The Discoverie of Witchcraft - Reginald Scot

Abhominable. He always uses the “h” as did Holofernes, Gab. Harvey, etc., from the false derivation “ab homine”.
Abrenunciation, [440]. A word used probably, as Richardson suggests, as a stronger form of renunciation. It was used as a technical for the renunciation of the devil and all his works in the baptisms of the Roman Catholic Church.
Accloied, [79]. As cloyed = encumbered, satiated.
Achate, [297]. The more Latinate form of agate (achates).
Acyron, [371]. Greek unauthorised.
Addicted, [298]. Joined or attached to.
A doo, [475]. The “a” = at in this and like words was then frequently printed apart, or according to them—a part.
Ægyptians, [197]. Gypsies.
Alligations, [239]. Spells, or the like, bound to one’s arm, etc.
Anatomie, [430]. A skeleton.
Apparentlie, [511]. Clearly, evidently.
Appensions, [239]. Spells, or the like, hung about one.
Applicable, 582. Able to be applied.
Appointed, [415]. Dressed in order, or conformably, as we still use the word appointments.
Appose, [51]. Our pose.
Aqua composita, [316]. See note.
Assotted, [5]. Adsotted; our besotted.
Astonnied, [309]. Astonished in the original sense, i.e., astounded, or so lying in a swoon, that she lay as dead.
Avoid, [240], [493]. To void or empty, either “make void” or “void from”. This use is as early at least as Trevisa, or circa 1397.
Axes, [232]. The French Accès. Hence in Sussex and the North = agues. But I am told that in Kent it bears the secondary sense of aches.

Bables, [166]. Toys, trifling childish things.
Baggage tode, [377]. A foul tode. The epithet is now only used of an ill-conditioned woman of low degree.
Bat, [380]. A staff.
Bedstaffe, [79]. The Johnson-Nares explanation is, I believe, wrong. With Miss Emma Phipson, I rather take it to be a staff to summon attendance, a substitute for the modern bell still used by invalids and others. Cf. Ev. M. in his Humour, i, 4. It has been also suggested that it is the staff used to beat up the bed, etc.
Become. Used as then in [126], [158], [323], [329], as equivalent to “gone to”. Cf. 3 Henry VI, ii, 1, 9, 10. And in a law of Henry VIII (ann. 33, ch. 8) are the words “where things lost or stolen should be become”, when it speaks of the acts of magicians, fortune-tellers, etc.
Beetle-head, [66]. = Our hammer-headed fellow, a beetle being such a hammer or rammer as paviors now use and so call.
Bench whistlers, [528]. Idle, sottish fellows, who spend their time on ale-benches rather than seek occupation, and whistling from want of thought or occupation. A then-known phrase.
Bewraieth, [69], and frequent. Betray. Also, though a different word and not in Scot, to befoul. In [328] the verb is used thus: “the thing shall be so well and perfectly done, that a stranger, though he handle it, shall not bewraie it” [i.e., discover the fraud either to himself or others].
Biggin, [471]. Fr. béguin. Cf. Cotgrave. Properly, according to Minsheu, a child’s [close] covering for the head or cap. Also generally a close or skull cap; here, as in Sh., 2 Henry IV, iv, 4, used for a night-cap.
Bile, [203]. A boil.
Blisse, [157], ad fin. Being opposed to “cursse” seems = blessing.
Boolted, [480]. A miller’s, etc. technical for sifted.
Bowt, [337], [347]. This (or bout) and bight are still nautical for the bending, or loop, of a rope. Scot uses it for the loop, or bending, of any thing.
Bowze, [268]. Boughs.
Bucklers, laie down the, [A iii.] Submit, own themselves defeated. The origin of this and similar phrases is unknown. From the words “Clypeus salvus in Cic.” and “Clypeum abjicere”, it may be from the usages of classic times,—or it may be mediæval.
Bugges, [288]. Frightful and unnatural appearances, as in bugbears, a now equivalent word.
Bulbeggers, [B 2.] Terrifying goblins. I see no difficulty in the derivation from Bul, a bull, or bull’s face, it being terrifying enough, especially when, enraged or mad, it is directly opposed to you; and a bulbegger is an over-bold beggar, etc.
Bum card. I believe a card slightly longer or wider than the rest, so that the trickster, etc., may distinguish it.
Bum leaf. A leaf similarly distinguished.
By and by, [460]. Immediately. Elsewhere he thus translates Wier’s “mox” and “statim”.

Carter, [478]. Used, as in “carter’s logic”, for a dull-witted ignoramus, much in the sense in which we depreciatingly use costermonger. Carter’s logic is not the logic of physical persuasion, but the ergo of the first gravedigger in Hamlet.
Castrell, [302]. Kestrel, Tinunculus. The hovering hawk, a wild kind not tamable, that frightens other hawks (possibly by its loud, ringing voice), and whose effigy was placed near doves, etc., to deter other hawks. Hence, probably, arose the fable spoken of in the text.
Cautelousness, [469]. Artful caution.
Censure, [A viii.] Sentence, or judgment.
Chapman, [485]. Generally the seller, but also, as here, the buyer; he that chaps or cheapens.
Choine cough, [211]. Chin-cough, the hooping-cough.
Choler, [205]. One of the supposed four humours. The compound humour generated in the liver was divided into two parts, one going to the blood, the other to the gall, as this choler or bile. It differed from melancholy, or black bile, for the reservoir of this was the spleen. Cf. Batman on Barth., iv, 10, and v, 39.
Circumstance, [24]. Elsewhere, as [75], used for round-about or superfluous means. Here it has a greater ill-meaning—a round-about statement that would evade declaring the truth.
Clam, [208]. To stick on; various dialects.
Claweth, [67]. Scratcheth (where he itcheth), pleaseth, and therefore flattereth. Cf. the proverb, “Claw me, claw thee”, or “K. me, K. thee”, a polite abbreviation, which, I think, betokens the odious origin of the phrase.
Clubhutchins, [372]. Old Kentish, now, I believe, almost obsolete, for a plain, rough countryman.
Coate card, [335]. Our court card.
Cold prophet, [B ii. v.] [170]. One whose prophecies are far from the mark, just as children at play are hot or cold, when near or far from the thing sought. Others say that cold, as in Chaucer = col.
Commend, [134]. Commit to, in the sense of giving, entrusting, or setting forth for his examination. Latinate.
Complexion, [461]. The four complexions or dispositions were supposed to be due to the excess of (1) blood, (2) phlegm, (3) choler, (4) melancholy. Here it is used more generally for disposition.
Compline, [393]. Part of the Romish even-song (Cotgrave), which, said just after sunset, completes the offices of the day.
Conceipts, [326]. Merry or strange tricks.
Cone, [227]. I found, I forget where, “to cone findere”, hence marginal note.
Confirmed, [429]. Apparently “made firm”; placed or stationed together, each in his fixed place.
Constellation. Is sometimes used in old books, seemingly as denoting the co-ordination or coposition of the heavenly bodies (as regards one another) at any particular time. It was from these constellations that nativities were calculated.
Constreineth. In its primary or literal sense of drawn together.
Contagion of weather, [269]. For = against.
Convenient (with). Coming together with, agreeing with.
Convented, [16]. Brought together with (i.e., before) the judge, or other.
Convinced, [70], [131]. Overcome.
Corrupt, [16]. Corrupted; the “ed” being assimilated by, or made to coalesce with, the “t”. Cf. note, p. [441].
Countrie, [A iiii.] Used, as occasionally then, for county.
Cousen, [A vii. v.] Used then as a term implying relationship of any kind, or simply between royal personages as a term of courtesy and friendliness.
Credit, [498]. Belief; we should say crediting, etc.
Croslet, [357]. A crucible.
Crosse of a coin, [388]. The reverse bore a cross. Now called the tail in “heads or tails”.
Curious, [333]. As frequently in those days, “curiosus”, full of care, careful; those who would inquire carefully or curiously into the matter.
Cushion, missed the, [490]. Nares says it evidently alludes to archery: an unsupported guess, and not, I think, a probable one. More likely the reference is to some game, such as a variant of stool ball, or possibly to the cushion dance. Or it may simply mean missed his seat.

Dangerous of, [146]. Fearful of [showing], or, as some say it is in Chaucer, shy.
Detected, [27]. Uncovered.
Determination, [153]. Termination, or ending.
Detracting, [94]. Drawing out, spinning out.
Dilection. A choosing, preferring, loving.
Diriges, [439]. Dirges; a word derived from the Latin dirige.
Disagreeable to, [98]. Disagreeing with, differing from.
Dish, laid in my, [130]. For me to chew upon.
Dismembred, [313]. There being no talk of the members of an animal being taken away, I take it that he means diversely membered from what it was naturally, as was the serpent with “manie legs”.
Dizzards, [291]. Evidently fool or blockhead. That it was a name for the vice or fool of a play is by no means a proof of its prater or diseur origin, for he was not so much a prater as a funny lout who bore himself apishly, and “moved his body as him list”. Rather cognate to dizzy.
Donee, [148]. Noted as an early use of the word.
Doubt in, [482]; doubted, [6]. Two excellent examples of the then frequent use of these words for fear and feared.
Duplex s. s., [282]. Should have been duplicis, but the writer probably thought that this would be liable to a misrendering. S[piritus] S[ancti] is of course meant.

Eager, [249]. Sour; French, aigre, as in vinegar.
Earnest pennie, [542]. The small sum given as part payment in earnest that, or as assurance that, the bargain had been made.
Embossed, [316]. [Spoken of glasses in “perspective” devices.] Convex (?).
Enabled, [164]. Made able, strengthened.
Eversed, [316]. [As under Embossed.] Possibly concave (?).
Exchange, [218]. To change or transform.
Excourse, [43]. Lat. excursus, outgoing.
Expend, [444]. Hang, or rather weigh out.
Experiment, [82]. Trial, or mode of proof; the verb is similarly used.
Exsufflation, [440]. In Roman Catholic baptism the devil is rejected by exsufflando (blowing him away) and by abrenunciation (the renouncing) of him and his works.
Extermination, [485]. A driving out beyond the boundary or terminus.
Eybitten, [64]. “Master Scot in his Discovery telleth us, That our English people in Ireland, whose posterity were lately barbarously cut off, were much given to this Idolatry in the Queen’s time, insomuch that there being a Disease amongst their Cattel that grew blind, being a common Disease in that Country, they did commonly execute people for it, calling them eye biting witches” (A Candle in the Dark, by Th. Ady, M.A., 1656, p. 104). Scot did not tell him this, but the explanation prevents erroneous guesses.