, _The
Christian in Complete Armour_, c. ix. § 2.

Wonderful therefore is the power of a Christian, who not only
overcomes and conquers and kills the viper, but like the
skilful apothecary makes antidote and _triacle_ of him.--HALES,
_Sermon on Christian Omnipotence_.

_Treacle_; a physical composition, made of vipers and other
ingredients.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.

=TREE.= This might once have been used of the dead timber, no less than of the living growth; this use surviving still in ‘rood_tree_,’ ‘axle_tree_,’ ‘saddle_tree_.’

In a greet hous ben not oneli vessels of gold and of silver,
but also of _tree_ [lignea, Vulg.] and of erthe.--_2 Tim._ ii.
20. WICLIF.

He had a castel of _tre_, which he cleped
Mategrifon.--CAPGRAVE, _Chronicle of England_, p. 145.

Take down, take down that mast of gowd,
Set up a mast of _tree_;
Ill sets it a forsaken lady
To sail sae gallantlie.

_Old Ballad._

=TRIUMPH.= A name often transferred by our early writers to any stately show or pageantry whatever, not restricted, as now, to one celebrating a victory. See Bacon’s _Essay_, the 37th, with the heading ‘Of Masks and _Triumphs_,’ passim.

Our daughter,
In honour of whose birth these _triumphs_ are,
Sits here, like beauty’s child.

_Pericles, Prince of Tyre_, act ii. sc. 2.

You cannot have a perfect palace except you have two several
sides, the one for feasts and _triumphs_, the other for
dwelling.--BACON, _Essays_, 45.

This day to Dagon is a solemn feast,
With sacrifices, _triumph_, pomp, and games.

MILTON, _Samson Agonistes_, 1311.

=TRIVIAL.= A ‘trivial’ saying is at present a slight one; it was formerly an often-repeated one, or one containing an elementary truth; it might be trite, on the ground of the weight and wisdom which it contained; as certainly the maxim quoted by Hacket is anything but ‘trivial’ in our sense of the word. Gradually the notion of slightness was superadded to that of commonness, and thus an epithet once of honour has become one of dishonour rather. See Mayhew-Skeat, _Dict. of Middle English_ (_s. v._ ‘Trivials’).

Others avouch, and that more truly, that he [Duns Scotus] was
born in Downe, and thereof they guess him to be named Dunensis,
and by contraction Duns, which term is so _trivial_ and common
in schools, that whoso surpasseth others either in cavilling
sophistry or subtle philosophy is forthwith nicknamed a
Duns.--STANYHURST, _Description of Ireland_, p. 2.

Æquitas optimo cuique notissima, is a _trivial_ saying, A
very good man cannot be ignorant of equity.--HACKET, _Life of
Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 57.

These branches [of the divine life] are three, whose names
though _trivial_ and vulgar, yet, if rightly understood, they
bear such a sense with them that nothing more weighty can be
pronounced by the tongue of men or seraphims, and in brief they
are these, Charity, Humility, and Purity.--H. MORE, _Grand
Mystery of Godliness_, b. ii. c. 12.

=TRUMPERY.= That which is deceitful is without any worth; and ‘trumpery,’ which was formerly deceit, fraud (tromperie), is now anything which is worthless and of no account. Was Milton’s use of the word in his well-known line, ‘Black, white and gray, with all their _trumpery_’ (_P. L._ iii. 475), our present, or that earlier?

When truth appeared, Rogero hated more
Alcyna’s _trumperies_, and did them detest,
Than he was late enamourèd before.

Sir J. HARINGTON, _Orlando Furioso_, b. vii.

Britannicus was now grown to men’s estate, a true and worthy
plant to receive his father’s empire; which a grafted son by
adoption now possessed by the injury and _trumpery_ of his
mother.--GREENWEY, _Tacitus_, p. 182.