Chaucer's Works, Volume 5 — Notes to the Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer

And, again, in the same, l. 355:—

'For with the princes of pride the Prechours dwellen,

They bene as digne as the devel, that droppeth fro hevene.'

Hence digne is proud, repulsive.

3965. 'And full of scorn and reproachful taunting'; like the lady in Lay de Freine, l. 60 (in Weber's Met. Romances, i. 359):—

'A proud dame and an enuious,

Hokerfulliche missegging,

Squeymous and eke scorning;

To ich woman sche hadde envie.'

Hoker is the A. S. hōcor, scorn. Bismare is properly of two syllables only (A. S. bismor), but is here made into three; MS. Cp. has bisemare, and Hl. has bissemare, and the spelling bisemare also appears much earlier, in the Ancren Riwle, p. 132, and bisemære in Layamon, i. 140. Owing to a change in the accentuation, the etymology had been long forgotten. See Bismer in the New E. Dict., and see the Glossary.