1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., i., 204. So I may no more pogue the hone of a Woman.
Honest, adj. (old).—1. Chaste.
1596. Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, ii., 1. Why’t cannot be, where there is such resort, O wanton gallants, and young revellers, That any woman should be honest long.
1599. Henry Porter, Two Angry Women of Abingdon (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, vii., 389). Is my fellow Dick in the dark with my mistress? I pray God they be honest, for there may be much knavery in the dark.
1600. Look About You, Sc. 28 (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, vii., 476). What, lecher? No, she is an honest woman. Her husband is well known.
1602. Shakspeare, Othello, iii., 3. I do not think but Desdemona’s honest.
1614. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, v., 3. De honest woman’s life is a dull scurvy life, indeed.
1663. Killigrew, The Parson’s Wedding, iii., 2 (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, xiv., 454). There’s none but honest women.
1663. Killigrew, The Parson’s Wedding, v., 4 (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, xiv., 525). Crooked, dirty-souled vermin, predestined for cuckolds, painted snails with houses on their backs, and horns as big as Dutch cows.… Can any woman be honest that lets such hodmandods crawl o’er her virgin breast and belly?
1672. Wycherley, Love in a Wood, ii., 1. A man … may bring his bashful wench, and not have her put out of countenance by the impudent honest women of the town.