[1747]. For wood, as (if) mad, 'like mad.' The same phrase recurs in Leg. Good Women, Phyllis, l. 27; cf. as it were wood, Kn. Tale, A 2950; and for pure wood, Rom. Rose, 276.
[1759-62]. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 9887-90:—
'Si se sunt maint vanté de maintes;
Par paroles fauces et faintes,
Dont les cors avoir ne pooient,
Lor non à grant tort diffamoient.'
[1761]. The name, the name of it, the credit of it.
[1777]. Masty (miswritten maisty in F., but masty in the rest) means fat, fattened up, and hence unwieldy, sluggish. Bell alters it to maisly, and Moxon's edition to nastie; both being wrong. Palsgrave has: 'Masty, fatte, as swyne be, gras.' The Promp. Parv. has: 'Mast-hog or swyne, [or] mastid swyne, Maialis'; and 'Mastyn beestys, sagino, impinguo.' Way rightly explains masty as 'glutted with acorns or berries'; cf. 'Acorne, mast for swyne, gland,' in Palsgrave. See The Former Age, l. 37.
[1779]. Wher, whether, 'is it the case that?'
[1782]. As the word oughte is never followed by to with a following gerund, it is certain that to-hangen is all one word, the prefix to- being intensive. MSS. F. and B. omit to, but the rest have it, and the syllable is wanted. I know of no other example of to-hangen, to hang thoroughly, but this is of little moment. The prefix to- was freely added to all sorts of verbs expressing strong action; Stratmann gives more than a hundred examples. Cf. note to l. 1598.