A glossary of Tudor and Stuart words, especially from the dramatists

by Walter W. Skeat

C

cabage, to cut off the head of a deer close behind his horns. Turbervile, Hunting, xliii. 134; ‘I wyll cabage my dere, je cabacheray ma beste’, Palsgrave. ME. caboche (Book on Hunting; NED.). F. (Picard) caboche, the head, see H. Estienne, Précellence, 175. 397.

cabbish, a cabbage. Middleton, No Wit like a Woman’s, i. 3 (Sir O. Twi.). A Yorksh. pronunc. (EDD.).

cabinet, a cabin, hut, lodging. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 12. 83; ‘(the lark’s) moist cabinet’, Venus and Adonis, 854.

cabrito, a kid. Middleton, Game at Chess, v. 3 (B. Knight). Span. cabrito.

cacafugo, a spitfire, a braggart, blustering fellow. Fletcher, Fair Maid of the Inn, iii. 1. 8. Span. cacafuego.

cackler, the domestic fowl. B. Jonson, Gipsies Metamorphosed (Jackman).

cackling-cheat; see [cheat]. (Cant.)

cacokenny, a purposely perverted form of cacochymy, an unhealthy state of the humours or fluids of the body. Middleton, Anything for a Quiet Life, iii. 2 (Sweetball). Gk. κακοχυμία.

caddess, the jackdaw. Chapman, tr. Iliad, xvi. 541; ‘A cadesse or a dawe, Monedula’, Baret, Alvearie. An old Yorksh. word (EDD.).

caddow, the jackdaw. Huloet, Dict. (1552); spelt cadowe, Golding, Metam., vii. 468; Tusser, Husbandry, § 46. 28. ME. cadow(e, ‘monedula’ (Prompt. EETS., see note no. 313).

cade, a young animal brought up by hand; usually, a pet-lamb; rarely, a foal. ‘The Cade which cheweth the Cudde’ (here, apparently, a calf), Gascoigne, Glasse of Governement, iii. 4 (Ambidexter). In prov. use in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Cade, sb.³ 1). ME. a cade, ‘ovis domestica’ (Cath. Angl.).

cade, oil of, oil from the prickly cedar. Oyle of Cade, Turbervile, Hunting, c. 66; p. 187. F. cade, the prickly cedar (Cotgr).

caitif, a captive. Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 794; caitifes, unhappy men, Surrey, tr. of Aeneid ii. 253. Also, mean, niggardly, Sir T. Browne, Rel. Medici, pt. 2, § 3. Norm. F. ‘caitif, malheureux, misérable, captif’ (Moisy); cp. Prov. caitiu, ‘captif, chétif, misérable, mauvais, méchant’ (Levy). Celto-L. type *cactivum, L. captivum.

calambac, an Eastern name of aloes-wood or eagle-wood. A Knack to know a Knave, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 571. Malay kalambak. See NED.

caldesed, chaldesed, cheated. Butler, Hudibras, ii. 3. 1010; Elephant in the Moon, 494. Coined from Chaldees, pl. of Chaldee, a Chaldean, an astrologer.

Calipolis, the wife of the Moor in Peele’s play, Battle of Alcazar, ii. 3: ‘Feed, then, and faint not, fair Calipolis.’ Hence Pistol has: ‘Feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis’, 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 193; and Heywood has: ‘To feed, and be fat, my fine Cullapolis’, Royal King (Captain), vol. vi, p. 30. Those who consult Peele’s play will find the quotation to be extremely humorous. Pistol’s words occur again in Marston, What you Will, v. 1. 1.

calke, to calculate. Mirror for Mag., Cobham, st. 15; kalked, pp.; id. Clarence, st. 26. Short for calcule, F. calculer, L. calculare.

calker, calcar, a calculator, an astrologer; ‘Calkers of mens byrthes’, Coverdale, Isaiah ii. 6; calcars, Sir T. Wyatt, Song of Jopas, 60; in Tottel’s Misc., p. 95.

calkins, the turned-up ends of the horse-shoe which raise the heels from the ground. Two Noble Kinsmen, ii. 4. 68; ‘Rampone, a calkin in a horses shoon to keepe him from sliding’, Florio. This word, with various pronunciations, is in prov. use in many parts of England from Lancash. to Shropsh. and Lincolnsh., see EDD. (s.v. Calkin). OF. calcain, heel (Godefrey). L. calcaneum, heel (Vulg., John xiii. 18).

callet, a lewd woman, a tramp’s concubine. Othello, iv. 2. 122. B. Jonson, Volpono, iv. 1 (Lady P.); ‘Paillarde, a strumpet, callet’, Cotgrave. In prov. use in Scotland, Yorksh., and Lancash., see EDD. (s.v. Callet, sb.¹ 1). A Gipsy word, see Englische Studien, XXII (ann. 1895).

callot, calotte, a coif worn on the wig of a serjeant-at-law, a skull-cap. B. Jonson, Magn. Lady, i. 1 (Bias); Etheredge, She Would if she Could, iii. 3 (Sir Joslin). F. calotte, dimin. of cale, a caul.

†callymoocher, a term of abuse. Only occurs in Middleton, Mayor of Queenborough, iii. 3 (Oliver).

calophantic, making a show of excellence; hypocritical. ‘Calophantic Puritaines’, Warner, Albion’s England, bk. ix, ch. 53, st. 21. Gk. καλό-ς, fair + -φαντης, one who shows, from φαίνειν, to show.

calvered salmon, fresh salmon prepared in a particular way; sometimes, apparently, pickled salmon. Massinger, Maid of Honour, iii. 1 (Gasparo). ME. calvar, ‘as samone or oder fysch’ (Prompt. EETS., see note, no. 320).

cambrel, a crooked stick with notches on it, on which butchers hang their meat. Also cambren, see Phillips (1706). Wel. cambren; cam crooked, and pren wood, stick. In prov. use in Scotland, and in England, from the Border as far south as Warwick, see EDD. (s.v. Cambrel, sb.¹). See [gambrel].

cambrel, the hock of an animal; spelt camborell. Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 107. 3; ‘His crooked cambrils’, Drayton, Muses’ Elysium, Nymphal, x. 20; ‘Chapelet du jarret, the cambrel hogh of a horse’, Cotgrave. See EDD.

camisado, a night attack by soldiers; orig. one in which the attacking soldiers wore shirts over their armour, that they might recognize one another. Butler, Hudibras, iii. 2. 297; Gascoigne, Jocasta, Act ii, sc. 2, l. 56. Span. camiçada, ‘a camisado, assault’ (Minsheu). Camiça, camisa, ‘a shirt’, id. Late L. camisia, a shirt (Jerome). See NED. (s.v. Chemise).

cammock, camocke, a crooked tree; esp. one that is artificially bent. Lyly, Euphues, pp. 46, 408; Peele, Works, ed. Dyce, p. 579, col. 2. ME. cambok, ‘pedum’ (Voc. 666. 27); Med. L. cambuca, ‘baculus incurvatus’ (Ducange).

camois(e. Of the nose: low and concave; ‘a Camoise nose, crooked upwarde as the Morians’, Baret, Alvearie; ‘Camously croked’, Skelton, El. Rummyng, 28; camused, B. Jonson, Sad Shepherd, ii. 1 (Lorel). F. camus, having a short and flat nose (Cotgr.).

camomile; said to grow the more, when the more trodden upon. 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 441; Shirley, Hyde Park, iii. 2 (Mis. Carol).

camouccio, a term of reproach. B. Jonson. Ev. Man out of Humour, v. 3 (Sogliardo); spelt camooch, Middleton, Blurt, Mr. Constable (Lazarillo). Perhaps Ital. camoscio, the chamois.

can, a wooden measure for liquor. Phr. burning of cans, branding measures, to show that they were of legal capacity; B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, i. 1 (Amorphus).

Can, a lord, prince; ‘A great Emperor in Tartary whom they call Can’, Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, bk. ii, c. 11; p. 106. See Dict. (s.v. Khan).

can, pres. indic., know; ‘Unlearned men that can no letters’, Foxe, Martyrs (ed. 1684, ii. 325); ‘Can you a remedy for the tysyke?’ Skelton, Magnyf. 561; B. Jonson, Magnetic Lady, i. 1 (Compass). ME. ‘I can a noble tale’ (Chaucer, C. T. A. 3126). See NED. (s.v. Can, vb.¹ 1).

can, used as an auxiliary of the past tense; ‘Tho can she weepe’, Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 50; ‘He can her fairely greet’, id. i. 4. 46. ME. very common in Cursor M.; e.g. ‘Moses fourti dais can (v.r. gan) þer-on duell’, 6462. See NED. (s.v. Can, vb.² 2).

canaglia, canaille, rabble. B. Jonson, Volpone, ii. 1 (Vol.). Ital. canaglia, ‘base and rascally-people, only fit for dogs company’ (Florio).

canary, a quick and lively dance. All’s Well, ii. 1. 77; pl. canaries, Middleton, Women beware, iii. 2 (Ward); to dance, L. L. L. iii. 12.

canceleer, cancelier, a hawking term. A hawk canceleers when, in stooping, she turns two or three times upon the wing, to recover herself before she seizes the prey. Massinger, Guardian, i. 1 (Durazzo); a turn or two in the air, Drayton, Pol. xx. 229. OF. (Picard) canceler (F. chanceler), to swerve, waver.

candle: phr. to hold a candle to the devil, to assist an evil person, to persevere in evil courses. Greene, Orl. Fur. i. 1. 316 (Orgalio, p. 93, col. 1). Cp. the Gloucestersh. saying, ‘To offer a candle to the devil’, see EDD. (s.v. Candle, 2 (5)).

candles’ ends, bits of lighted candle swallowed as flapdragons; see [flapdragon]. Fletcher, Mons. Thomas, ii. 2. 24; 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 267.

candle-waster, one who sits up late, and so wastes candles; a student, or a rake. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, iii. 2 (Hedon); Much Ado, v. 1. A Somerset expression, see EDD. (s.v. Candle, 1 (22)).

cane, a ‘khan’, an Eastern inn. G. Sandys, Trav. p. 57. See Stanford (s.v. Khan). Arab, khān, a building (unfurnished) for the accommodation of travellers (Dozy, Glossaire, 83). See [hane].

canicular, due to the dog-star. Canicular aspect, influence of the dog-star, excessive heat, Greene, Looking Glasse, iv. 3 (2083); p. 144, col. 1. ‘Of the canicular or dog-days’, Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors; bk. iv, ch. 13. L. canicula, dog-star (Horace).

canion, an ornamental roll laid in a set like sausages round the ends of the legs of breeches; ‘French hose . . . with Canions annexed reaching down beneath their knees’, Stubbes, Anat. of Abuses (see Furnivall, 56). ‘Chausses à queue de merlus, round breeches with strait cannions’, Cotgrave. Span. cañon, a tube, pipe, gun-barrel.

canker, a caterpillar, a canker-worm. Mids. Night’s D. ii. 2. 3; Milton, Lycidas, 45. An E. Anglian word, see EDD. (s.v. Canker, sb.² 6). ME. cankyr, ‘teredo’ (Prompt.).

canker, the dog-rose. 1 Hen. IV, i. 3. 176. Cp. the prov. words canker-ball, the mossy excrescence on a wild rose-bush, canker-bell, the bud of a wild rose, canker-berry, the ‘hip’ of a wild rose, canker-rose, ‘Rosa canina’, the wild rose (EDD).).

cankered, ill-tempered. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 9. 3; King John, ii. 1. 194. In prov. use in Scotland and various parts of England (EDD.).

cannakin, a small can; ‘Let me the cannakin clinke’, Othello, ii. 3. 71.

cannel: Cannel bone; ‘The neck-bone or windpipe’, Phillips, Dict.; Golding, tr. Metam. 284; the collar-bone, Holland, Plutarch’s Mor. 409; spelt canell: canell of the necke (?), the nape of the neck, Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 348. 10. Cp. cannell-bone (Lancash.), and channel-bone (Somerset) in prov. use for the collar-bone (EDD.). OF. (Picard) canel, a channel; F. canneau du col, ‘the nape of the neck’ (Cotgr.).

canon-bitt, a smooth round bit for horses. Spenser, F. Q. i. 7. 37; ‘Canon, a canon-bitt for a horse’, Cotgrave. O. Prov. canon, a tube (Levy).

canstick, a candlestick. 1 Hen. IV, iii. 1. 131. Still in use in Berks. (EDD.).

cant, a corner, a niche; ‘Irene or Peace, she was placed aloft in a cant’, B. Jonson, James I’s Entertainment (1603); Warner, Monuments of Honour (ed. Dyce, 369) See EDD. (s.v. Cant, sb.³ 1). Norm. F. cant, ‘angle’ (Moisy).

cant, a piece, portion. Sir T. Wyatt, Sat. iii. 45. A Kentish term, see EDD. (s.v. Cant, sb⁴ 2). Cp. M. Du. kant (Verdam).

canted, tilted up, thrown up. Stanyhurst, tr. of Virgil, Aeneid, iii. 211. See EDD. (s.v. Cant, vb.³ 9 (1)). E. Fris. kanten, ‘etwas auf die Seite legen’ (Koolman).

canter, one who cants, a vagrant. B. Jonson, Staple of News, ii. 1 (P. Can.).

cantharides, a kind of flies; Spanish flies; sometimes Aphides. Drayton, Muses’ Elysium, Nymph, viii. 54. Used as a stimulant, Beaumont and Fl., Philaster, iv. 1 (Cleremont). L. cantharides, pl. of cantharis; Gk. κανθαρίς, blister-fly.

canting out, singing out, in a beggar’s whine; ‘ ’Tis easier canting out, “A piece of broken bread for a poor man”, than singing “Brooms, maids, brooms: come, buy my brooms”,’ The London Chanticleers, scene 1 (Heath).

cantle, a part, portion; ‘Liron de pain, a cantle of bread’, Cotgrave; ‘A cantel pars, portio’, Levins. Manipulus. ME. cantel, ‘minutal’ (Prompt. EETS., see note, no. 324). OF. (Picard) cantel = F. chanteau, ‘a corner-piece or piece broken off from the corner, hence, a cantel of bread’ (Cotgr.).

cantle, to portion out, Dekker, Whore of Babylon, i. 1. 9; Dryden, Juvenal’s Satire, vii.

cantore, counting-house, office; ‘A Dutchman’s money i’ th’ Cantore’, Butler, Abuse of human learning (Remains i. 211). Du. kantoor, F. comptoir, a counter.

cantred, a hundred; a district containing 100 townships. Spenser, View of Ireland, Globe ed., p. 676, col. 1. Peele, Edw. I, ed. Dyce, 398. Wel. cantref, a cantred; cant, a hundred + tref, a town. See Ducange (s.v. Cantredus).

canvas: phr. to receive the canvas, to get the sack; i.e. to be dismissed. Shirley, The Brothers, ii. 1 (Luys); give the canvas, to dismiss, Hyde Park, i. 1 (end).

canvasado, a night attack by soldiers. Merry Devil, i. 1. 44. App. a perverted form of [camisado], q.v.; due to confusion with canvass, vb., to knock about, to assault (NED.).

cap, to arrest. Beaumont and Fl., Knight of the B. Pestle, iii. 2 (Host). From. L. capias, the name of a writ; writ of capias, a writ of arrest.

cap a-huff, to set, to cock one’s cap or hat, to put on a swaggering appearance. Greene, James IV, iv. 4. 13. See [huff-cap].

cap of maintenance, a kind of hat or cap worn as a symbol of official dignity, or carried before a sovereign or a high dignitary in processions. In the 17th cent. and later it is mentioned chiefly as borne, together with the sword, before the Lord Mayor, and before the Sovereign at his coronation. Massinger, City Madam, iv. 1; A Woman never vext, i. 1 (Stephen). See NED. (s.v. Maintenance).

capadochio, a prison. Puritan Widow, i. 3. 56; ‘in Caperdochy, i’ tha gaol’, 1 Edw. IV (Hobs), vol. i, p. 72; spelt Capperdochy, id. p. 86. App. for Cappadocia (a bit of university slang).

cap-case, a bandbox, cover, basket. Middleton, The Changeling, iii. 4 (De F.); a small travelling-bag, Gascoigne, Supposes, iv. 3 (Philogano).

caper, a privateer, cruiser. Otway, Cheats of Scapin, ii. 1 (Scapin). Du. kaper, a privateer (Sewel, ed. 1766).

capilotade, a kind of hash, or mixed dish; hence, a hash, a made-up story. ‘What a capilotade of a story’s here!’ Vanbrugh, The Confederacy, iii. 2 (Flippanta). F. capilotade, ‘a capilotadoe, or stued meat’, &c. (Cotgr.).

capnomanster, one who divines from the way in which smoke rises from an altar. For capnomancer, Birth of Merlin, iv. 1. 62. From capnomancy, divination by smoke. Gk. καπνομαντεία.

capocchia, a simpleton. In Tr. and Cr. iv. 2. 33. Fem. of Ital. capocchio, ‘a doult, a noddie’ (Florio).

capot, in the game of piquet, the winning of all the tricks by one player, which scores 40. Farquhar, Sir Harry Wildair, ii. 2 (Wildair); to win all the tricks at the game of piquet against another; ‘I have capotted her’, id. i. 1 (Fireball). F. faire capot (Dict. de l’Acad., ed. 1762).

cappadocian. In Dekker, Shoemaker’s Holiday, v. 1, Eyre, who had come to be Lord Mayor of London, says that he had promised ‘the mad Cappadocians’, who had been his fellow-apprentices, that he would feast them if he ever attained to that dignity. I think it is evidently a jocose expression for mad-caps, with a punning reference to the cap, i.e. the flat-cap, which was the special headgear of the London apprentice, and to which frequent references are made. Just below he varies it to ‘my fine dapper Assyrian lads’.

caprich, a freak, a whim, fancy, sudden giddy thought. Butler, Hadibras, ii. 1. 18; printed capruch, Shirley, Example, ii. 1 (Vainman). Ital. capriccio, ‘a sudden fear apprehended, making one’s hair to stand on end’ (Florio); lit. the bristling of the head (capo + riccio); see note on ‘Caprice’, by A. L. Mayhew, in Mod. Lang. Rev., July, 1912.

capricious, witty. As You Like It, iii. 3. 8; Heywood, The Fair Maid, iii. 2 (Roughman).

capte, capacity. Only in Udall: tr. of Apoph., Preface, p. vi (1877); fol. 23, back (1542); id. Cicero, § 45.

capuccio, a hood. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 12. 10. Ital. capuccio, a cowl.

carabin(e, carbine, a mounted musketeer. Beaumont and Fl., Wit without Money, v. 1 (Merchant). F. carabin, ‘cavalier qui porte une carabine’ (Dict. de l’Acad.).

caract, worth, value. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum., iii. 3. 23 (Kitely); Volpone, i. 1 (Corvino); Magnetic Lady, i. 1 (Compass).

caract, carect, a mark, sign, character. Meas. for M. v. 1. 56; holy Carects, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Golding, De Mornay, iii. 37. ME. carect (Wyclif, Apoc. xx. 4). Prov. caracta, ‘marque, caractère’ (Levy). Norm. F. caractes, pl. caractères magiques (Moisy). L. caracter (Vulg., Apoc. xx. 4), Gk. χαρακτήρ.

caravan (Cant), an object inviting plunder; hence, a dupe, one easily cheated. Shadwell, Squire of Alsatia, i. 1; iv. 1 (Belfond Senior).

caravel, carvel, a kind of light ship. Eden, Three Books on America (ed. Arber, p. 45). Spelt carvel, Beaumont and Fl., Wit without Money, i. 2. 15. F. caravelle, Ital. caravella, Port. caravéla.

carbonado, a piece of flesh scored across and grilled upon coals. Marlowe, 1 Tamburlaine, iv. 4. 47; Coriolanus, iv. 5. 199; Lyly, Sapho, ii. 3. 175; to make a ‘carbonado’ of, King Lear, ii. 2. 42. Span. carbonada, ‘a carbonado on the coles’ (Minsheu).

carcanet, a collar or necklace of jewels. Com. Errors, iii. 1. 4; ‘Captain jewels in the carcanet’, Sonnet 52. 8. Cp. F. carcan, ‘une espèce de chaîne ou de collier de pierreries’ (Dict. de l’Acad., 1762).

card, a chart; esp. the circular card on which the points of the compass were marked. Macbeth, i. 3. 17; Fletcher, Loyal Subject, iii. 2 (Archas). To speak by the card, i.e. with the precision shown by such a card, Hamlet, v. 1. 149. ‘Climes that took up the greatest part o’ th’ card’, i.e. of the map, Heywood, If you know not me (Medina), vol. i. p. 334.

card, to play at cards. Latimer, Sermon on the Ploughers, ed. Arber, p. 25. To card a rest, to set up a rest, at the game of primero (see [rest]), Heywood, The Royal King, vol. vi, p. 32.

cardecu, an old silver coin, a quarter of a crown. All’s Well, iv. 3. 314; v. 2. 35. F. quart d’écu.

carduus benedictus, the Blessed Thistle, noted for its medicinal properties. Much Ado, iii. 4. 72; Beaumont and Fl., Philaster, ii. 2 (Galatea). See Sin. Barth. 14.

care: phr. to take care for, to give attention to. Bible, 2 Kings xxii, and Esther vi (contents).

carect, carrect, a carrack, a ship of burden. ‘Carects or hulks’, North, tr. of Plutarch, M. Antonius, § 36 (in Shak. Plut., p. 213, n. 3); carrects, pl., Com. Errors, iii. 2. 140. Med. L. carraca, see Ducange, and Dozy, Glossaire (s.v. Caraca).

careful, anxious, solicitous. Titus And. iv. 4. 84; Milton, P. L. iv. 983; Bible, Dan. iii. 16. ME. careful, full of care, sorrowful (Chaucer, C. T. A. 1565).

carfe, an incision, cut. Golding, Metam. viii. 762; fol. 104, bk. (1603) ‘Carf’ is in prov. use for the incision or notch made by a saw or axe in felling timber (EDD.).

cargazon, a cargo; ‘A cargazon of complements’, Howell, Foreign Travell, sect. xv, p. 67. Also, a list of goods shipped; Hakluyt, vol. ii, pt. 1, p. 217. Span. cargazon, cargo.

cargo, used as an exclamation. Wilkins, Miseries of inforst Marriage, iv (Butler); Tomkis, Epil. to Albumazar. In both cases the context refers to great riches.

cark(e, anxiety, grief. Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 44; Massinger, Roman Actor, ii. 1 (Paris); ‘Esmoy, cark, care, thought, sorrow, heaviness’, Cotgrave; Levins, Manipulus. In prov. use in the north country; gen. in phr. cark and care (EDD.). ME. cark(e, anxiety (Gamelyn, 760). Anglo-F. cark (kark), charge, load (Rough List). The Norman and Picard form of Central F. charge. See Dict. Cark(e, to be anxious; ‘I carke, I care, I take thought’, Palsgrave; Tusser, Husbandry, § 113. 15; Robinson, tr. More’s Utopia, 107.

carl, a countryman, a churl. Cymb. v. 2. 4; Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 54. Icel. karl, a man, also, one of the common folk; opposed to jarl, as OE. ceorl to eorl.

carl, to act as a carl or churl, to snarl. Return from Parnassus, last scene (Furor). The verb is given as a north Yorksh. word in EDD. (s.v. Carl, sb.¹ 3).

carlot, a peasant. As You Like It, iii. 5. 108.

carnadine, a carnation-coloured stuff. Middleton, Anything for a Quiet Life, ii. 2. 4. Ital. carnadino, a flesh-colour (Florio); carne, flesh.

carnifex, a hangman; hence, a scoundrel. Middleton, A Fair Quarrel, iv. 4 (Capt. Albo). L. carnifex, an executioner.

caroche, a luxurious kind of carriage. Webster, White Devil (ed. Dyce, p. 6); Duchess of Malfi, iv. 2; Devil’s Law-case, i. 2 (Leonora). F. carroche (Cotgr.). Ital. carroccio, a carriage, a ‘caroche’.

carosse, a carriage. Chapman, Byron’s Tragedy, v. i (D’Escures). F. carosse (Cotgr.); Med. F. carrosse.

†carpell. Peele, Edw. I, ed. Dyce, p. 401, col. 1. Sense unknown.

carpet, a table-cloth, a table-cover. B. Jonson, Sil. Woman, iv. 2 (Truewit); Staple of News, i. 2. 2; ‘a carpet to cover the table’, Heywood, A Woman killed, iii. 2 (Jenkin); ‘carpets for their tables’, Heylin, Hist. of the Reformation, To the Reader. It was in this sense that a matter was said to be ‘on the carpet’ (i.e. of the council-table). See Trench, Select Glossary.

carpet-knight, a contemptuous term for a knight whose achievements belong rather to the carpet (the lady’s boudoir) than to the field of battle; ‘Mignon de couchette, a Carpet-knight, one that ever loves to be in women’s chambers’, Cotgrave; Fletcher, Fair Maid of the Inn, i. 1 (Alberto). There was once an order of Knights of the Carpet, so called to distinguish them from knights that are dubbed for service in the field. See NED.

carriage, that which is carried, baggage. Bible, 1 Sam. xvii. 22; Acts xxi. 15; ‘Carriages of an army are termed impedimenta’, Fuller, Worthies of England, Norfolk; manner of carrying one’s body, bodily deportment, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 472; demeanour, behaviour, Com. Errors, iii. 2. 14; moral conduct, Timon, iii. 2. 89; Fletcher, Love’s Pilgrimage, i. 1 (Sanchio); Island Princess, ii. 6. 12.

carricado, a movement in fencing. Nabbes, Microcosmus, ii. 1 (Choler); Marston, Scourge of Villainy, Sat. xi. 57. See NED. (s.v. Caricado).

carvel; see [caravel].

carwitchet, carwhitchet, a pun, quibble, conundrum. B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, v. 1 (Leath.); Shirley, Bird in a Cage, ii. 1 (Morello). See NED. (s.v. Carriwitchet), and Nares (s.v. Carwhichet).

case, a pair; ‘This case of rapiers’, Marlowe, Dr. Faustus, ii. 2 (description of Wrath); ‘A case (pair) of matrons’, B. Jonson, Case is altered, ii. 3. 1; ‘a case of pistols’, Shirley, The Traitor, iii. 1 (Rogers); ‘two case of jewels’, Webster, White Devil (ed. Dyce, p. 46).

case, to skin. All’s Well, iii. 6. 111; ‘A cased rabbit’, Dryden, Span. Friar, v. 2 (Gomez); Vanbrugh, Provok’d Wife, iv. 1 (Taylor). Still in use in the north and the W. Midlands, see EDD. (s.v. Case, sb.¹ 6).

casible, a chasuble. Middleton, A Game at Chess, i. 1 (Blk. Knt.’s Pawn). Med. Lat. casibula (Ducange, s.v. Casula).

caskanet, a word common in the 17th cent., used sometimes in the sense of a necklace set with jewels (or carcanet), sometimes in the sense of a casket. Webster, Devil’s Law-case, i. 2 (Jolenta); Lingua, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, ix. 426. See NED.

cass, to cashier, dismiss; ‘Malandrin, a cassed soldier’, Cotgrave. The pp. was confused with cast, and so spelt. ‘Pontius, you are cast’, Beaumont and Fl., Valentinian, ii. 3 (Aëcius). F. casser, ‘to break, to casse, casseere, discharge, turn out of service’ (Cotgr.). Prov. casar, ‘casser, briser’ (Levy).

cassan, casson, cheese. (Cant.) Harman, Caveat, p. 83. Casson, Brome, Jovial Crew, ii. 1 (Song). Cp. Du. kaas, a cheese.

cassock, a soldier’s cloak or long coat. All’s Well, iv. 3. 191; B. Jonson, Every Man, ii (near the end). The military use is the original; so F. casaque, Span. and Port. casaca, and Ital. casacca. Cp. MHG. casagân, a horseman’s coat (Schade). Probably of Persian origin (through the Arabic), see NED.

cast, for cassed; see [cass].

caster, one who casts dice, in gaming. The setter is one who sets, or proposes, the amount of the stake against him. If the setter wants to propose a very high stake, he says—ware the caster! i.e. let him beware. The caster usually says at all! i.e. I cast against all setters; but he may limit the amount of the stake. Massinger, City Madam, iv. 2 (Tradewell).

caster, a cant term for a cloak. Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Song); Harman, Caveat, p. 82.

casting, anything given to a hawk to cleanse and purge her gorge. Massinger, Picture, iv. 1 (Ubaldo).

casting-bottle, a bottle for sprinkling perfumes. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, i. 1 (Cupid); Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, v. 1 (Livia). So also casting-glass, B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, iv. 4 (Macilente).

castrel, a kestrel, a base kind of hawk. Fletcher, The Pilgrim, i. 1 (Alphonso); Ford, Lady’s Trial, iv. 2 (Futelli). F. cercerelle, a kestrel (Cotgr.).

cat, in military phrase; a lofty work used in fortifications and sieges. B. Jonson, Staple of News, iv. 1 (P. Canter); Shirley, Honoria, i. 2. This military work was also called a [cavalier], q.v. See NED. (s.v. Cat, sb.¹ 6 b).

Cataian, a Cathaian, an inhabitant of Cathay; hence a thief, a scoundrel; because the Chinese were thought to be clever thieves, Merry Wives, ii. 1. 148; Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. II, iv. 1 (Matheo). See Nares.

cataphract, a horse-soldier, protected (as well as his horse) with a coat-of-mail. Milton, Samson, 1619. Gk. κατάφρακτος, one completely protected.

catasta, a jocose term for the stocks. Butler, Hudibras, ii. 1. 259. L. catasta, a stage on which slaves were exposed for sale; Med. L. catasta, an engine of torture (Ducange).

catastrophe, conclusion; (humorously) the posteriors. L. L. L. iv. 1. 77; (2) 2 Hen. IV, ii. 1. 66; Merry Devil, ii. 1. 10.

†Catazaner, only in Shirley, Ball, v. 1 (Freshwater). Perhaps a misprint for Catayaner = [Cataian], q.v.

cater, a caterer, purveyor, buyer of provisions. Massinger, City Madam, ii. 1 (Luke); Sir T. Wyatt, Sat. i. 26. ME. catour (Gamelyn, 321), for Anglo-F. acatour, a buyer. See Dict.

cater-tray, lit. ‘four-three’; alluding to the four and three on opposite faces of a die. Hence stop-cater-tray, the name of a false or loaded die. Chapman, Mons. d’Olive, iv. 1 (Dique). See quatre.

Catherine pear, a small and early variety of pear. Suckling, Ballad on Wedding. Catherine-pear-coloured, of a light red colour, used of a lady’s complexion, Westward Ho, ii. 3 (Birdlime). [Cp. Crabbe, Tales of the Hall, ‘ ’Twas not the lighter red, that partly streaks The Catherine pear that brighten’d o’er her cheeks’ (x. 599).]

catlings, catgut strings for a violin. Tr. and Cr. iii. 3. 306.

catso, a rogue, a scamp. B. Jonson, Every Man out of Humour, ii. 1 (Carlo); also as interj., ‘Cat-so! let us drink’, Motteux, Rabelais, v. 8 (NED.). Ital. cazzo, an interjection of admiration, as some women cry suddenly (Florio); cazzo, ‘membrum virile’.

catstick, a stick or bat used in playing tip-cat or trap-ball. Massinger, Maid of Honour, ii. 2 (Page); Middleton, Women beware Women, i. 2 (Ward).

catzerie, roguery. Only in Marlowe, Jew of Malta, iv. 5. 12.

cauled, having or adorned with a caul or close-fitting cap; ‘My cauled countenance’, Three Ladies of London, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 327. ME., P. Plowman, C. xvii. 351.

causen, to give reasons. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 9. 26. Med. L. causare. (Ducange).

cautel(e, wariness, caution. Elyot, Governour, i. 4; a crafty device, trickery, Hamlet, i. 3. 15. OF. cautele, L. cautela (in Roman Law) precaution. Anglo-F. cautele, deceit (Rough List).

cautelous, cautious, wary. B. Jonson, Devil an Ass, i. 3 (Wit.); Spenser, View of Ireland (Globe ed. 619); crafty, wily, Coriolanus, iv. 1. 33.

cavalier(o. Marlowe, 2 Tamburlaine, ii. 4. 83; iii. 2. 81. Span. cavalléro, ‘in Fortification, a Cavalier, or Mount, which is an Elevation of Earth with a platform for Canon on it, to overlook other Works’ (Stevens, 1706); cp. Ital. cavagliére a cavállo (Florio). F. cavalier, ‘se dit d’une pièce de fortification de terre fort élevée, & où l’on met du canon’ (Dict. de l’Acad., ed. 1762).

cavallerie, an order of chivalry; ‘The knighthood and cavallerie of Rome’, Holland, Pliny, ii. 460; the collective name for horse-soldiers, Bacon, Hen. VII, 74; Massinger, Maid of Honour, ii. 3 (Gonzaga). F. cavallerie, ‘horsemanship; horsemen’ (Cotgr.).

cavell, a mean fellow. Skelton, Magnyfycence, 2217; Lyndesay, Satyre, 2863. See Jamieson.

caveson, a strong nose-piece for a horse, a kind of curb; ‘The Lithuanians, sir, . . . must Be rid with cavesons’, Sir J. Suckling, Brennoralt, iii. 1; ed. Hazlitt, vol. ii, p. 104. F. caveçon, ‘a cavechine or cavasson for a horse’s nose’ (Cotgr.). Ital. cavezzone, augmentative of cavezza a halter; Med. L. capitia, capitium, a head-covering (Ducange). See NED. (s.v. cavesson).

cazimi, cazini: in phr. in cazimi, ‘a Planet is in the heart of the Sunne, or in Cazimi, when he is not removed from him 17 minutes’, Lilly, Astrology, xix. 113; ‘In cazini of the sun’, Massinger, City Madam, ii. 2 (Stargaze); Tomkis, Albumazar, ii. 5. 6; Selden’s notes to Drayton, Pol. xiv (near the end).

cecchin, a sequin, gold coin. Webster, Devil’s Law-case, iv. 2. Ital. zecchino, ‘a coin of gold current in Venice’ (Florio). See [chequin].

cedule, a slip or scroll of parchment or paper containing writing. Caxton, Golden Legend, 114; spelt cedle, Morte Arthur, leaf 421, back, 5, bk. xxi, ch. 2; spelt sedyl (same page). OF. cedule; Med. Lat. cedula, scedula (Ducange), dimin. of sceda, scheda. See NED. (s.v. Schedule).

cee, a small portion of beer; marked in the buttery-book of a college with the letter c, which denoted one-sixteenth of a penny, or half a cue, as being its price. ‘Eate cues, drunk cees’, 1 Part of Jeronimo, ii. 3. 9; see Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 367. ‘Cues and cees’, Earle, Microcosmographie, § 16, ed. Arber, p. 38. See [cue].

cellar, a case or stand for holding bottles. B. Jonson, Magn. Lady, iii. 1 (last line).

cemitare, a ‘scimitar’. Spenser, F. Q. v. 5. 3. F. cimeterre (Cotgr.), Span. cimitarra.

censure, judgement, opinion, Richard III, ii. 2. 144; to form or give an opinion, to estimate, ‘How you are censured here in the city’, Coriolanus, ii. 1. 25.

cent, a game at cards; also spelt saint, sant; it seems to have resembled piquet. Beaumont and Fl., Four Plays in One; Triumph of Death, sc. 5 (Gentille); Shirley, Example, iii. 1 (Confident). So called, because 100 was ‘game’. See Nares.

centener, a centurion. North, tr. of Plutarch, Octavius, § 4 (Shak. Plut., p. 237, n. 2); centiner, id. § 3 (p. 235, n. 2). F. centenier (Cotgr.), L. centenarius, consisting of a hundred; = centurio (Vegetius, fl. A.D. 385).

cento, a patched garment; ‘His apparel is a cento’, Shirley, Willy Fair, ii. 2; used fig., ‘There is under these centoes and miserable outsides . . . a soule of the same alloy with our owne’, Sir T. Browne, Rel. Medici, pt. 2, § 13. L. cento, a garment of patchwork.

centre, the centre of the earth, which was supposed to be also the fixed centre of the universe; ‘The firm centre’, Webster, Appius, i. 3 (Mar. Claudius).

centrinel, centronel, a sentinel. Young, Diana, 120 (NED.); Marlowe, Dido, ii. 1. 323 (Venus).

cerastes, a horned snake. Milton, P. L. x. 525. Gk. κεράστης.

ceration, a reducing to the consistency of wax. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Face). L. cera, wax.

cere, to cover with wax, to shroud in a cere-cloth; ‘Then was the bodye . . . embawmed and cered’, Hall, Hen. VIII, ann. 5. L. cerare, to wax; cera, wax.

cere-cloth, the linen cloth dipped in melted wax to be used as a shroud. Merch. Ven. ii. 7. 51; cp. cerements, Hamlet, i. 4. 48. See [sear-cloth].

certes, certainly. Temp. iii. 3. 30; Com. Errors, iv. 4. 77. F. certes, truly (Cotgr.), O. Prov. certas (Levy).

cestron, a ‘cistern’. Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 1. 52.

cetywall, see [setwall].

ch, a form of ich, utch, southern form of the first personal pronoun I. Cha, I have, More, Heresyes, iv (Works, 278); chad, I had, Udall, Roister Doister, i. 3; cham, I am, Peele, Sir Clyom., Works, iii. 85; B. Jonson, Tale of Tub, i. 1; chave, I have, Peele, Arr. Paris, i. 1 (Pan); chee (for ich), I, London Prodigal, ii. 168; I chid, I should, ii. 1. 20; chill, I will, King Lear, iv. 6. 239; chud, I would, ib. See NED. and EDD.

chacon, a slow Spanish dance, or its tune; ‘Chacon: Two Nymphs and Triton sing’, Dryden, Albion, Act ii (end). F. chaconne (Hatzfeld); Span. chacona (Neuman and B.).

†chaflet, (?) a small platform or stage; ‘He satte vpon a chaflet in a chayer’ [chair], Morte Arthur, leaf 422, back, 2, bk. xxi, c. 3. Only in this passage. Probably the same as OF. chafault, a temporary platform. See NED. (s.v. Catafalque), and Dict. (s.v. Scaffold).

chaldrons, entrails of a calf, &c. Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. I. iii. 1 (Fustigo). Spelt chawdron, Macbeth, iv. 1. 33. Cp. dialect forms, chauldron, Hertford, chaudron, Gloucester, chawdon, Leicester, see EDD. (s.v. Chawdon). OF. chaudun, tripes (Roquefort); cp. G. kaldaunen.

challes, jaws. Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 75; chall-bones, jaw-bones; id. § 86. In common prov. use in England as far south as Bedford, see EDD. (s.v. Chawl). ME. chaul (Wyclif, 1 Kings xvii. 35); OE. ceafl.

cham, khan. The Great Cham, the Great Khan; commonly applied to the ruler of the Mongols and Tartars, and to the Emperor of China. Much Ado, ii. 1. 277; Fletcher, The Chances, v. 3 (Don John). Turki khān, lord, prince. See NED. (s.v. Cham, Khan).

chamber, a small cannon used to fire salutes. 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 57; Massinger, Renegado, v. 8. See NED. (s.v. Chamber. 10 b).

chambering, wanton behaviour in private places. Bible, Romans xiii. 13; Beaumont and Fl., Woman’s Prize, ii. 4 (Citizen). Cp. chamberer, one of wanton habits, Othello, iii. 3. 265.

chamber-lie, see lye.

chamelot, a name originally applied to some beautiful and costly eastern fabric, camlet. Water Chamelot, camlet with a wavy or watered surface. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 11. 45; Holland, Pliny, i. 228; Bacon, New Atlantis (ed. 1650, p. 3). OF. chamelot (Littré).

chamfered, furrowed, wrinkled. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 23. OF. chanfraindre, to chamfer, to furrow, also, to bevel an edge. Possibly for chant-fraindre, which may = Med. L. cantum frangere, to break the edge or side.

champian, champion, the champaign, level open country, Bible, Deut. xi. 30; Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xii. 29; Twelfth Nt. ii. 5. 173; Gosson, School of Abuse, 29.

chandry, chandrie, short for chandlery, the place where candles were kept in a household; ‘Six torches from the chandry’, B. Jonson, Masque of Augurs (Notch). OF. chandel(l)erie.

changeling, a half-witted person. In Middleton’s play ‘The Changeling’, the reference is to Antonio, who enters ‘disguised as an idiot’, A. i, sc. 2. To play the changeling, to play the fool, Middleton, Anything for a Quiet Life, ii. 1 (Mis. Knavesby). See EDD. (s.v. Change. 8).

chank, to champ, to eat noisily. Golding, Metam. viii. 292 (fol. 97), viii. 825 (fol. 105, back).

channel, the neck. Marlowe, 2 Tamburlaine, 1. 3 (Calyphus). See [cannel].

channel-bone, the collar-bone, clavicle. Chapman, Iliad, xvii. 266; Holinshed, Chron. iii. 805; Kyd, Soliman, i. 4. 55. See [cannel].

chapine, a high-heeled shoe. Massinger, Renegado, i. 2 (Donusa); Heywood, Rape of Lucrece, iii. 5 (last Song). See Stanford (s.v. Chopine). Span. chapin, a woman’s high cork shoes (Minsheu). See [choppine].

char, chare, car, chariot. Surrey, A Complaint by Night, 4; Sackville, Induction, st. 7. F. char, a chariot (Cotgr.).

character, handwriting. Rowley, All’s Lost, ii. 6. 6; Meas. for M. iv. 2. 208. F. caractere, a form of writing (Cotgr.).

chare, chary, careful. Golding, tr. Ovid, Met. xiv. 336 (ed. 1593); dear, Golding, Calvin on Deut. xxiii. 134.

chare, charre, a turn of work, an odd job or business. Ant. and Cl. iv. 15. 75; Chare, to do a turn of work, esp. in phr. (This) char(re is char’d, this bit of business is done, Sir Thos. More, iii. 1. 118; Marriage of Wit and Science, in Hazlitt’s Old Plays, ii. 375; Peele, Edward I (ed. Dyce 392); ‘Here’s two chewres chewred’, Beaumont and Fl., Love’s Cure, iii. 2 (Bobadilla). See EDD. (s.v. Chare, sb.¹). OE. cerr, a turn, ‘temporis spatium’ (B. T.).

charet(t, a car, chariot. Spenser, F. Q. i. 5. 32; Bible, Exod. xiv. 6; 2 Kings ix. 16; charettes, carts, Gascoigne, Supposes, ii. 1 (Erostrato). F. charette, a chariot (Cotgr.).

charm, the blended sound of harmonious notes, as of music, children’s voices or song-birds. Milton, P. L. iv. 642; Peele, Arr. of Paris, i. 1 (Pomona); Bunyan, The Holy War (Temple ed., 293); Udall, Erasmus (ed. 1548, Luke ii, fol. xxxii a); charme, to make a melodious sound, Spenser, F. Q. v. 9. 13. ‘Charm’ is in gen. prov. use in the midland and southern counties in the sense of a confused murmuring sound of many voices, of birds, bees, &c.; see EDD. (s.v. Charm, sb.¹). See [chirm].

charm, to control, to silence, as if by a strong charm. Middleton, A Fair Quarrel, v. 1 (Russell). Also, to induce to speak, as by a charm, Ford, Lover’s Melancholy, ii. 1 (Rhetias).

charneco, charnico, a species of sweet wine. From a village so called near Lisbon (Steevens). 2 Hen. VI, ii. 3. 63; Charnico, Puritan Widow, iv. 3. 89; Heywood, Maid of West, iii (Wks. ed. 1874, ii. 301). See Stanford.

chartel, a ‘cartel’, a written challenge. B. Jonson, i. 5 (or 4): Bobadil. Span. cartel, Ital. cartello, dimin. of carta, paper, letter.

chase, a hunting-ground. Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 1. 137; Titus, ii. 3. 255; ‘The chase alwaie open and nothing at all inclosed’, Harrison, Desc. England, ii. 19 (ed. Furnivall, 310). Anglo-F. chace, a hunting-ground, a chase (Rough List).

chatillionte, delightful, amusing. Farquhar, Sir H. Wildair, iv. 2 (Lurewell). F. chatouillant, pr. pt. of chatouiller, to tickle, to provoke with delight (Cotgr.).

chauf, to chafe, heat, vex. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 18, § 2; chauffed, Spenser, F. Q. i. 3. 33. OF. chaufer (F. chauffer), to warm.

chave, for ich have, I have. Peele, Araygnement of Paris, i. 1 (Pan). See [ch].

chawne, a gap, fissure. Holland, Pliny, i. 37; to gape open, id. i. 435; to cause to gape open, to rive asunder, Marston, Antonio, Pt. I, iii. 1 (Andrugio); ‘Crevasser, to chop, chawn . . . rive’, Cotgrave. ‘Chawn’ is in prov. use in the Midlands for a crack in the ground caused by dry weather, see EDD. (s.v. Chaum). See [choane].

cheasell, gravel. Turbervile, Epitaph II. on Master Win, st. 5. Cp. the Chesil Bank (Portland), Chiselhurst, Kent. ME. chisel or gravel, ‘arena, sabulum’ (Prompt. EETS. 82), OE. ceosel, cysel, gravel.

cheat, wheaten bread of the second quality. Chapman, Batrachom., 3; Drayton, Polyolb. xvi, p. 959; cheat bread, Middleton, A Fair Quarrel, iv. 1 (Chough); Eastward Hoe, v. 1 (Mrs. T.); cheat loaf, B. Jonson, Masque of Augurs, vol. vi, p. 123; Corbet, Poetica Stromata (Nares). Bread of the first quality was called manchet. See NED. (s.v. Cheat, sb.²).

cheat (Thieves’ Cant), used in general sense ‘thing’, gen. preceded by some descriptive word. The Cheate (= treyning cheate), the gallows, Winter’s Tale, iv. 3. 28; cackling-cheate, the domestic fowl, Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, v. 1 (Prigg); grunting cheate, a pig (id.); belly-cheat, an apron, id. ii. 1 (Higgen). See NED. (s.v. Cheat, sb.¹ 3). See [backcheat].

cheator, a cheat. Esp. used of one who lived by cheating at dice; Marston, What you Will, v. 1 (Quadratus).

check (in Hawking), a false stoop, when a hawk forsakes her proper game, and pursues rooks, doves, &c. Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, i. 2 (Maria); to fly at check, Dryden, Ann. Mirab. st. 86; check, base game, rooks, &c, Drayton, Pol. xx. 217; Turbervile, Falconrie, 110.

checked, chequered, variegated. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 12. 18; Greene, Friar Bacon, i. 1. 83; spelt chequed, ‘The chequed, and purple-ringed daffodillies’, B. Jonson, Pan’s Anniversary (Shepherd).

checker-approved, approved by one who checks, a controller. Ford, Fancies Chaste, i. 2 (Spadone). See NED. (s.v. Checker, sb.¹ 1).

checklaton, a cloth of rich material; ‘A Jacket, quilted richly rare Upon checklaton’, Spenser, F. Q. vi. 7. 43. OF. chiclaton, also ciclaton (Godefroy). The ME. form was ciclatun (syklatoun); see Juliana, 8, and Chaucer, C. T. B. 1924. See NED. (s.v. Ciclatoun).

chedreux, a kind of perruque. Etheredge, Man of Mode, iii. 2 (Sir Fopling); Oldham, tr. of Juvenal, Sat. iii. 191. From the maker’s name. Also Shaddrew (NED.).

chequin, an Italian gold coin, a ‘sequin’. Pericles, iv. 2. 28 (chickeens in ed. 1608); B. Jonson, Volpone, i (last speech but 8 of Volpone). See Dict. (s.v. Sequin), and Stanford. See [cecchin].

cherry, to cherish, cheer, delight. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 10. 22. F. chérir, to hold dear.

cherry-pit, a children’s game, in which cherry-stones were thrown into a pit or small hole. Twelfth Nt. iii. 4. 129; Witch of Edmonton, iii. 1 (Cuddy).

cheve, to bring to an end, to finish; ‘I cheve, I bring to an ende, Je aschieve’, Palsgrave. OF. chever, to finish (NED.).

cheve, chive, to befall, happen to. Phr. foul cheeve him, ill befall him, Sir A. Cockain, Obstinate Lady, iii. 2; foul chive him, Beaumont and Fl., Knight of the Burning Pestle, i. 3 (Mrs. Merry Thought).

cheveril, kid-leather; used allusively as a type of pliability. Twelfth Nt. iii. i. 13; B. Jonson, Poetaster, i. 1 (Tucca). ME. cheverel, ‘ledyr’ (Prompt.), Anglo-F. cheveril (Rough List), deriv. of OF. chevre, a goat.

chevin, cheven, the chub. Book of St. Albans, fol. F 7, back; Drayton, Pol. xxvi. 244; ‘Chevesne, a chevin’, Cotgrave. ‘Cheven’ is a Yorks. word for the chub (EDD.). OF. chevesne; see Hatzfeld (s.v. Chevanne).

chevisaunce, merchandise, gain (in a bad sense). Coverdale, Deut. xxi. 14. ME. chevisaunce (Chaucer, C. T. B. 1519). OF. chevissance, ‘pactum, transactio, conventio’. Med. L. chevisantia (Ducange).

chevisaunce (as used by Spenser and his imitators), enterprise, achievement, expedition on horseback, chivalry, F. Q. ii. 9. 8.

che vor: in phr. che vor ye. The meaning seems to be ‘I warrant you’, King Lear, iv. 6. 246, but the relationship or etymology of the word vor has not yet been discovered; nothing like it is known to exist in prov. use. Che vore ’un, (?) I warrant him, B. Jonson, Tale of a Tub, ii. 1 (Hilts). Cha vore thee is found in The Contention between Liberality and Prodigality, ii. 3 (Tenacity), in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, viii. 345, ‘What will you give me? Cha vore thee, son . . . Chill give thee a vair piece of three half-pence’. (Here, cha vore thee may be West dialect for ‘I have for thee.’)

chewet, chewit, a chough, fig. a chatterer. 1 Hen. IV, v. 1. 29. F. chouette, a chough, jackdaw (Cotgr.).

chewet, a dish of meat or fish, chopped fine and mixed with spices and fruits. Middleton, The Witch, ii. 1 (Francisca).

chewre, a turn of work; see [chare].

Cheyney; see [Philip].

chiarlatan, a mountebank or Cheap Jack who descants volubly to a crowd. Butler, Hudibras, iii. 2. 971; ciarlitani, pl., B. Jonson, Volpone, ii. 1 (Volpone, Speech, 3). Ital. ciarlatano, a babbler, mountebank, fr. ciarlare, to babble; whence F. charlatan, ‘a pratling quack-salver’ (Cotgr.).

chiaus(e, a Turkish messenger, sergeant, or lictor. Massinger, Renegado, iii. 4; B. Jonson, Alchemist, i. 2. 25. Turkish chāush.

chiause, chouse, one easily cheated, a dupe, gull. Newcastle, The Variety, in Dramatis Personae (‘A country Chiause’). [Cp. Johnson’s Dict., A chouse, a man fit to be cheated.]

chiause, chowse, v., to chouse, to cheat. ‘Chiaus’d by a scholar!’, Shirley, Honoria, ii. 3 (Conquest); ‘And sows of sucking-pigs are chowsed’, Butler, Hudibras, ii. 3. 114, also l. 1010.

chibbal, a young onion with the green stalk attached, Fletcher, Bonduca, i. 2 (Petillius); chibal, B. Jonson, Gipsies Metamorphosed (2 Gipsy). ‘Chibbal’ (‘chibble’) is in gen. prov. use in the Midlands and south-west country, see EDD. (s.v. Chibbole). ME. chibolle (P. Plowman, B. vi. 296). OF. (Picard) chibole (F. ciboule); L. cepulla, dimin. of cepa, onion.

chibrit, sulphur. B. Jonson, Alchem., ii. 1 (Surly). Also spelt kibrit (NED.). Arab. kibrīt, sulphur; cp. Heb. gophrīth, Aramaic, kubrīth.

chiches, chick-peas. B. Jonson, tr. of Horace, Art of Poetry (L. ciceris, l. 249); spelt chittes, Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helthe, iv. 10; Udall, Apoph., Diogenes, 47. F. chiches, ‘sheeps-cich-peason, chiches’ (Cotgr.); OF. chiche (Roman. Rose, 6911).

chiefrie, the payment of rent or dues to an Irish chief. Spenser, View of Ireland (Globe ed., p. 663).

chievance, raising of money. Bacon, Henry VII (ed. Lumby, p. 64). F. ‘chevance, wealth, substance, riches’ (Cotgr.).

child: phr. to be with child, used fig., to be full of expectation. Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, v. 3 (King); also, to long after, desire vehemently, id., Honest Wh., Pt. I, iii. 1 (Viola).

Child Rowland, a young knight; with reference to a scrap of an old ballad. King Lear, iii. 4. 187; Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, ii. 1. 16.

chilis, a large vein. Middleton, A Fair Quarrel, iv. 2. 4 (where it is equated to vena cava). Dyce’s note says—‘Out of the gibbosyte . . . of the liuer there issueth a veyne called concava or chilis’, Traheron, Vigo’s Workes of Chirurgerie, 1571, fol. ix. Gk. φλὲψ κοίλη, vena cava.

chill; as in I chill, for Ich ’ill, I will. ‘Tell you I chyll’, Skelton, El. Rummyng, 1. See [ch].

china-house, a china-shop. B. Jonson, Alchem. iv. 2 (Subtle).

chinchard, a niggard, miser. Spelt chyncherde, Skelton, Magnyfycence, 2517. ME. chinche, a niggard (Chaucer, C. T. B. 2793); Norm. F. chinche, ‘mesquin avare’ (Moisy).

chinclout, a muffler covering the lower part of the face. Middleton, A Mad World, iii. 3 (Follywit). Cp. muffler in Merry Wives, iv. 2. 73.

chine, to divide or break the back of. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 6. 13. Beaumont and Fl., Custom of the Country, iii. 3. 6; ‘Eschiner (échiner), to chine, to break the back of’, Cotgrave. In everyday use in Suffolk (EDD.).

chink, a bed-bug. Fletcher, Love’s Pilgrimage, i. 1 (Hostess). Also spelt chinch. Span. chinche, a bug; L. cimex.

chink, a piece of money. Peele, Sir Clyomon, ed. Dyce, p. 503.

chire, a slender blade of grass, a sprout. Spelt chyer, Drayton, Harmony, Song Solomon, ch. ii, l. 3. ME. chire, ‘genimen’ (Cath. Angl.).

chirm, a confused noise, the mingled din or noise of many birds or voices. Spelt chyrme, Mirror for Mag., Glocester, st. 5; churm, Bacon, Henry VII (ed. Lumby, p. 170). See [charm].

chirr, to chirp like a grasshopper; ‘The chirring grasshopper’, Herrick, Oberon’s Feast, 16.

chitterling, a frill, ruff; esp. the frill down the breast of a shirt. Like Will to Like, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iii. 310; Gascoigne, Delic Diet Droonkardes (NED.). For examples of prov. use see EDD. (s.v. 4).

chitterlings, the smaller intestines of the pig, &c., esp. when fried or boiled. Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. I, iii. 1 (Fustigo); Butler, Hudibras, i. 2. 120. In prov. use in various parts of England (EDD.).

chitty-face, one who has a thin pinched face; used as a term of contempt; ‘You half-fac’d groat, you thin-cheek’d chitty-face’, Munday, Downfall of E. of Huntingdon, v. 1 (Jailer), in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, viii. 188; Massinger, Virgin Martyr, i. 2 (Spungius); ‘Chittiface, puellulus, improbulus’, Coles, Dict. (1679); ‘A chittiface, proprie est facies parva et exigua’, Minsheu, Ductor (1617). OF. chiche-face (chiche-fache), lean face (Godefroy). The word occurs in Rabelais, i. 183 (ed. Jaunet). From this word comes the perverted form chichevache (Chaucer, C. T. E. 1188), the name of a fabulous monster said to feed on patient wives.

chival, a horse; ‘Upon the captive chivals’ (in captivis equis), Turbervile, Ovid’s Ep., 148 b; Mucedorus, Induction, 29, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vii. 204; but here chival may be for ’chieval, achieval, achievement.

chive, cive, a small kind of onion or garlic; ‘Escurs, the little sallad herb called Cives or Chives’, Cotgrave. F. cive (North F. chive), onion; L. cepa, onion.

chive; see [cheve].

choane, a cleft, rift, fissure; ‘Fendasse, a cleft, choane’, Cotgrave. See [chawne].

choke-pear, a rough, harsh pear; also, something impossible to swallow or get over. Lyly, Euphues (ed. Arber, p. 321); Mydas, iv. 3 (end).

choplogic, a contentious, sophistical arguer. Awdelay, Fratern. of Vacabondes, p. 15. Shortened to choploge; ‘Choploges or greate pratlers’, Udall, tr. of Apoph., Antigonus, § 27; Roister Doister, iii. 2 (Merygreek).

choppine, a kind of shoe raised above the ground by means of a cork sole or the like. Hamlet, ii. 2. 445; ‘Pianelloni, great pattins or choppins’, Florio; ‘Corke shooes, chopines’, Marston, Dutch Courtezan, iii. 1 (Tissefew). See Stanford (s.v. Chopine). See [chapine].

chreokopia, a cancelling of debts, or of a part of a debt. Massinger, Old Law, i. 1 (2 Lawyer). Gk. χρεωκοπία, a cutting off of debt.

Christ-cross, Chriss-cross, Crisscross, a cross (✠) placed at the beginning of the alphabet in a horn-book. Hence, Christcross-row, the alphabet, Two Angry Women, v. 1 (Mall); shortened to cross-row, Richard III, i. 1. 55. A similar cross was sometimes used (instead of XII) to mark noon on a clock or dial; hence ‘the Chrisse-crosse of Noone’, Puritan Widow, iv. 2. 85; see Nares.

Christ-tide, Christmas. A term for Christmas, used by Puritans, to avoid the use of the word mass. B. Jonson, Alchem. iii. 2 (Ananias) See NED.

chrysopoeia, the making of gold. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Subtle). Gk. χρυσοποιία.

chrysosperm, seed of gold. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Surly). Gk. χρυσός, gold + σπέρμα, seed.

chuck, darling; a term of endearment. Hen. V, iii. 2. 20; Macbeth, iii. 2. 45; ‘His chuck, that is, his wife’, Earle, Microcosmographie, § 68 (ed. Arber, p. 94). See EDD. (s.v. Chuck, sb.¹ 4).

chuff, a rustic, a clown. Generally applied opprobriously to any person disliked, esp. a rude coarse fellow. 1 Hen. IV, ii. 2. 93; a churlish miser, Nashe, P. Pennilesse (NED.); Massinger, Duke of Milan, iii. 1 (Medina). In prov. use in the sense of surly, ill-tempered, see EDD. (s.v. Chuff, adj.¹ 1). ME. choffe or chuffe, ‘rusticus’ (Prompt.).

church-book, (1) the Bible; (2) the parish register. Both senses are quibbled upon; Massinger, Old Law, i. 1 (1 Lawyer).

ciarlitani; see [chiarlatan].

cibation, a process in alchemy; lit. ‘a feeding’. B. Jonson, Alchem. i. 1 (Dol). From L. cibus, food.

cinoper, ‘cinnabar’. B. Jonson, Alchem. i. 1 (Subtle). Cp. MHG. zinober.

cinque-pace, a kind of lively dance. Much Ado, ii. 1. 77. F. cinq pas, lit. five paces; Littré gives cinq pas et trois visages (five paces, three faces) as the name of an old French dance.

cioppino, a ‘chopine’. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, ii. 1 (Hedon). See [choppine].

circling: phr. a circling boy, i.e. a kind of roarer, one who circumvented and cheated his dupes. B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, iv. 2 (Edgworth). See Nares.

circular, going round-about, indirect. Middleton, A Fair Quarrel, ii. 2 (Physician).

circumstance, detailed and circuitous narration; details, particulars; ‘Without circumstance’, i.e. without further details, Romeo, v. 3. 181; ceremony, formality, ‘Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war’, Othello, iii. 3. 355.

citronise, to bring to the colour of citron; a process in alchemy. B. Jonson, Alchem. iii. 2 (Subtle).

cittern-headed, ugly; because the head of the cittern (a kind of guitar) was often grotesquely carved to resemble a human head. Ford, Fancies Chaste, i. 2 (Spadone). The citterns were mostly found in barbers’ shops.

†city-wires (?); ‘His cates . . . Be fit for ladies: some for lords, knights, ’squires; Some for your waiting-wench, and city-wires’, B. Jonson, Epicoene (Prologue).

civil, sober, grave, not gay; said of colour. Romeo, iii. 2. 10; Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, iii. 2 (Maria); ‘civil-suited Morn’, Milton, Il Pens., 122.

clack-dish, a wooden dish with a lid, carried and clacked by beggars as an appeal for contributions. Middleton, Family of Love, iv. 2 (Gerardine). See [clapdish].

clad, to clothe. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 4. 4; Peele, Poems, ed. Dyce p. 602.

cladder, a man of loose and vicious manners. (Cant.) ‘Cladders? Yes, catholic lovers’, Mayne, City Match, ii. 3 (Bright and Aurelia).

clair-voyant, clear-sighted, having good insight. Clara voyant, Buckingham, The Rehearsal, iii. 1 (end).

clamper up, to gather up together hastily. Ascham, Toxophilus, (ed. Arber, 83). [Sir W. Scott uses the expression ‘to clamper up a story’, in a letter to Joanna Baillie (Feb. 10, 1822).]

clap, a sudden stroke of misfortune; a touch of disrepute. B. Jonson, Alchem. iv. 4. 3; to catch a clap, to meet with a mischance, Heywood, Wise Woman of Hogsdon, iii. 1 (Wise Woman).

clapdish, a wooden dish for alms with a cover that shut with a clapping noise, used by lepers and other mendicants. Massinger, Parl. of Love, ii. 2 (Leonora); Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. II, iv. 1 (Matheo). See [clack-dish].

clapper, a rabbit-burrow. Tusser, Husbandry, § 36. 25; ‘As a cony . . . in his claper’, Fabyan, Chron. pt. vii, an. 1294-5 (p. 395). ‘Clapier, a clapper of conies’, Cotgrave. A Dorset word for a rabbit-hole (EDD.). O. Prov. clapier, ‘garenne privée’ (Levy).

clapperclaw, to beat, to maul. Merry Wives, ii. 3. 67; Tr. and Cr. v. 4. 1. In prov. use in various parts of England, and in Scotland (EDD.).

clapperdudgeon, a cant name for a beggar; a term of reproach. B. Jonson, Staple of News, ii. 1 (P. sen.); Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii. i. 4; Greene, George-a-Greene (l. 909), ed. Dyce, p. 265, col. 1; Harman, Caveat, p. 44. Cp. clapper, the lid of a beggar’s clap-dish; dudgeon was the name of a kind of wood for making handles of knives, &c.

clarissimo, a grandee. Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. I, i. 2. 6. A Span. word, lit. most illustrious.

clary, clare, a pot-herb, the Salvia Sclarea, supposed to be good for the eyes, and so by pop. etym. often spelt Cleare-eie, Clear-eye; ‘Spirits of clare to bathe our temples in’, Davenant, The Wits, v (Thwack); spelt clary, ‘Clary quasi Clear Eye’, W. Coles, Adam in Eden, xxiii. 47. See NED. (s.v. Clary, sb.²).

clary, a sweet liquor made of wine, clarified honey, and spices. Congreve, Way of World, iv. 5 (Mirabell); Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife, iii. 1 (Lord Rake). ME. clarree (Chaucer, C. T. A. 1471). OF. claré, that which is cleared or clarified, see NED. (s.v. Clary, sb.¹).

classhe. See [closh].

claw, to stroke; hence, to flatter. Drayton, Pol. xiii. 186; Marston, Antonio, Pt. II, i. 1 (Piero); Much Ado, i. 3. 18. Phr. claw me, I’ll claw thee, ‘We saye, clawe me, clawe thee’, Tyndal, Expos. John (ed. 1537, 72), see NED.; to claw the back, to flatter, Hall, Sat. i. prol. 11. ‘Claw’ means to flatter in Leic. and Warw., see EDD. (s.v. Claw, vb. 7).

clawback, one who strokes the back; a flatterer; ‘These flattering clawbackes’, Latimer, 2 Sermon bef. King, p. 64; Mirror for Mag., Iago, st. 6; ‘Blandisseur, a flattering sycophant or clawback’, Cotgrave. So in north Yorks. and Leic., see EDD. (s.v. Claw, vb. 10 (b)).

clear, very drunk. (Cant.) Shadwell, Squire of Alsatia, iv. 1 (Belfond Senior).

cleave the pin; see [pin].

cleaze; see [clee].

clee, a claw; ‘Pied d’un cancre, the clee or claw of a crab’, Cotgrave; ‘The clee of a bittor’, Turbervile, Falconrie, 349; cleaze pl., Phaer, tr. Aeneid, viii. 209; Studley, Seneca’s Hercules, 206 b (NED.). See EDD. (s.v. Clee). ME. cle, ‘ungula’ (Cath. Angl.). OE. clēa. Cp. [cleye].

cleeves, cliffs; ‘Dover’s neighbouring cleeves’, Drayton, Pol. xviii; Greene, Friar Bacon, i. 1. 62. ME. clefe of an hyll, ‘declivum’ (Prompt.). Due to OE. cleofu, the plural form, or to cleofe, the dat. of clif. ‘Cleeve’ is very common in place-names in the west of England: Cleeve (Clyffe Pypard) in Wilts.; Church Cleves in Dorset; Old Cleeve, Huish Cleeve, Bitter Cleeve in Somerset.

clem, to starve for want of food. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, iii. 1 (Shift); Poetaster, i. 1 (Tucca). To ‘clem’ (or to ‘clam’) is the ordinary word for starving in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Clam, vb.² 1). The lit. meaning of clam (clem) is ‘to pinch’, still used in this sense in the north country, see EDD. (s.v. Clam, vb.¹ 1. Cp. Dan. klemme, Sw. klämma, to pinch.

clench, clinch, a pun. Dryden, Mac Flecknoe, 83; Prologue to Tr. and Cr. (1679), 27.

clenchpoop, a lout, a clown; a term of contempt. Warner, Albion’s England; bk. vi, ch. xxxi, st. 22; clinchpoop, or clenchpoop, Three Ladies of London, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 256.

clepe, to call. L. L. L. v. 1. 24; Hamlet, i. 4. 19. The pp. is spelt cleeped in Chapman, Gent. Usher, ii. 1 (Pogio); the usual form is the archaic y-clept, spelt y-clep’d in Milton, L’Allegro, 12. OE. clipian, cleopian, to call; pp. ge-cleopod.

clergion, a young songster, fig. of birds. Surrey, Description Restless State, 22; Poems, 72; in Tottel’s Misc. 231. ME. clergeon, a chorister (Chaucer, C. T. B. 1693). F. clergeon.

clergy, clerkly skill, learning. Proverb, ‘An Ounce of Mother-Wit is worth a Pound of Clergy (or Book-learning)’, see NED.; Middleton, Family of Love, iii. 3 (Purge). The privilege of exemption from sentence which might be pleaded by every one who could read; ‘Stand to your clergy, uncle, save your life’, Munday, Death Huntington, i. 3, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, viii. 244. Clergy of belly, respite claimed by a pregnant woman. Butler, Hudibras, iii. 1. 884. ME. clergy: ‘Lewdnesse of clergy, illiteratura’ (Prompt. EETS., 261).

cleye, a claw. Marlowe, tr. Lucan, bk. i, l. 36 from end; B. Jonson, Underwoods, Eupheme, ix. 18; ‘The cleyes of a lobster’, Skinner (1671). ‘Cley’ is an E. Anglian word, see EDD. (s.v. Clee). ME. cley of a beast, ‘ungula’ (Prompt. EETS., 85, see note, no. 383). Cp. [clee].

clicket, to be maris appetens, to copulate. Massinger, Picture, iii. 4 (Eubulus); Beaumont and Fl., Hum. Lieutenant, ii. 4 (Leontius); Tusser, Husbandry, § 77. 9. As a hunting term, it had reference to the fox and the wolf; see Turbervile, Hunting, c. 66, p. 186; c. 75, p. 205.

cliffe, a clef, key, in music. Tr. and Cr. v. 2. 11; Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 1. 159. F. clef.

clift, a cliff. Greene, Orl. Fur. i. 1. 79; p. 90, col. 1; clifte, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 7. 23. The E. Anglian form (EDD.).

clighte; see [clitch].

Clim of the Clough, a proverbially famous archer. Clement of the Glen, in the ballad of Adam Bell. Gascoigne, Flowers, ed. Hazlitt, i. 72; B. Jonson, Alchemist, i (Face). Clem a Clough, Drayton, Pastorals, vi. 36.

clinch; see [clench].

cling, to cause to shrink, shrivel; ‘Till famine cling thee’, Macbeth, v. 5. 40. Cp. prov. use in Ireland and in the north of England, where the word means to wither, contract, also, of cattle, to become thin from want of proper food, see EDD. (s.v. Cling, vb.¹ 4). ME. clyngyn, to shrink, to shrivel (Prompt.). OE. clingan, ‘marcere’ (Ælfric).

clip, to embrace. Wint. Tale, v. 2. 59; Coriolanus, i. 6. 29; iv. 5. 115. Still in use in various parts of England (EDD.). ME. clippen (Chaucer, Tr. and Cr. lii. 1344). OE. clyppan.

clip, to go fast, to run swiftly. Dryden, Annus Mirab. 86. A Suffolk use; see EDD. (s.v. Clip, vb.² 11).

clipped, uttered aloud; ‘Thy clipped name’, Middleton, The Witch, ii. 2 (near the end). See [clepe].

clips, clyps, ‘eclipse’. Berners, tr. of Froissart, ch. 130. Common in the north (EDD.). ME. Clypps of þe son or þe mone, ‘eclipsis’ (Prompt.).

clitch, to bend, clench (the fist). Hellowes, Guevara’s Fam. Ep. 145 (NED.); clighte, pp., Bossewell, Armorie, ii. 119^b. Cp. the west country clitch, to grasp tightly (EDD.). OE. clycchan, pp. geclyht.

clogdogdo, a term of contempt. B. Jonson, Silent Woman, iv. 1 (Otter). A nonce-word.

close fight, a sea term; a kind of screen used in a naval engagement. Marston, Antonio, Pt. I, i. 1 (Antonio). See [fights].

closh, clash, the name of an old game, played with a ball or bowl. Spelt claisshe, Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 27, § 8. See Cowell’s Interpreter and Strutt’s Sports. Closh was orig. the name of the bowl. Du. klos, a wooden Boule (Hexham).

closure, bound, limit, circuit. Richard III, iii. 3. 11; an entrenchment, fortress, Greene, Looking Glasse (ed. 1861, p. 123); Surrey, tr. Aeneid, ii. 296. OF. closure, confine, limits (Dialoge Greg., 74); Late L. clausura, a castle, fort (Justinian).

clote, the yellow water-lily; Nuphar lutea. Fletcher, Faithful Shepherdess, ii. 2. 12. Still in use in the south-west of England, see EDD. (s.v. Clote, (1)). OE. clāte, which was the name of various plants resembling the burdock, see NED.

clottered, clotted. Mirror for Mag., Buckingham, st. 14; ‘Congrée, congealed, clottered’, Cotgrave. Du. kloteren, or klonteren, ‘to curdle or growe thick as milke doth’ (Hexham). See [cluttered].

clout, a piece of cloth or linen, a rag. Hamlet, ii. 2. 537; Richard III, i. 3. 177; hence, clouted, patched, Bible, Joshua ix. 5. In prov. use, esp. in the north, see EDD. (s.v. Clout, sb.¹ 3).

clout, a square piece of canvas, which formed the mark to be aimed at, at the archery butts, L. L. L. iv. 1. 138; 2 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 52.

clout, to cuff heavily, Bible, 2 Sam. xxii. 39; clouted, pp. hit, Beaumont and Fl., Hum. Lieutenant, iii. 7. 1. In gen. vulgar use, see EDD. (s.v. Clout, vb.² 1).

clouted; of cream: clotted, by scalding milk. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Nov., 99; Borde, Dyetarie, 267. A Devon word (EDD.).

clowre, grassy surface, turf. In pl. clowres; Golding, Metam. iv. 301. (L. cespite); viii. 756 (L. terram). ME. clowre, grassy ground (Lydgate).

cloy, to prick a horse with a nail in shoeing; ‘I cloye a horse, I drive a nayle in to the quycke of his foote, jencloue’, Palsgrave; to pierce as with a nail, to gore, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 6. 48; to spike a gun, Beaumont and Fl., The False One, v. 4 (Photinus). OF. cloyer (F. clouer), to nail, deriv. of OF. clo (F. clou), a nail.

cloyer, a pick-pocket’s accomplice. (Cant.) Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Moll). See Nares.

cloyne, a clown, rustic. Mirror for Mag., Rivers, st. 44. The word clown (cloyne) was a late introduction from some Low German source, originally meaning ‘clod, lump’, see NED.

cloyne, cloine, to act deceitfully or fraudulently. Bale, Sel. Wks. (ed. 1849, p. 170 (NED.)); to take furtively, to steal away, Phaer, tr. Aeneid, vi. 524; vii. 364. Probably the same word as OF. cluigner, clugner, cluyner (F. cligner), to wink, often as the expression of secret understanding, cunning, or hypocrisy. See NED.

club, a country fellow; ‘Homely and playn clubbes of the countrey’, Udall, tr. of Apoph., Philip, § 14; ‘Hertfordshire clubs and clouted shoon’, Ray, Eng. Proverbs, 310. Cp. ME. clubbyd, ‘rudis’ (Prompt.).

clubfist, a thick-fisted ruffian. Mirror for Magistrates, Sabrine, st. 10.

clubs! A popular cry to call out the London apprentices, who had clubs for their weapons; also, a cry to call out citizens; as in Romeo, i. 1. 80. There are frequent allusions to this cry; ‘Cry clubs for prentices’, Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, v. 2 (All).

clunch, a clodhopper; ‘Casois, a countrey clown, boore, clunch, hinde’, Cotgrave. In prov. use in Cumberland, Lancashire, and E. Yorks. (EDD.). See NED.

clunch, to clench; ‘His fist is clunched’, Earle, Microcosmographie, § 20; ed. Arber, p. 41.

clunged, drawn together by the action of cold; ‘By the Northern winds . . . clunged and congealed withall’, Holland, Pliny, i. 513; ‘The Earth made clunged with the cold of winter’, B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (NED.).

cluttered, clotted. Marston, Antonio, Pt. II, i. 2 (Alberto); ‘Engrommelé, clotted, cluttered, curded thick’, Cotgrave. In prov. use in Cheshire and Shropshire (EDD.). See [clottered].

cly (thieves’ cant), to seize, take; to steal (NED.). Phr. to cly the Jerk, to be whipped, B. Jonson, Gipsies Metamorphosed (Jackman); Harman, Caveat, p. 84. In Lower Rhenish dialect klauen (kläuen, kleuen) is used in the sense of ‘steal’. See NED.

coals: phr. to carry coals, to be very servile, to submit to insults. Romeo, i. 1. 2. See [colcarrier].

coal-sleck, coal-dust. Drayton, Pol. iii. 280. Cp. prov. E. sleck, slack, small coal.

coart, to confine, restrain; ‘Streatly coarted’, Skelton, Why come ye not, 438; Sir T. Elyot, Governour, i. 138. L. co-arctare, to compress, from arctus, close.

coast, cost(e, the side. Spenser, M. Hubberd, 294; the border, frontier of a country, Bible, Mark vii. 31; Judges i. 18; phr. on even coast, on even terms, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 3. 17. OF. coste (F. côte).

coast, to keep by the side of a person moving. Fletcher and Rowley, Maid Mill, i. 1; to march on the flank of, Berners, Froissart, i. 40. 55; to move in a roundabout course, fig. Hen. VIII, iii. 2. 38; to skirt, Milton, P. L. iv. 782; spelt cost, to approach, Spenser, Daphnaida, st. 6; Venus and Adonis, 870.

coat; see [cote].

coat-card, a playing card bearing a ‘coated’ figure (king, queen, or knave). In regular use till the Revolution, 1688; afterwards perverted into Court-card. B. Jonson, Staple of News, iv. 1 (Madrigal). Also, coat, Massinger, Old Law, iii. 1 (Cook); B. Jonson, New Inn, i. 1.

coath, to faint, to swoon away. Skinner, 1671 (a Lincoln word); ‘To coath (swoon away), Animo linqui, deficere’, Coles, 1679. ‘Coath’ is still used in this sense in E. Anglia (EDD.). ME. cothe, or swownyng, ‘sincopa’ (Prompt.). OE. coðu, disease; cp. coe, a word for a disease of sheep, cattle in W. Somerset, see EDD. (s.v. Coe, sb.¹ 1). See [quoth].

cob, the head of a red herring. Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. II. (Wks., 1873, ii. 147); ‘A herring cob, la teste d’un harang sor’, Sherwood.

cob, cobbe, a wealthy man; a miser; ‘Ryche cobbes’, Udall, tr. of Apoph., Diogenes, § 149; Stubbes, Anat. Abuses, ii. 27 (NED.).

cobbe, a male swan; ‘The hee swanne is called the cobbe, and the she-swanne the penne’, Best, Farm. Bks. (ed. 1856, p. 122). Hence cob-swan, B. Jonson, Catiline, ii. 1 (Fulvia). ‘Cob’ is still in use in Norfolk (EDD.).

cockal(l, a knucklebone of a sheep, with which boys played ‘knucklebones’. Herrick, The Temple, 59; the game played, Cotgrave (s.v. Tales). See Nares.

cockall, a paragon, a pattern, of supreme excellence; ‘He was the very cockall of a husband’, Marston, Antonio, Pt. I, iii. 2. 6.

cockatrice, a name for the basilisk, a serpent supposed to kill by its mere glance, and to be hatched from a cock’s egg. Bible, Isaiah lix. 5; Romeo, iii. 2. 47; applied to a woman of loose life, B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev. iv. 1; Killigrew’s Pandora (Nares). Orig. a name for the crocodile. OF. caucatris (cocatris), crocodile; Med. L. caucatrices, ‘crocodili’ (Ducange); cp. O. Prov. calcatris, crocodile (Levy). See NED.

cock-a-two, cock of two, a cock that has conquered two, a conqueror of two. Little French Lawyer, ii. 3 (La Writ). See Nares.

cockers, leggings, gaiters. Drayton, Pastorals, Ecl. iv; Ballad of Dowsabel, l. 59. In prov. use from the north country to the W. Midlands and E. Anglia (EDD.). ME. cokeres (P. Plowman, C. Text, ix. 59). Probably the same word as OE. cocor, a quiver.

cocket, a ship’s certificate that goods for export had paid duty. Gascoigne, Steel Glas, ll. 258, 1058. Anglo-F. cokette, app. the seal with which the certificate was assured (Rough List).

cocket, pert, saucy, stuck up. Heywood, Rape of Lucrece, ii. 5 (song); Coles Dict. 1677. In prov. use from north country to the W. Midlands, meaning ‘pert, saucy’, also, ‘brisk, merry, lively’ (EDD.).

cockledemois, pl. (perhaps) a natural product of some kind representing money. Chapman, Mask of the Middle Temple, § 2. (Not found elsewhere, except as Cockledemoy, the name of a knave in Marston’s Dutch Courtezan). Dr. H. Bradley suggests that this word may represent Port. coquílho de moeda; coquílho, fruit of an Indian palm; moeda, money.

cockloche, a term of reproach or contempt, a mean fellow, a silly coxcomb. Shirley, Witty Fair One, ii. 2 (Clare); spelt cocoloch, Beaumont and Fl., Four Plays in One, Triumph of Honour, sc. 1 (Nicodemus). F. coqueluche, a hood, also a person who is all the vogue. See Dict. de l’Acad. (1762).

Cock Lorel, the name of the owner and captain of the boat containing jovial reprobates of all trades in a sarcastic poem, Cocke Lorelles Bote, printed c. 1515; used also allusively with the sense of ‘rogue’; ‘Here is fyrst, Cocke Lorell the Knyght’ (ed. 1843, p. 4); ‘Cock-Lorrell would needs have the Devill his guest’, B. Jonson, Gipsies Metam. (Song). See [Lorel].

cockney, (1) a cockered child, a child tenderly brought up, hence (2) a squeamish, foppish, effeminate fellow. (1) Tusser, Husbandry, 183; Baret, Alvearie, C. 729; (2) Twelfth Nt. iv. 1. 15; a squeamish woman, King Lear, ii. 4. 123. ME. cokenay, an effeminate person (Chaucer, C. T. A. 4208); coknay, ‘delicius’ (Prompt.).

cockqueene; the same as [cuckquean].

cockshut time, twilight. Richard III, v. 3. 70. The twilight, or dim light in which woodcocks could most easily be caught in cockshuts. A cockshut, or cockshoot, was a broadway or glade in a wood, through which woodcocks might dart or shoot, and in which they might be caught with nets; see EDD. ‘A fine cock-shoot evening’, Middleton, The Widow, iii. 1. 6; cp. Arden of Feversham, iii. 2. 47.

cocksure, absolutely secure. Skelton, Why Come ye nat to Court, 279; Conflict of Conscience, iii. 3. 1 (in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 67); with absolute security, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 1. 94.

cocoloch; see [cockloche].

cocted, boiled. Middleton, Game at Chess, v. 3. 15. L. coctus, pp. of coquere, to cook.

cod, a bag, Lyly, Mydas, iv. 2 (Corin); a civet-bag, musk-bag, B. Jonson, Epigrams, xix; Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, i. 2 (Livia). OE. codd, a bag.

coddle, to parboil, to stew; ‘To codle, coctillo’, Coles, Dict. 1679; ‘I’ll have you coddled’ (alluding to ‘Prince Pippin’), Beaumont and Fl., Philaster, v. 4. 31. See Dict. In prov. use in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Coddle, vb.³ 1).

codes!, coads-nigs!, cuds me!, ejaculations of surprise, no doubt orig. profane. Codes! Codes!, Beaumont and Fl., Maid’s Tragedy, i. 2 (Diagoras). Coads-nigs!, Middleton, Trick to Catch, ii. 1 (Freedom); Cuds me, ib. (Lucre).

cod’s-head, a stupid fellow, a blockhead. Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. II, v. 2 (Cat. Bountinall). In prov. use in Derbysh. (EDD.).

coffin, pie-crust, raised crust of a pie. B. Jonson, Staple of News, ii. 1 (Pennyboy sen.); Titus And. v. 2. 189. So in prov. use in Lincolnsh. and Hertfordsh., see EDD. (s.v. Coffin, 5).

coft(e, pp. bought. Mirror for Magistrates, Clarence, st. 49; Dalrymple, Leslie’s Hist. Scotland (NED.). M. Dutch coft(e, pret., and gecoft (mod. gecocht), pp. of copen, to buy (Verdam); cp. G. kaufen.

cog, to cheat, deceive, Much Ado, v. 1. 95; to employ feigned flattery, to fawn. Merry Wives, iii. 3. 76; Richard III, i. 3. 48. Still in use in Sussex, see EDD. (s.v. Cog, vb.⁴ 2).

cogge, a kind of ship; chiefly, a ship for transport. Morte Arthur, leaf 82, back, 30; bk. v, c. 3; cogg, a cock-boat, Fairfax, tr. of Tasso, xiv. 58. OF. cogue (Godefroy).

coggle, to coggle in, to flatter continually. Jacob and Esau, ii. 3 (Mido). See [cog].

cohobation, a process in alchemy; a repeated distillation. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Face). See NED.

coil, coyle, to beat, thrash; ‘I shall coil them’, Jacob and Esau, v. 4 (near the end); Roister Doister, iii. 3, l. 7 from end; ‘I coyle ones kote, I beate hym, je bastonne,’ Palsgrave. Hence coiling, a beating, Udall, tr. Apoph., Socrates, § 15. ‘Coil’ has still this meaning in Northumberland, see EDD. (s.v. Coil, vb.³).

Cointree, Coventry. Cointree blue, Drayton, Pastorals, Ecl. 4; Ballad of Dowsabel, l. 63.

†coistered; ‘There were those at that time who, to try the strength of a man’s back and his arm, would be coister’d’, Marston, Malcontent, v. 1. 10. Meaning unknown.

coistril, used as a term of contempt, a low varlet; spelt coystrill Twelfth Nt. i. 3. 43; B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. iv. 2. 137 (Downright). Cp. coistrel, in use in the north country in the sense of a raw, inexperienced lad (EDD.); ‘A coistrel, adolescentulus’, Coles Dict. 1679.

cokes, a simpleton, dupe. B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, i. 1 (Quarlous); Devil an Ass, ii. 1 (Pug); spelt cox, Beaumont and Fl., Wit at sev. Weapons, iii. 1 (Oldcraft).

cokes, to coax. Puttenham, E. Poesie, bk. i, c. 8; p. 36.

colberteen, a kind of open lace, like network. Congreve, Way of the World, v. 1 (Lady Wishfort); Swift, Cadenus and Vanessa, 418. Named from ‘Colbert, Superintendent of the French King’s Manufactures’ (Fop’s Dict. 1690). See NED.

colcarrier, colecarier, a coal-carrier, a low dependant, cringing sycophant; lit. one who will carry coals for another. Golding, tr. of Ovid, The Epistle, p. 2, l. 86. See [coals].

Cold-harbour, Cole-arbour, an old building in Dowgate Ward. Westward Ho, iv. 2 (Justinians); B. Jonson, Sil. Woman, ii. 3 (Morose); Middleton, A Trick to Catch, ii. 1 (Lucre). For an account of the great house called Cold Harbrough, see Stow’s Survey, Dowgate Ward (ed. Thoms, 88. 89).

cole, coal, money. (Cant.) Shadwell, Squire of Alsatia, i. 1 (Shamwell). To post the cole, to pay the money. See NED. (s.v. Cole, sb.³).

coleharth, a coal-hearth, or place where a fire has been made; ‘An Harte passeth by some coleharthes . . . the hote sent of the fire smoothreth the houndes’, Turbervile, Hunting, c. 40; pp. 114-15.

coleprophet; see [col-prophet].

coles: in phr. precious coles, a kind of minced oath. Gascoigne, Steel Glas (ed. Arber, 80); Return from Parnassus (ed. Arber, 50). See NED. (s.v. Precious).

colestaff; see [cowl-staff].

colice, a strong broth, a ‘cullis’. Lyly, Campaspe, iii. 5 (Apelles). F. ‘coulis, a cullis or broth of boyled meat strained’ (Cotgr.).

coll, to embrace. Middleton, The Witch, i. 2 (Hecate); Spenser, F. Q. iii. 2. 34; an embrace, Middleton, The Witch, i. 2. Still in use in Dorset and Somerset, see EDD. (s.v. Coll, vb.¹). OF. coler (La Curne), deriv. of col (F. cou), neck.

colle-pixie, a goblin, mischievous sprite. Udall, tr. of Apoph., Diogenes, § 99. For colt-pixy, a sprite in the form of a colt, which neighs and misleads horses in bogs, a word known in Hants. and Dorset, the Dorset form is cole-pexy, see EDD. (s.v. Colt-pixy).

collet, the part of a ring in which the stone is set. C. Tourneur, Revengers’ Tragedy, i. 1 (Duchess); in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, x. 18. Cp. F. collet, a collar (Cotgr.).

collocavit, used grotesquely to denote some kitchen utensil. Udall, Roister Doister, iv. 7 (Merygreek). There seems to be an allusion to [collock], q.v.

collock, a large pail; ‘Collock, an old word for a Pail’, Phillips, Coles, 1677. A north-country word (EDD.). ME. colok, ‘canterus’ (Voc. 771. 30).

collogue, to deal flatteringly with any one; ‘Trainer sa parole, to collogue, to flatter, fawn on’, Cotgrave; to feign agreement, Marston and Webster, Malcontent, v. 2; to have a private understanding with, ‘They collogued together’, Wood, Life (ed. 1772, p. 172). In prov. use in many parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland in three senses: (1) to talk confidentially, (2) to flatter, to wheedle, (3) to plot together for mischief (EDD.). Cp. L. colloq- in colloquium, with change to collogue under the influence of dialogue, duologue, &c.

collow, to make black or dirty with coal-dust or soot; Middleton, Family of Love, iii. 3. 2; ‘Poisler, to collow, smut, begryme’, Cotgrave; ‘I colowe, I make blake with a cole’, Palsgrave. A Cheshire word, see EDD. (s.v. Colley, vb. 6). ME. colwen, cp. colwyd, ‘carbonatus’ (Prompt. EETS. 91). Cp. [colly].

colly, to blacken. B. Jonson, Poetaster, iv. 3; Mids. Night’s D. i. 1. 145; ‘to colly, denigro’, Coles, Dict. 1679. In prov. use in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Colley, vb. 6). See [collow].

colon, the largest human intestine. To satisfy colon, to satisfy one’s hunger, Massinger, Unnat. Combat, i. 1 (Belgarde); to pacify colon, id., Picture, ii. 1 (Hilario).

colour, a pretence, appearance of right. Two Gent. iv. 2. 3; Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 566; colours, ensigns, standards, 1 Hen. VI, iii. 3. 31; to fear no colours, to fear no flags, no enemy, Twelfth Nt. i. 5. 6.

colour de roy, bright tawny. Marston, Antonio, Pt. II, i. 2 (Balurdo). F. ‘couleur de roy, was in old time, Purple; but now is the bright Tawny, which we also tearm Colour de Roy’ (Cotgr.).

colpheg, to buffet or cuff, Edwards, Damon and Pithias, Anc. Eng. Drama, i. 85, col. 1; in Dodsley (ed. 1780, i. 209). See NED. (s.v. Colaphize).

colprophet, a sorcerer, fortune-teller. Mirror for Magistrates, Glendour, st. 31 and st. 34; spelt coleprophet, J. Heywood, Prov. and Epigr. (ed. 1867, p. 17).

colstaff, colestaff; see [cowl-staff].

colt, to befool, to ‘take in’, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 2. 39; Beaumont and Fl., Wit without Money, iii. 2. From colt (a young horse), used humorously for a young or inexperienced person, one easily taken in. Cp. the prov. use of ‘to colt’, meaning to make a newcomer pay his footing, see EDD. (s.v. Colt, vb.¹ 12).

comand, coming. B. Jonson, Sad Sheph. ii. 1 (Maud.). A northern form.

come off, to pay money, pay a debt. Massinger, Unnat. Combat, iv. 2 (1 Court.); B. Jonson, Tale of a Tub, i. 1 (end); Merry Wives, iv. 3. 12.

com’esta, how is it? how goes it with you? Massinger, Virgin Martyr, ii. 3 (Spungius). Span. cómo está?, how is it?

commandador, a lieutenant; compared to a common sergeant. B. Jonson, Volpone, iv. 1 (Sir Pol.). Span. comendador, ‘a commander, lieutenant’ (Minsheu). The Span. vb. comendar orig. meant ‘to commend’.

commandments, ten, ten fingers, or two fists; jocularly. 2 Hen. VI, i. 3. 145; Udall, tr. of Apoph., Socrates, § 63. [‘Be busy with the ten commandments’, Longfellow, Span. Student, iii. 2 (Cruzado).] Cp. Span. los diez mandamiéntos, the ten commandments; ironically, the ten fingers (Stevens).

commedle, to commix, mingle. Webster, White Devil (Flamineo), ed. Dyce, p. 25.

commence, to take the full degree of Master or Doctor in any faculty at a University; to commence doctor, to take a doctor’s degree, Massinger, Emp. of the East, ii. 1 (Chrysapius); Duke of Milan, iv. 1 (Graccho).

commencement, the great public ceremony, esp. at Cambridge, when degrees are conferred at the end of the academical year. Brewer, Lingua, iv. 2 (Common Sense); ‘In Oxford this solemnitie is called an Act, but in Cambridge they use the French word Commensement’, Harrison, Descr. England, bk. ii, ch. 3 (ed. Furnivall, 75).

commodity, wares, merchandise; esp. a parcel of goods sold on credit by a usurer to a needy person, who immediately raised some cash by reselling them at a lower price, often to the usurer himself; ‘He’s in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger’, Measure for M. iv. 3. 5; advantage, profit, ‘I will turn diseases to commodity’, 2 Hen. IV, i. 2 (end); Bacon, Essay 41, § 1.

communicate, to share in, partake of; ‘Thousands that communicate our loss’, B. Jonson, Sejanus, iii. 1 (Tib.).

communication, conversation, talk. Bible, Luke xxiv. 17; Eph. iv. 29; this rendering of the Gk. λόγος is due to Tyndal, ‘communicacion’; ‘(Cardinal Morton), gentill in communication’, More, Utopia (ed. Arber, 36).

companiable, sociable, companionable. Bacon, Henry VII, ed. Lumby, p. 217. ME. companyable, ‘socialis’ (Prompt.). A deriv. of OF. compain, orig. nom. of compagnon; Anglo-F. cumpainz (Ch. Rol. 285).

companion, used as term of contempt, a fellow. Com. of Errors, iv. 4. 64; 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 102. Cp. the use of kumpân (OF. compain) in the MLG. poem Reinke de Vos, 1984 (ed. Bartsch, p. 293).

compass, to obtain, win (an object). Two Gent. ii. 4. 214; Pericles, i. 2. 24; Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 28.

compass, range, arc described by an arrow. Ford, Witch of Edmonton, ii. 2 (Somerton); Ascham, Toxophilus (ed. Arber, 145).

complement, that which goes to ‘complete’ the character of a gentleman in regard to external appearance or demeanour. Hen. V, ii. 2. 134; B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, i. 1 (Carlo).

complimentary, a master of defence, who published works upon the compliments and ceremonies of duelling. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, v. 2 (Crites).

compromit, to submit, esp. to submit to a compromise. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. iii, c. 4, § 2. F. compromettre, to put unto compromise (Cotgr.).

compter, a ‘counter’, for children to play with. Conflict of Conscience, iv. 5 (Conscience); in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 108.

comptible, liable to give an ‘account’ of, sensitive to. Twelfth Nt. i. 5. 186.

comrogue, a fellow-rogue. Massinger, City Madam, iv. 1. 10; B. Jonson, Masque of Augurs (Groom). A jocular word; for comrade. Also comrague, Webster, Appius, iv. 2 (1 Soldier); Heywood and Brome, Lancashire Witches, 1634 (sig. K., Dyce).

con: phr. to con thanks, to acknowledge thanks, to be grateful. All’s Well, iv. 3. 174; Timon, iv. 3. 428. See NED. (s.v. Con, vb.¹ 4).

con., short for contra, against; ‘Now for the con’, Beaumont and Fl., Nice Valour, iii. 2 (Lapet). Cp. the phrase pro and con.

concavite, concave or hollow sphere of the sky; ‘Where is become that azure concavite?’ (riming with infinite), Mirror for Mag., Robert of Normandy, st. 113.

conceit, what is conceived in the mind, conception, idea. Othello, iii. 3. 115; Merch. Venice, iii. 4. 2; faculty of conceiving, mental capacity, As You Like It, v. 2. 60; imagination, fancy, 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 263; used of articles of fanciful design, Mids. Night’s D. i. 1. 33.

conceited, full of imagination or fancy; ‘The conceited painter’, Lucrece, 1371; disposed to playful fancy, Webster, Devil’s Law-case, ii. 3 (Ariosto); B. Jonson, Every Man in Humour, iii. 2. 29; curiously designed, Chapman, Homer, Iliad ix, 85; conceitedly, ingeniously, Middleton, Mayor of Queenboro’, iii. 3 (Vortigern).

conceive, to understand, to take the meaning of (a person); ‘Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet Coz’, Merry Wives, i. 1. 250; Spenser, State Ireland (Works, Globe ed. 666).

concent, harmony, concord. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 12. 5; (consent), Hen. V, i. 2. 181. L. concentus, a singing together.

concinnitie, harmony, congruity, propriety. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 20, § last but one. L. concinnitas.

conclusions, to try, to try experiments, or an experiment. Hamlet, iii. 4. 195; Massinger, Duke of Milan, iv. 1 (near end).

concrew, to grow together. Only in Spenser, F. Q. iv. 7. 40. Cp. F. concrû, pp. of concroítre.

cond, taught. Only in Drayton, Pol. xii. 206. See NED. (s.v. Con, vb.¹ 5).

condiscend, for condescent, acquiescence, agreement, consent; lit. condescension. Kyd, Span. Tragedy, iii. 14. 17.

condition, provision, stipulation; = on condition that, Tr. and Cr. i. 2. 78; Massinger, Old Law, ii. 1 (Simonides); Shirley, Young Admiral, iii. 2 (Fabio); mental disposition, temper, character, Merch. Ven. i. 2. 143; Hen. V, v. 1. 83.

condog, to concur, ‘Concurre? condogge?’, Lyly, Gallathea, i. 1 (Raffe); ‘To agree, concurre, cohere, condog’; Cockeram’s Dict. (1642), second part. A whimsical alteration of concur, made by substituting dog for cur. The usual tale about this word is wholly without foundation; see NED.

conduct, conductor. Richard II, iv. 157; Romeo, iii. 1. 129; v. 3. 116.

conduction, guidance, leadership. North, tr. of Plutarch, Coriolanus, § 21 (in Shak. Plut., p. 40, n. 7); Robinson, tr. of Utopia, bk. ii; ed. Arber, p. 138. L. conductio; from conducere, to conduct.

coney, a rabbit. In compounds: Cony-burrow, a rabbit-warren, Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. II, iii. 1 (Orlando), spelt coney borough, B. Jonson, Tale of a Tub, iii. 1 (Medlay); coney-catch, to cheat, dupe, Merry Wives, i. 1. 128; Humour out of Breath, iv. 3 (Hortensio); conie-catcher, a cheat, Sir Thos. More, i. 4. 205; coney-garth, a rabbit-warren, Palsgrave; spelt cony gat, Peele, Works (ed. Dyce, p. 579); conyger, Horman, Vulgaria (NED.); conygree, Turbervile, Venerie, 184. For etymology of these ‘coney’ words see NED.

confine, to send beyond the confines, to banish. Webster, Appius, v. 3 (Virginius). Dyce gives five more examples, all from Heywood. And see Dyce’s Webster, p. 375.

confins, inhabitants of adjacent regions. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 20, § 12. L. confines, pl., neighbours.

confluent, affluent, abounding in. Chapman, tr. of Homer, Iliad ix, 157. In this sense found only here.

congee, a bow; orig. at taking one’s leave. Dryden, Prol. to The Loyal Brother, 25; Marlowe, Edward II, v. 4; to take ceremonious leave, ‘I have congied with the Duke’, All’s Well, iv. 3. 103. OF. congie, leave of absence, dismission. See Dict.

conglobate, gathered as into a globe, compressed. Dryden, Death of Lord Hastings, 35.

congrue, fitting, suitable; ‘Congrue Latine’, Latin that can be parsed, Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 15, § 1. F. congru (Littré); L. congruus, agreeing, suitable.

congrue, to agree, accord. Hen. V, i. 2. 182 (Qu.); Hamlet, iv. 3. 66 (Qq.). L. congruere.

conjure, to call upon solemnly, to adjure. Two Gent. ii. 7. 2; Hamlet, iv. 3. 67; to influence by incantation, or the adjuring of spirits, Timon, i. 1. 7; to swear together, to conspire, Milton, P. L. ii. 693; Spenser, F. Q. v. 10. 26.

consilliadory, pl. councillors. City Nightcap, i. 1 (Abstemia); iii. 1 (Lorenzo). Ital. consigliatori, pl.; from consiglio, council.

consort, a ‘concert’ of musical instruments. Webster, Devil’s Law-case, 1. 23 from the end; Northward Ho, ii. 1; Beaumont and Fl., King and No King, v. 2 (Lygones).

conster, to construe; a common spelling in old editions of Shakespeare, &c.

consumedly, excessively; ‘I believe they talked of me; for they laughed consumedly’, Farquhar, Beaux Stratagem, iii. 1 (Scrub); consumedly in love’, id., iii. 2 (Scrub).

conteck, strife, discord. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 1. 64; Shep. Kal., May, 163; Sept., 86. ME. contek, strife (Chaucer, C. T. A. 2003, B. 4122). Anglo-F. contec, ‘débat, querelle’ (Moisy); contention (Gower, Mirour, 4647). See Dict. M. and S.

continent, one of the concentric ‘spheres’ in the Ptolemaic system of astronomy; each hollow crystal sphere carried with it one of the seven planets that revolved round the earth, each planet being attached to the concave surface of its own sphere. ‘As true . . . as doth that orbed continent [that spherical solar shell retain] the fire That severs day from night’ [i.e. the sun], Twelfth Nt. v. 1. 278; ‘Nor doth the moon no nourishment exhale From her moist continent to higher orbs’ (i.e. from her own sphere to the spheres beyond), Milton, P. L. v. 422; ‘All subject under Luna’s continent’, Greene, Friar Bacon, iii. 2 (1148); scene 9. 62 (W.); p. 167, col. 2 (D); ‘Luna, . . . trembling upon her concave continent’, iv. 1 (1543); scene 11. 15 (W.); p. 172, col. 1 (D.). Cp. ‘Judging the concave circle of the sun To hold the rest in his circumference’, Greene, Friar Bacon, iii. 3 (1122); scene 9. 36 (W.); p. 167, col. 1 (D.).

contrive, to wear out, to spend; ‘Three ages, such as mortall men contrive’, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 9. 48; Tam. Shrew, i. 2. L. contrivi, pt. t. of conterere, to wear away; cp. ‘totum hunc contrivi diem’, Terence, Hec. 5. 3. 17. Not the same word as mod. E. contrive. See Nares.

conundrum, a whim, crotchet, conceit. B. Jonson, The Fox, v. 7 (Volpone).

convent, to convene, summon together, summon. Coriolanus, ii. 2. 59; Spenser, F. Q. vii. 7. 17.

convert, to cause to return, to bring back; ‘Or if I stray he doth convert, And bring my minde in frame’, Herbert, Temple, Ps. xxiii; to turn aside from (intrans.), ‘When thou from youth convertest’, Sh. Sonn. xi.

convertite, a professed convert to a religious faith, Marlowe, Jew of Malta, i. 2 (Barabas); a person converted to a better course of action, King John, v. 1. 19.

convey, a cant term for to steal. Merry Wives, i. 3. 52; Richard II, v. 317. Hence conveyance, trickery, artifice, 3 Hen. VI, iii. 3. 160.

convince, to overcome, overpower; ‘I will with wine and wassal so convince’, Macbeth, i. 7. 64; Spenser, F. Q. iii. 2. 21; to prove a person to be guilty, ‘Which of you convinceth mee of sinne?’ Bible, John viii. 46; Tr. and Cr. ii. 2. 129; Webster, Appius and Virg. v. 3; Mirror for Mag., Glocester. st. 43; to refute in argument, ‘It sufficeth to convince atheism, but not to inform religion’, Bacon, Adv. Learning, ii. 681.

convive, one who feasts with others, a table-companion. Beaumont, Psyche, x. 211; to feast together, Tr. and Cr. iv. 5. 272. F. convive, a guest; L. conviva, one who lives or feasts with others.

cony; see [coney].

cooling card, a winning card in a card-game, that dashes the hopes of the adversary. 1 Hen. VI, v. 3. 84; Beaumont and Fl., Faithful Friends, ii. 2 (Flavia).

copartiment, a compartment, panel. Webster, Devil’s Law-case, i. 2 (last line). Ital. compartimento, a partition.

copatain hat, a high-crowned hat (?). Tam. Shrew, v. 1. 69; ‘A copetain hatte made on a Flemmishe blocke’, Gascoigne, Works, i. 375. Prob. the same as copintank, copentank, a high-crowned hat in the form of a sugar-loaf; ‘A high cop-tank hat,’ North, tr. of Plutarch, M. Antonius, § 30. See NED. (s.v. Copintank).

cope, a purchase, bargain. Greene, Friar Bacon, i. 3 (351); scene 3. 5 (W.); p. 157, col. 1 (D.). Cp. ‘cope’, a prov. word meaning to exchange, barter, heard in the north country and E. Anglia, see EDD. (s.v. Cope, vb.² 1). Dutch koop, a sale, a buying. See Dict. (s.v. Cope, 3).

copel, a small pot made of bone-ash, used for melting gold or silver. Sir T. Browne, Urn-burial, ch. iii, § 18. Spelt coppell, Bacon, Sylva, § 799. F. coupelle, ‘a Coppell, the little Ashen pot or vessel wherein Goldsmiths melt or fine their Metals’ (Cotgr.); see Estienne, Précellence, 142 (Lexique-Index, 400). Coupelle is a deriv. of coupe, a cup. Med. L. cuppa (Ducange). See NED. (s.v. Cupel).

copeman, a chapman. B. Jonson, Volpone, iii. 5 (Vol.). See [cope].

copemate, copesmate, a person with whom one ‘copes’ or contends, an adversary. Golding, Metam. xii (ed. 1593, 279); Chapman, All Fools, ii (Valerio); a companion, comrade, Greene, Upstart Courtier (ed. 1871, 4), used fig. Lucrece, 925; female copesmate, mistress, paramour, B. Jonson, Every Man, iv. 10 (Knowell).

coppe, the top, summit. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 202. 18; lf. 232, back, 26. Hence copped, peaked, Pericles, i. 1. 101; ‘High-copt hats’, Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 1163. ME. cop: ‘the cop of the hill’ (Wyclif, Luke iv. 29). OE copp.

copy, abundance, copiousness. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, ii. 1 Carlo); Magn. Lady, ii. 1 (Placentia). L. copia.

copy, copyhold, tenure of land ‘by copy’, i.e. according to the ‘copy’ of the manorial court-roll, used fig. Macbeth, iii. 2. 38.

coracine, a kind of fish like a perch, found in the Nile. Middleton, Game at Chess, v. 3. 10. L. coracinus, Gk. κορακῖνος, from κόραξ, a raven, from its black colour.

corant; see [courant].

coranto, a quick dance. Hen. V, iii. 5. 33; Shirley, Lady of Pleasure, iii. 2 (Kickshaw). Ital. coranto, ‘a kinde of French dance’ (Florio); cp. F. courante, ‘a curranto’ (Cotgr.). See [courant].

corasive, a sharp remedy, severe reproach. Lyly, Euphues (ed. Arber, p. 154). See [corsive].

corbe, short for corbel. Only in Spenser, F. Q. iv. 10. 6.

corbe, courbe, bent, crooked. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 56. ME. courbe (Gower, C. A. i. 1687). F. courbe, L. curvus.

corbed up, (prob.) controlled, as by a curb, curbed. Marston, Antonio, Pt. II, ii. 1 (Pandulfo).

cordwain, Spanish leather, orig. made at Cordova. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 2. 6; Drayton, Eclogues, iv. 177. Spelt cordevan, Fletcher, Faith. Shepherdess, i. 1. 21. Span. cordován, Spanish leather (Stevens).

coresie, vexation, a corroding, gnawing annoyance. Tusser, Husbandry, § 19. 24. In prov. use in Cornwall, see EDD. (s.v. Corrosy). F. corrosif (Cotgr.); for the change of suffix, cp. hasty, the E. representative of F. hastif. See [corsive].

corned, horned, peaked, pointed; said of shoes. Skelton, Maner of the World, 26; Greene, Description of Chaucer, 13; ed. Dyce, p. 320. Cp. F. corné, horned (Cotgr.).

cornel, a little grain, granule; ‘Bread is of many cornels compounded’, Conflict of Conscience, iv. 1 (Philologus); in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 83.

cornel, a javelin made of cornel-wood. Used to translate L. cornus, Dryden, tr. Aeneid, xii. 406.

cornelian, the fruit of the cornel-tree. Bacon, Essay 46, § 1.

cornes, pl. kinds of corn; corn. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 8, back, 4; lf. 88. 14.

cornet, a troop of horse; so called from its standard, which was a long horn-shapen pennon. 1 Hen. VI, iv. 3. 25; Kyd, Span. Tragedy, i. 2. 41. F. cornette, ‘a Cornet of Horse; the Ensign of a horse-company’ (Cotgr.).

cornet, a head-dress formerly worn by ladies; ‘Her cornet blacke’, Surrey, Complaint that his Ladie kept her face hidden, 2; in Tottel’s Misc., p. 12. F. cornette, a horned head-dress; dim. of corne, a horn.

cornet, some kind of ornament (?); ‘With cornets at their footmen’s breeches’, Butler, Hudibras, iii. 2. 872.

cornuto, a cuckold. Merry Wives, iii. 5. 71. Ital. cornuto, a cuckold; lit. ‘furnished with horns’ (Florio).

coronal, a wreath of flowers, a garland. Fletcher, Faith. Shepherdess, i. 1. 11; Spenser, F. Q. iii. 5. 53.

coronel, a ‘colonel’. Spenser, View of Ireland, Globe ed., p. 656, l. 9; lieutenant-coronel, B. Jonson, Every Man, iii. 5 (Knowell). Span. coronel, Ital. colonello, ‘a Colonel of a Regiment’ (Florio); a deriv. of colonna, cp. F. colonne de troupes, a column, a formation of troops narrow laterally and deep from front to rear; see Hatzfeld.

correption, reproof, rebuke. Udall, tr. of Apoph., Philip, § 30: Augustus, § 12. L. correptio; deriv. of corripere, to reprove.

corrigidor, corregidor, a Spanish magistrate. Machin, Dumb Knight, v. 1 (Cyprus); Kyd, Span. Tragedy, iii. 13. 58. See Stanford.

corrol, to crimson, to make like ‘coral’; ‘The . . . sunne corrols his cheeke’, Herrick, A Nuptial Verse to Mistress E. Lee, 4.

corser, a dealer, esp. a horse-dealer. Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 119. 15; spelt courser, Beaumont and Fl., The Captain, v. 1 (Father). ME. corser, Wyclif, Works (ed. 1880, p. 172); corsowre of horse, ‘mange’ (Prompt. 94), Anglo-F. cossour, A.D. 1310, see Riley’s Memorials of London, Pref., p. xxii, Med. L. cociatorem, a broker, factor, dealer, cp. cocio (Ducange). The Ital. cozzone, a horse-courser (Florio), is from coctionem, a later form of cocionem, see Diez, 112.

corsive, for corrosive; anything that corrodes, grief, distress. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, i. 1. 7; Spenser, F. Q. iv. 9. 14; Drayton, Barons’ Wars, iv. 14. See [coresie].

cortine, a curtain (military term); a plain wall in a fortification; the wall between two bastions, &c. B. Jonson, Staple of News, iv. 1 (P. Can.). F. courtine (cortine), a curtain; and (in fortification) the plainness of the wall between bulwark and bulwark (Cotgr.); in the same sense Ital. cortina (Florio).

coscinomancy, divination by means of a sieve. From Gk. κόσκινον, a sieve; and suffix -mancy, as in necro-mancy, &c. Hence the compound necro-puro-geo-hydro-cheiro-coscino-mancy. Tomkis, Albumazar, ii. 3 (Alb.), where puro- should be pyro-. Sometimes the sieve was suspended by a thread; otherwise, it was used in conjunction with a pair of shears, as described in Brand, Popular Antiq. iii. 351; cp. Butler, Hudibras, ii, 3. 569.

coshering, the right claimed by Irish chiefs of quartering themselves upon their dependants. Davies, Why Ireland (ed. 1747, 169); feasting, Shirley, St. Patrick, v. 1 (2 Soldier); also, coshery, feasting, Stanyhurst tr. Virgil, Aeneid i, 707. Spenser in his State of Ireland mentions cosshirh as one of the customary services claimed by the Irish Lord (ed. Morris. 623). Ir. cóisir, feasting, entertainment (Dinneen). ‘In modern times coshering means simply a friendly visit to a neighbour’s house to have a quiet talk’, Joyce, English as we speak it in Ireland, 240.

cosier; see [cozier].

cosset, a pet lamb. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Nov., 42; also fig. B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, i. 1 (Mrs. Litt.). In prov. use in Glouc., E. Anglia, and Kent, meaning a lamb or colt brought up by hand, also, an indulged child, a pet animal (EDD.).

cost, the rib of a ship. B. Jonson, Staple of News, iii. 1 (Cymbal). L. costa (navium) (Pliny).

cost; see [coast].

costard, the head. Applied jocularly to the head, as being like a very large apple. ME. costard, an apple; lit. a ‘ribbed’ apple; from OF. coste, L. costa, a rib. Hence costard-monger or coster-monger, orig. a seller of apples. See EDD.

coste, to move beside; to keep up with a hunted animal. Morte Arthur, leaf 382, back, 19; bk. xviii, c. 19. See [coast].

cot, cott, a little boat. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 9. Many places in Ireland derive their names from this ‘cot’; see Joyce. Irish Names of Places, i. 226. Still in use in the north of Ireland, see EDD. (s.v. Cot, sb.⁴). Irish coit, coite, a small boat, a skiff (Dinneen), Gael. coit, a kind of canoe used on rivers (Macleod).

cote, coat (in coursing), of one of two dogs running together: to pass by its fellow so as to give the hare a turn (NED.); fig. to pass by, to outstrip. Hamlet, ii. 2. 330; L. L. L. iv. 3. 87; Chapman, Iliad, xxiii. 324; coat, the action of coting, Drayton, Pol. xxiii (ed. 1748, p. 356).

cote, to quote. Udall, Paraph. N.T., Pref. (NED.); Middleton, A Mad World, i.2 (Cour.).

cothurnal, tragic; ‘Cothurnal buskins’, B. Jonson, Poetaster, v. 1 (Tucca). L. cothurnus; Gk. κόθορνος, a high boot. The cothurnus was worn by actors of tragedy.

cot-quean, the housewife of a labourer’s hut. Nashe, Almond for Parrat, 5; a coarse, vulgar, scolding woman, B. Jonson, Poetaster, iv. 3 (Jupiter addressing Juno); used contemptuously of a man who acts the housewife, and busies himself unduly in household matters, Romeo, iv. 4. 9; Addison, Spect. (1712) No. 482; spelt quot-quean, Beaumont and Fl., Love’s Cure, ii. 2. 6; to play the cotqueane, Heywood, Gunaik. iv. 180 (NED.). Cp. use of cot and molly-cot in Cheshire and Yorkshire, see EDD. (s.v. Cot, sb.¹ 1).

Cotswold, pronounced Cotsal in Shaks., Fol. 1, Merry Wives, i. 1. 93; a Cotsal man, an athletic man, such as lived in the Cotswold Hills, a district famous for athletic sports, 2 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 23; a Cotsold lion, a humorous expression for a sheep of that country, Udall, Roister Doister (ed. Arber, 70), iv. 6 (Merygreek). ‘As fierce as a lion of Cotswold, i.e. a sheep’, Fuller’s Worthies (Bohn’s Proverbs, 204).

cotton: in phr. this geer (or gear) will cotton, this stuff will come to a good nap, this thing will succeed. Fletcher, Mons. Thomas, iv. 8 (Thomas); Middleton, Inner Temple Masque (Second Antimasque).

couch, to place, arrange, order. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. ii, c. 7, § 6; to cause to cower, Lucrece, 507; to place a lance in rest, 1 Hen. VI, iii. 2. 134.

couch: in phr. to couch a hogshead, to lie down and sleep. (Cant.) Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Song); Harman, Caveat, p. 84.

couchee, an evening court-reception. Dryden, Hind and Panther, i. 516; ‘The King’s Couchée’, Etherege, Man of Mode, iv. 1; the equivalent of Le Coucher du Roi, or simply Le Coucher, the reception which preceded the king’s going to bed. Cp. Dict. Acad. Fr. 1786 (s.v. Coucher, s.m.), ‘Il se trouve au lever et au coucher du Roi.’ For the E. form of the word compare our levee for F. lever, ‘réception dans la chambre d’un roi au moment où il se lève’ (Hatzfeld).

couch-quail, to play. The same as to couch as a quail; to cower, crouch down; see Thersytes, 20; Skelton, Speke Parrot, 420. Cp. Chaucer’s ‘Thou shalt make him couche as dooth a quaille’ (C. T. E. 1206).

coul, to trim the feather of an arrow along the top. Ascham, Toxophilus, pp. 128, 129, 131, 133. Cp. cowl, to gather, collect, scrape together, a north-country word, see EDD. (s.v. Cowl, vb.² 1).

could, coud, couth, pt. t., knew, knew how to. Spenser, F. Q. v. 7. 5; Shep. Kal., Jan., 10. (Common). See [can].

couleuvre, a snake. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 92. 21; spelt couleure, id., lf. 91, back, 19. F. couleuvre.

countant, accountant; liable to be called upon to give account. Heywood, Rape of Lucrece, i. 1 (Tarquin).

countenance, bearing, demeanour, behaviour; authority, favour, credit; show of politeness. As You Like It, i. 1. 19; Tam. Shrew, i. 1. 234; 1 Hen. IV, i. 2. 33; Udall, Roister Doister, iii. 3 (end). The senses are variable and elusive.

counter, an encounter. Spenser, Tears of the Muses, 207.

counter, a counter-tenor voice. Witch of Edmonton, ii. 1 (3 Clown). See the context.

counter, compter, a prison, chiefly for debtors, attached to a city court; ‘One o’ your city pounds, the counters’, B. Jonson, Every Man, ii. 1 (Downright). The sheriffs of London had each his compter; one was in the Poultry, the other in Wood Street, Cheapside. There were three degrees of rooms for the prisoners: those on the Master’s side (the best), the Twopenny Ward, and the Hole (for the poorest), Middleton, Roaring Girl, iii. 3 (Sir Alexander). Those in the Hole were fed from ‘the basket’; see [basket]. Note that, according to Gascoigne, there were three Counters, the third being in Bread Street. ‘In Woodstreat, Bredstreat, and in Pultery’, Steel Glas, 791. In Stow’s Survey of London ‘the Compter in the Poultrie’ is mentioned (ed. Thoms, p. 99), and ‘the Compter in Bread Street’ (ib., p. 131).

counterfeit, a likeness, portrait, Merch. Ven. iii. 2. 115; Timon, v. 1. 83. Phr. a pair of counterfeits, used in the sense of vamps, or fore-parts of the upper leather of a shoe, Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, iv. 2 (Firk).

counterfesaunce, counterfeiting, dissimulation. Spencer, F. Q. i. 8. 49; iv. 4. 27. OF. contrefaisance, counterfeiting (Godefroy).

countermure, to wall round, to fence in. Kyd, Span. Tragedy, iii. 7. 16. F. contremurer, Ital. ‘contramurare, to countermure’ (Florio).

counterpoint, a counterpane for a bed. Tam. Shrew, ii. 1. 353. F. ‘contrepoinct, a quilt, counterpoint’ (Cotgr.). See Dict. (s.v. Counterpane).

counterscarf, a ‘counterscarp’, or outer wall or slope of the ditch, which supports the covered way of a fort. Heywood, Four Prentises (Godfrey); vol. ii, p. 242; id. London’s Mirror, fourth Show. F. contrescarpe (Rabelais), Ital. contrascarpa; see Estienne, Préc. 351; scarpa, slope of a wall.

county, a count, as a title, Romeo, i. 3. 105; Merch. Venice, i. 2. 48. (Frequent.)

couped, cut, cut clean off, with a smooth edge (in heraldry). Butler, Hudibras, iii. 3. 214. F. couper, to cut.

coupee, a dance step; the dancer rests on one foot, and passes the other forward or backward, with a sort of salutation. Wycherley, Gent. Dancing-master, iii. 1; Steele, Tender Husband, iii. 1 (Mrs. Clerimont). F. coupé, ‘mouvement par lequel on coupe un espace; (Danse) Pas composé d’un plié avec changement de pied suivi d’un glissé’ (Hatzfeld).

cour, to cover; Pt. t., courd; Spenser, F. Q. ii. 8. 9. See NED. (s.v. Cover).

courant, a dance with a running or gliding step; a coranto. Etherege, Man of Mode, iv. 1 (Sir Fopling); Steele, Tender Husband, i. 2 (Tipkin). See [coranto].

courant, corant, an express message; a newspaper. B. Jonson, Magn. Lady, i. 1 (Sir Moth); Underwoods, lxi. 81. F. courant, running, a runner; from courir, to run.

coursing, succession in due ‘course’. Only in the following passage: ‘My Ladye Mary and my Ladye Elizabeth . . . by succession and course are inheritours to the crowne. Who yf they shulde mary with straungers, what should ensue God knoweth. But God graunt they never come vnto coursyng nor succedynge.’ Latimer, 1 Sermon bef. King (ed. Arber, p. 30).

courteau; see [curtal].

court holy-water, a proverbial phrase for flattery, and fine words without deeds; ‘Court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rainwater out o’ door’, King Lear, iii. 2. 10; ‘Her unperformed promise was the first court holy-water which she sprinkled amongst the people’, Fuller, Ch. Hist. viii. 1. 6; ‘Court-holy-water, Promissa rei expertia, fumus aulicus’, Coles, 1699; ‘Eau beniste de cour, court holy-water, fair words, flattering speeches’, Cotgrave. See Nares.

Also, court holy bread; ‘He feeds thee with nothing but court holy bread, good words’, Dekker and Webster, Westward Ho, ii. 3 (M. Honeysuckle).

courtnoll, courtnold, a contemptuous term for a courtier. Peele, Sir Clyomon, ed. Dyce, p. 516; Heywood, 1 Edw. IV (Hobs), vol. i, p. 51 From court, and noll, the head, hence, a person (nowl in Shakespeare).

court-passage, a game at dice. Middleton, Women beware, ii. 2 (Guardiano). See [passage].

coustreling, a lad, knave, groom. Only in Udall, Roister Doister, i. 4 (Merygreek). See [coistril].

covenable, fit, suitable, becoming, of becoming appearance; ‘A sonne called Philip, a right covenable and gracious man’, Berners, Froissart, ccclxxix. 635; Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, ch. 11, § 6. OF. and Prov. convenable (cov-). ME. covenable, fit, proper, suitable, agreeable (Chaucer).

covent, a ‘convent’. Skelton, Colyn Cloute, 849; Meas. for M. iv. 3. 133. ME. covent (Chaucer, C. T. B. 1827). The old form remains in ‘Covent Garden’. Anglo-F. cuvent (Rough List).

cover: phr. be covered, put on your hat. As You Like It, v. 1. 18; Middleton, No Wit like a Woman’s, i. 3 (Sir O. Twi.). (There are endless compliments about wearing a hat in old plays.)

covert: phr. under covert-baron, in the condition of a woman who is protected by her husband. Middleton, Your Five Gallants, v. 2 (Miss N.); under covert-barn, under protection, Phoenix, iii. 1 (Falso). Anglo-F. feme couverte baroun, for couverte de baroun, a woman protected by her husband (Rough List). See Cowell, Interp. (s.v. Coverture).

covetise, covetousness. B. Jonson, Alchem. i. 1 (Subtle); Kyd, Cornelia, i. l. 26. ME. covetyse, ‘avaricia’ (Prompt.), Anglo-F. coveitise, cp. Ital. cupidigia (Dante).

cowardry, cowardice. Surrey, tr. of Aeneid, ii. 511; cowardree, Spenser, Mother Hubberd’s Tale, 986.

cowith, the commonest form of Welsh bardic verse, Drayton, Pol. iv. 183 (notes 59 and 67). Wel. cywydd.

cowl-staff, coul-staff, cole-staff, a stout pole orig. used for carrying a ‘cowl’ or tub, esp. a water-tub; ‘Cudgels, colestaves’, Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, i. 1 (Tranio); Merry Wives, iii. 3. 156; Select Records Oxford, 92. Cowl, for a large tub or barrel, is in prov. use in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Cowl, sb.² 1 and 2). ME. cowle (Prompt., in Harl. MS.).

cowshard, a piece of cowdung. Gosson, School of Abuse, p. 19; ‘Bouse de vache, the dung of a cow, a cow-shard’, Cotgrave. In use in Yorks., Lanc., Derby., and Wilts. (EDD.).

coxcomb, a fool’s cap; lit. cock’s comb. King Lear, i. 4. 105; also jocularly, the head, ib. ii. 4. 125.

coy, to render quiet, appease. Palsgrave; to stroke soothingly, to caress, Mids. Night’s D. iv. 1. 2; to coy it, to behave coyly, to affect shyness, Massinger, New Way, iii. 2. OF. coi, still, quiet, O. Prov. quet, ‘coi, tranquille’ (Levy), Romanic type quetu-, L. quiētum. See [quoying].

coystrel. In Dryden, Hind and Panther, iii. 1119, a corrupt form of ‘kestrel’ (a base kind of hawk).

coystril; see [coistril].

cozier, cosier, a cobbler. Twelfth Nt. ii. 3. 97; ‘A cosier or cobler, remendón’, Minsheu, Span. Dict. 1599. OF. cousere, a seamster, one who sews (Godefroy), couseör, acc., O. Prov. cozedor, ‘couturier’ (Levy); deriv. from cosere, to sew, Romanic type representing L. consuere, to sew together; see Hatzfeld.

craboun, corrupt form of ‘carbine’. ‘Discharge thy craboun’, Return from Parnassus, iv. 2 (Ingenioso).

craccus, a kind of tobacco. Middleton, A Fair Quarrel, iv. 1 (Trimtram); Beaumont and Fl., Woman’s Prize, i. 2 (Livia); where ed. 1625 has cracus (mod. ed. crocus). NED. suggests that the word means tobacco of Caraccas, in Venezuela.

crack, a pert, forward boy. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, Induct. (3 Child); Massinger, Unnat. Combat, i. 1 (Usher). Hence your crackship, address to a page, Middleton, Blurt, Mr. Constable, ii. 1 (Hippolito). Crack-halter, playfully ‘a rogue’, Gosson, School of Abuse, p. 30; Lyly, Mother Bombie, iii. 4 (Song). Also crack-hempe, Tam. Shrew, v. 1. 46; and crack-rope, ‘Baboin, a crack-rope, wag-halter, unhappie rogue, retchlesse villaine’, Cotgrave; Edwards, Damon and Pithias, in Anc. Eng. Drama, i. 88 (Hazlitt, iv. 68).

crack, to talk big, boast, brag. L. L. L. iv. 3. 268; spelt crake, Spenser, F. Q. vii. 7. 50; Sir Thos. More, i. 2. 29. Hence cracker, boaster, King John, ii. 1. 147. The vb. crack in this sense is in prov. use in Scotland and in England in the north country, Midlands, and E. Anglia. ME. crakyn, to boast; ‘crakere, bost-maker’ (Prompt. EETS. 393).

crack, to damage, impair. Phr. cracked within the ring, said of a coin cracked at the rim; but constantly used with reference to impaired virginity. Hamlet, ii. 2. 448; Beaumont and Fl., Captain, ii. 1 (Jacomo). The ring was the inmost circle around the inscription; a piece cracked within that ring could be legally refused, and was no longer current.

crackmans, a hedge. (Cant.) ‘At the crackmans’, beside the hedge, B. Jonson, Gipsies Metamorphosed (Jackman). See NED.

crag, the neck. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 82, Sept., 45. A north-country word, see EDD. (s.v. Crag, sb.³).

craggue, a lean, scraggy person. Only in Udall, tr. of Apoph., Diogenes, § 150.

crake; see [crack].

crambe, cabbage, in literary use only fig., and gen. in reference to the L. phrase crambe repetita, cabbage served up again, applied by Juvenal (Sat. vii. 154) to any tedious repetition. ‘Our Prayers . . . the same Crambe of words’, Milton, Animadv. ii.; Sir T. Browne, Rel. Medici, last §. Gk. κράμβη, a kind of cabbage.

crambe, crambo, a game in which one player gives a word or a line of a poem to which each of the others has to find a rime; if any one repeated a previous suggestion he had to pay a forfeit; ‘Crambe, another of the Divells games’, B. Jonson, Devill an Ass, v. 5; ‘Playing at Crambo in the waggon’, Pepys, Diary (May 20, 1660).

†cramocke, a crooked stick. Mirror for Mag., Madan, st. 6. Corrupt form of [cammock].

cramp-ring, a ring supposed to be a remedy against cramp, falling sickness, and the like; esp. one of those which the Kings of England used to hallow on Good Friday for this purpose. Boorde, Introd. (ed. Furnivall, p. 121); Berners, Letter in Brand Pop. Antiq. (ed. 1813, l. 129); Middleton, Roaring Girl, iv. 2 (Mis. O.); Cartwright, The Ordinary, iii. 1 (Moth).

cramp-stone, the stone in a ‘cramp-ring’. Massinger, The Picture, v. 1.

cranewes, pl., embrasures between battlements; crannies, apertures. ‘Cranewes of the walls of the city’; North, tr. of Plutarch, M. Brutus, § 23 (in Shak. Plut., p. 131); id., M. Antonius, § 42 (in Shak. Plut., p. 222). OF. creneaux, pl. of crenel, a battlement, an embrasure, see Estienne, Préc. 358.

Cranion, a proper name given to a fly, the charioteer of Queen Mab; ‘Fly Cranion, her charioteer, Upon her coach-box getting’, Drayton, Nymphidia, st. 17. Sir Cranion-legs, thin legs, like a fly or spider; B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, i. 1 (Quarlous).

crank, lively, brisk, merry; also as adv.; ‘Joyeux, as crank as a cock-sparrow’, Cotgrave; Spenser, Shep. Kal., Sept., 46; Middleton, Trick to Catch the Old One, i. 3 (end); Beaumont and Fl., Wit at several Weapons, iii. 1 (Gregory); Sea-Voyage, iv. 3. 2. Crank is used in this sense in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Crank, adj.²). Crankly, briskly, Peele, Tale of Troy (ed. Dyce, p. 552).

crank, a beggar who shams illness. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1. 4. See Harman, Caveat, p. 51. Du. krank, ill, sick.

crank, to run in a winding course, to twist and turn about. Venus and Ad. 682; 1 Hen. IV, iii. 1. 98; a winding path, Coriolanus, i. 1. 143; cranks, pl. bends, turnings, Two Noble Kinsmen, i. 2. 28; Spenser, F. Q. vii. 7. 52.

crankle, to twist and turn about. Drayton, Pol. vii. 198; xii. 572; ‘Serpenter, to wriggle, wagle, crankle’, Cotgrave. A Leicestersh. word, see EDD. (s.v. Crankling).

†crapish (meaning unknown); ‘Scandalous and crapish’, Otway, Soldier’s Fortune, i. 1 (3 W.). Only in this place.

crash, a merry bout, a revel. Heywood, A Woman killed, i. 2. 5. See EDD. (s.v. Crash, sb.¹ 4).

cratch, a crib, manger; ‘The Coffin of our Christmas Pies in shape long is in imitation of the Cratch’, Selden, Table-talk (ed. Arber, 33); ‘Cratche for hors or oxen, creche’, Palsgrave; ‘Presepio, a cratch, a rack, a manger, a crib or a critch’, Florio. In prov. use in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Cratch sb.¹ 1 and 2). ME. cracche (cratche), so Wyclif, Is. i. 3, and Luke ii. 7. OF. creche, O. Prov. crepia, crepcha (Levy).

cratch, to scratch; ‘I cratche with my nayles’, Palsgrave. ME. cracche, to scratch (Chaucer, C. T. A. 2834.).

craze, to break, crack, burst. Richard III, iv. 4. 17; ‘Craze bars’, Heywood, The Fair Maid, iii. 4 (Bess); ‘God will craze their chariot wheels’, Milton, P. L. xii. 210. Still in use in the west country in the sense of to ‘crack’, said of glass, china, or church bells (EDD.).

creak; see [cry creak].

creancer, creauncer, one to whom is entrusted the charge of another; a guardian; a tutor. Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 129, l. 102; id. Garl. of Laurell, 1226. Deriv. of OF. creance, belief, trust, Med. L. credentia, ‘fides data’ (Ducange).

creeking; see [kreking].

creeple, a cripple. Bible, Acts xiv. 8 (1611). ME. crepel, crepul (Chaucer, Tr. and Cr. 1458). OE. crēopel, a cripple (B. T., Suppl. s.v. crypel).

creme, chrism, the sacred oil used for anointing kings at coronation; ‘A kynge enoynted with creme’, Morte Arthur, leaf 202. 36; bk. ix, c. 39. ME. creme, chrism, OF. creme, cresme (mod. chrême). L. chrisma, Gk. χρῖσμα, anointing oil.

cres’, a crest. Three Ladies of London, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 351. A peculiar form, to rime with grease. See Dict. (s.v. Crease).

crescive, growing. Hen. V, i. 1. 66.

crevis, a crayfish. Appius and Virginia, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 118. ‘Crevisse’ is a north-country word (EDD.). OF. crevice, crevisse, see Hatzfeld (s.v. Écrevisse).

crib (Cant); ‘To fill up the crib and to comfort the quarron’, Brome, Jovial Crew, ii. 1 (Song). Meaning doubtful. Perhaps the same word as crib, a manger; used fig. for the stomach as a place for provender.

crimp, an obsolete card-game. B. Jonson, Magn. Lady, ii. 1 (Lady L.). See NED.

crinet, a hair. Gascoigne, Works, i. 101. Dimin. of F. crin, hair; L. crinis.

cringle-crangle, adj., winding, curled; ‘Cringle-crangle horns’ (i.e. bugles), Chapman, Gent. Usher, i. 1 (Vincentio).

crippin, part of a hood for ladies. Spelt crepine, crespine. Lyly, Mydas, i. 2 (Licio). F. crespine, ‘the Crepine of a French hood’ (Cotgr.).

crisled, crizzled, roughened, shrivelled with cold. Ford, Sun’s Darling, v. 1 (Winter). In Northampton, water that is slightly frozen is ‘just crizzled over’, see EDD. (s.v. Crizzle).

crispie, rippled, rippling; ‘Thy crispie tides’, Kyd, Cornelia, iv. 2. 15.

croach, to grasp, seek after; ‘My life and th’ empire he did croach and crasse’, Mirror for Mag., Geta, st. 10. Hence, croacher, a seeker after. In compound crowne-croachers, Mirror for Mag., Rudacke, Lennoy, st. 2. OF. crocher, to catch with a hook.

croches, the ‘buds’ or knobs at the top of a stag’s horn; ‘These little buddes or broches which are about the toppe are called Croches’, Turbervile, Hunting, 54; Stanyhurst, Aeneid i, 194.

crocheteur, a porter. Beaumont and Fl., Honest Man’s Fortune, iii. 2 (Longueville). F. crocheteur, ‘a porter or common burthen-bearer’; crochet, ‘a hook; le crochet d’un crocheteur, the forke or crooked staffe, used by a porter’ (Cotgr.).

crock, to put by in a crock or pot. Lyly, Mother Bombie, iii. 2. 2.

crockling, a croaking noise; used of the noise made by cranes. Phaer, tr. of Aeneid, x. 265.

crofte, a crypt; ‘A crofte under the mynster’, Morte Arthur, leaf 258*, back, 18; bk. xvii, c. 18. Du. krocht, krochte. Med. L. crupta (Ducange), L. crypta; Gk. κρυπτή, a crypt, a place of hiding.

croisado, a crusade; ‘Your great croisado general’ (i.e. the general of your great crusade), Butler, Hudibras, iii. 2. 1200.

crome, a long stick with a hook at the end of it; ‘Long cromes’, Paston Letters, no. 77; vol. i, p. 106 (1872); Tusser, Husbandry, § 17. 19. In prov. use in E. Anglia (EDD.). Cp. Du. kramme, ‘a hooke, or a grapple’ (Hexham).

crone, an old ewe. Tusser, Husbandry, § 12, st. 4; Gascoigne, Fruites of Warre, st. 63. An E. Anglian and Essex word, see EDD. (s.v. Crone, sb.¹ 1).

cronet, a coronet. Warner, Albion’s England, bk. ix, ch. 48, l. 51. Also, a part of the armour of a horse; Shirley, Triumph of Peace (Works, ed. Dyce, vi. 261).

croshabell, a courtesan. Peele, Works, ed. Dyce, p. 616, last line; and in a title, p. 615, col. 1. A Kentish word (EDD.).

croslet, crosslet, a crucible. Lyly, Gallathea, ii. 3; B. Jonson, Alchem., i. 1 (Face). ME. croslet (Chaucer, C. T. G. 1147). Dimin. of OF. crosel, O. Prov. cruzol, crucible (Levy).

cross, a piece of money; many coins had a cross on one side. As You Like It, ii. 4. 12; 2 Hen. IV, i. 2. 257.

cross and pile, the obverse and reverse side of a coin, head and (or) tail; hence, sometimes, a coin, money; ‘He had neither cross nor pile’, Sidney, Disc. Govt. (ed. 1704, p. 362); head or tail, i.e. ‘tossing up’, to decide anything doubtful; Wycherley, Love in a Wood, iii. 2 (Ranger); Return from Parnassus, ii. 1. 768; A Cure for a Cuckold, iv. 8 (Clare). Anglo-F. ‘jewer (jouer) a cros a Pil,’ A.D. 1327, see NED. ‘Les pièces de monnaie portaient une croix sur leur face, d’où l’expression: n’avoir ni croix ni pile’ (to have neither cross nor pile), see Jannet, Glossaire, Rabelais (s.v. Croix).

cross-bite, to bite in return, to cheat. Marston, What you Will, iii. 2. 279; iii. 3. 129. Hence, cross-biter, a swindler, Middleton, Your Five Gallants, ii. 3 (Goldstone).

cross-lay, a cheating wager. Middleton, The Black Book, ed. Dyce, v. 542.

cross-point, a particular step in dancing. Marston, Insatiate Countess, i. 1 (Rogers); Greene, King James IV, iv. 3 (Slipper, l. 1638).

cross-row, the alphabet; ‘And from the Crosse-row pluckes the letter G’, Richard III, i. 1. 55. Short for Christ-cross-row, so called from the figure of the cross (✠) formerly prefixed to it. Still in use in Essex, acc. to EDD. (s.v. Cross, II. (45)). See [Christ-cross].

cross-tree, the gallows; ‘A cross-tree that never grows’ [because made of dead wood], Ford, Fancies Chaste, i. 2 (Spadone); the cross, Herrick, Noble Numbers, His Anthem to Christ, l. 14.

crotch, the fork of the human body, where the legs join the trunk. Greene, Verses against the Gentlewomen of Sicilia, l. 12; ed. Dyce, p. 316. An E. Anglian word, see EDD. (s.v. Crotch, sb.¹). OF. (Picard) croche, ‘entaillure’ (La Curne).

croteys, the dung of hares and rabbits; ‘Of Hares and Coneys, they are called Croteys’, Turbervile, Hunting, c. 37, p. 97. F. crottes, ‘the dung, excrements or ordure of Sheep, Conies, Hares, etc.’ (Cotgr.).

crouse, crowse, brisk, lively, merry, Drayton, Eclogue vii, 73; Brome, Jovial Crew, i. 1 (1 Beggar). In common prov. use in Scotland and in the north of England, see EDD. (s.v. Crouse, adj.¹ 4).

crow, the well-known bird. In alchemy, at a certain stage of the work, there would sometimes be an appearance like a crow; it was considered a very favourable sign; see B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Subtle).

crowchmas, the day of the Invention of the Holy Cross, May 3. Tusser, § 50. 36; Crowchemesse Day; Paston Letters, no. 472, end (ii. 132, 1872). ‘At Crowchmesse, a la saincte Croyx’, Palsgrave. ME. cruche, the cross of Christ; ‘Crepe to cruche on lange fridai’, Trin. Coll. Hem. 95 (NED.); ‘And meny crouche on hus cloke’, P. Plowman, C. viii. 167; cruche, id., B. v. 529; cros, id., A. vi. 13. We may perhaps compare OF. croche, the Picard form of OF. croce, a crosier; Ch. Rol. 1670; Med. L. crocia, crochia, ‘baculus pastoralis’ (Ducange).

crown of the sun, a French gold coin. Massinger, Unnat. Combat, i. 1 (Mont.); ‘Escu sol, a crown of the sun; the best kind of crown that is now made’, Cotgrave.

crowner, a coroner. Hamlet, v. 1. 4. In gen. prov. use (EDD.).

crow-trodden, abused, humiliated. Beaumont and Fl., Custom of the Country, iv. 4 (Rutilio). See NED. (s.v. Crow-tread).

cruddes, curds; ‘A messe of cruddes’, Gosson, School of Abuse, p. 18; ‘Cruddes, coagulum’, Levins, Manip.; Baret, Alvearie. In prov. use in Scotland, Ireland, and in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Crud). Crud is related to crowd, to press close, see EDD. (s.v. Crowd, vb.¹ 3).

crudded, reduced to a curd-like mass, Heywood, Silver Age (Cerberus). ME. cruddyd, ‘coagulatus’ (Prompt.).

cruddle, crudle, to curdle; ‘Cruddled me like cheese’, Bible, Job x. 10 (1611); Beaumont and Fl., The False One, iii. 2. 2; King and No King, i. 1; Marston, Antonia, Pt. I, i. 1 (Antonio). In prov. use in Scotland, Ireland, and in various parts of England (EDD.).

crumenall; ‘The fat oxe that wont ligge in the stall, Is now fast stalled in her (=their) crumenall’, Spenser, Shep. Kal., Sept., 119. Apparently in sense ‘purse’ or ‘pouch’ (NED.).

crusoile, a crucible. Marston, Insatiate Countess, i. 1 (Rogers). OF. croisuel. See Hatzfeld (s.v. Creuset).

cruzado, crusado, the name of a Portuguese gold coin, of variable value. Othello, iii. 4. 26; White Devil (Vittoria), ed. Dyce, p. 23. So called from the cross on one side of it.

cry: phr. a cry of hounds, a pack of hounds. Webster, Devil’s Law-case, ii. 1 (Sanitonella). Hence cry, a pack (of hounds), Mids. Night’s D. iv. 1. 128; cry of curs, pack of curs, Cor. iii. 3. 120. Without all cry, beyond all description, Chapman, Blind Beggar, p. 4.

cry creak, to confess oneself beaten or in error; to give up the contest, to give in. Thersites, 100 (ed. Pollard, Misc. Plays); Tusser, Husbandry, § 47. 2; T. Watson, Centuries of Love, i (ed. Arber, 37); Damon and Pithias, Anc. Eng. Drama, i. 88; ‘Palinodiam canere, to turne taile, to cry creake’, Withal, Dict. (ed. 1634).

cucking-stool, an engine for the punishment of scolds, by ducking them in the water. B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, ii. 1 (Quarlous); Butler, Hudibras, ii. 2. 740. See Cowell, Interpreter, 1637; Brand, Pop. Antiq. (ed. 1877, p. 641).

cuckquean, a female cuckold. Golding, tr. of Ovid, Met. vi. 606 (Latin text); ed. 1603. Spelt cockqueene; Warner, Albion’s England, bk. i, ch. 4, st. 1.

cuck-stool, an old punishment for scolds; the offender was fastened in a kind of chair, and exposed to be jeered at, or was ducked in water. Also called a [cucking-stool], q.v. Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, ii. 1 (Petronius), Middleton, Fam. of Love, v. 1 (Glister).

cucurbite, a kind of retort used in alchemy. B. Jonson, Alchem. i. 1 (Face). Shaped like a gourd, L. cucurbita.

cudden, a born fool, dolt. Dryden, Cymon, 179; Sir Martin Mar-all, v. 3. Wycherley, Gentl. Dancing-master, iv. 1.

cue, a small portion. ‘A cue of bread and a cue of beer’, Middleton, The Black Book (near the end). ‘Cue, halfe a farthing, so called because they set down in the Battling or Butterie Books the letter q for half a farthing,’ Minsheu; ‘Not worthe a cue’, Skelton, Magnyfycence, 36; ‘Worth ii. kues,’ id., Why Come ye Nat to Courte, 232. Q. for L. quadrans, the smallest coin. See [cee].

cuerpo, in, in hose and doublet, without a cloak; stripped of the upper garment so as to display the body. Ben Jonson, New Inn, ii. 2 (Tipto); Fletcher, Love’s Pilgrimage, i. 1. 26. Span. en cuerpo, having nothing on but the shirt; cuerpo, body. See Stanford.

cullisen, cullison, ignorant pronunciations of cognisance. B. Jonson. Ev. Man out of Humour, i. 1 (Sogliardo); a badge, id., Case is altered, iv. 4 (Onion). See NED. (s.v. Cullisance).

cully, a dupe, a simpleton. Butler, Hudibras, ii. 2. 781; Otway, Cheats of Scapin, i. 1 (Scapin). [To make a fool of, to take in, Pope, Wife of Bath, 161.]

culm, summit; ‘On giddy top and culm’, Misfortunes of Arthur, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 313. G. kulm, a mountain-top; L. culmen.

culme, soot, smut. Golding, Metam. ii. 232; fol. 18, bk. (1603); as adj. sooty, black, id. vii. 529; fol. 86, bk. The same word as coom, coal-dust, soot, dirt,’ in prov. use in Scotland, Ireland, and various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Coom, sb.¹ 1). ME. culme (colme), ‘fuligo’ (Prompt. EETS., see note, no. 477).

culver-down, dove’s down. Machin, Dumb Knight, iii. 1 (Epire). OE. culfre, a dove.

curats, a piece of armour for the body, a cuirass; ‘He casts away his curats and his shield’, Harington, Orl. Fur.; spelt curets, Chapman, Iliad iii, 343. Treated as pl., with a sing. curat, Spenser, F. Q. v. 8. 34. Cp. Ital. corazza, a cuirass (Florio). See Dict.

curber, a thief who hooks things through a window; an angler. Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Moll). From curb, a cant word for a hook, see NED.

curiosity, nicety, fastidiousness, excessive, scrupulousness. Massinger, City Madam, i. 1 (Tradewell); ‘Concerning the enterring of her . . . I pray you let the same be performed without all curiositie and superstition’, Holland’s Plutarch, Morals, 533 (Bible Word-Book).

curiousness, punctilious scrupulousness. Massinger, Parl. of Love, i. 4 (Chamont); Unnat. Combat, iii. 4 (Beauf. Junior).

curry, a ‘quarry’, i.e. slaughtered game. Chapman, tr. Iliad, xvi. 145, 693. OF. cuiree, intestines of a slain animal; the part given to the hounds, so called because wrapped in the skin (cuir); O. Prov. corada, ‘entrailles’ (Levy). See NED. (s.v. Quarry, sb.¹).

curry-favell, one who solicits favour by flattery. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, iii. 24 (ed. Arber, 299); ‘Curryfavell, a flatterer, estrille faveau’, Palsgrave; altered to curry-favour, ‘A number of prodigal currie favours’, Holinshed, Chron. ii. 144 (NED.); Curriedow, a curry-favour or flatterer, Phillips. In earlier English ‘Favel’ occurs as the proper name of a fallow-coloured horse. The fallow horse was proverbial as the type of hypocrisy and duplicity, with reference to the ‘equus pallidus’ of Apoc. vi. 8, which was explained as representing the hypocrites who gain a reputation for sanctity by the ascetic pallor of their faces (see Rom. Rose, 7391-8). With the phrase ‘to curry favel’ cp. OF. estriller, torcher Fauvel, adopted in German: den fahlen Hengst streichen. See NED. (s.v. Favel) for origin, and see [Favell].

cursen, Christian; ‘As I am a cursen man’, Marlowe, Dr. Faustus, iv. 6 (Carter); ‘By my Cursen soule’, Brome, Sparagus Gard. iii. 7; ‘We be Cursenfolke’, id. iv. 5; cursen name, Christian name, Mrs. Behn, Feign’d Curtizan, i. 2; to christen, baptize; cursen’d, pp. christened, Beaumont and Fl., Coxcomb, iv. 3 (Nan). For the pronunciation, see EDD. (s.v. Christen).

curst, cross, ill-tempered. Tam. Shrew, i. 1. 185; Beaumont and Fl., Philaster, ii. 3 (Arethusa). In prov. use in the north and in the W. Midlands, see EDD. (s.v. Curst, 2).

curtal, having a docked tail; ‘Curtal dog’, Merry Wives, ii. 1. 114; said of a horse, All’s Well, ii. 3. 65. ‘Docke your horse tayle, and make hym a courtault’, Palsgrave; in form courteau, a horse with a docked tail, used as a term of derision, B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, v. 2 (Anaides). OF. courtaut, ‘écourté’ (Hatzfeld); courtault, ‘cheval ou chien de courte taille. On appelait aussi courtault le chien ou le cheval qui avait la queue coupée’ (Jannet, Glossaire, Rabelais).

curtana, the sword of mercy, a pointless sword, carried before our kings at a coronation. Dryden, Hind and Panther, ii. 419. See Ducange, s.v. The name of the legendary sword of ‘Ogier le Danois’ was Courtain.

cushes, ‘cuisses’, pieces, of armour protecting the thighs. 1 Hen. IV, iv. 1. 105 (1596); Heywood, Iron Age, Part II, v. 1. 15.

cushion: phr. to miss the cushion, to make a mistake. Lit. to sit down amiss. ‘Whan he weneth to syt, Yet may he mysse the quysshon’, Skelton, Colyn Cloute, 998; Udall, tr. of Apoph., Cicero, § 24.

cushion-cloth, a cushion-case or cover. Middleton, Women beware Women, iii. 1 (Bianca); cusshencloth, Gascoigne, ed. Hazlitt, i. 475.

custard-politic, a large custard prepared for the Lord Mayor’s feast. B. Jonson, Staple of News, ii. 1 (Lick.).

customer, a custom-house officer, ‘publicanus’. Udall, Erasmus’s Paraph. on Mark, ii. 22; Gascoigne, Supposes, ii. 1 (Erostrato). In use in this sense in Scotland (EDD.).

cut, a lot; he who drew the shortest (or rarely, the longest) of some pieces of stick or paper drew the lot. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, Induction (2 Child, and 3 Child). ME. cut, lot (Chaucer, C. T. A. 845). Probably unconnected with the vb. ‘to cut’, see NED.

cut, a dog or horse with a cut or docked tail; hence, a term of abuse applied to a man. ‘Call me cut’, Twelfth Nt. ii. 3. 203 (cp. ‘call me horse’, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 215); London Prodigal, ii. 4. 41. Cut, a common horse, Merry Devil, i. 3. 141; Dauncaster cuttys, Doncaster nags, Skelton, Magnyfycence, 296. See [cut and longtail].

cut: phr. to keep cut, to be coy, to be on one’s best behaviour; ‘Phyllyp, kepe youre cut’, Skelton, P. Sparowe, 119; ‘To keep cut with his mother’, i.e. to be coy like her, to follow her example, Middleton, More Dissemblers, i. 4 (Dondolo). See NED. (s.v. Cut, sb.² 34).

cut and longtail, dogs or horses (or men) of every kind; i.e. those that are docked and those whose tails are allowed to grow. Merry Wives, iii. 4. 44; Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 2. 68.

cut bene whids, to speak good words, speak fair. (Cant.) Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1 (Higgen). See Harman, Caveat, p. 84.

cut over, to pass straight across; ‘Caligula lying in Fraunce . . . intended to cutte over, and invade Englande’, Gosson, School of Abuse, p. 16.

cutchy, a ‘coach-y’; a driver of a coach; ‘Make thee [a] poor Cutchy’ (cp. coach in the preceding line), Return from Parnassus, iii. 4 (Furor).

cute, a cur; ‘Some yelping Cute’, Drayton, Pol. xxiii. 340; explained by ‘a cur’ in the margin. It is probably merely a variant of cut, a short-tailed dog; see [cut and longtail].

cutted, abrupt, snappish, sharp in reply. Middleton, Women beware, iii. 1. 4. Used in this sense in Devon and Cornwall (EDD.).

cutter, a cut-throat, bully, bravo. Beaumont and Fl., Wit at Several Weapons, iii. 1 (Gregory). Hence, title of the play by Cowley, The Cutter of Coleman Street. With a quibble upon cutting, Middleton, Mayor of Queenborough, ii. 3 (Simon).

cutting, swaggering. Greene, Friar Bacon, ii. 2 (516); scene 5. 19 (W.); p. 159, col. 1 (D.).

cutting, cheating. Marston, Dutch Courtesan, ii. 3 (end).

cutwork, open work in linen, cut out by hand. Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 777 (ed. Arber, p. 71); Fletcher, Span. Curate, iii. 2 (Lopez).

cymar, a loose light garment for women. Dryden, Virgil, Aeneid iv, 196; Cymon, 100. See [symarr].

cynarctomachy, a word invented by Butler (Hudibras, i. 1. 752) to signify a battle between a bear and dogs. Gk. κύων, a dog, ἄρκτος, a bear, μάχη, a fight.

cypers grass, the sweet cyperus or galingale. Chapman, tr. of Odyssey iv. 802. GK. κύπειρον, a sweet-smelling marsh-plant (Od. iv. 603).

cypress, a textile fabric, esp. a light transparent material resembling cobweb lawn or crape; when black much used for mourning. Twelfth Nt. iii. 1. 131; cypress lawn, Milton, Penseroso, 35. Probably fr. OF. Cipre, the island of Cyprus.