witnesses that in his time it had the same meaning which it has in ours. At an earlier day, however, it much more nearly corresponded to the German ‘heimlich,’ that is, secret, inward, familiar, as those may be presumed to be that share in a common home. ‘Homeliness’ is more than once the word by which Wiclif translates ‘mansuetudo:’ thus, 2 Cor. x. 1; Jam. i. 21.
And the enemyes of a man ben thei that ben homeli with him.—Matt. x. 36. Wiclif. [Cf. Judg. xix. 4, and often.]
God graunte the thin homly fo espye:
For in this world nys worse pestilence
Than homly foo, alday in thy presence.
Chaucer, The Marchaundes Tale (Morris, ii. p. 335).
Such peple be able and worthi to be admytted into the homeli reding of Holi Writt.—Pecock, Repressor, c. 3.
With all these men I was right homely, and communed with them long time and oft.—Foxe, Book of Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe.
Hoyden. Now and for a long time since a clownish ill-bred girl; what is vulgarly called in America a ‘gal-boy,’ yet it is only another form of ‘heathen.’ Remote as the words appear at starting, it will not be hard to bring them close together. In the first place, it is only by a superinduced meaning that ‘heathen’ has its present sense of non-christian; it is properly, as Grimm has abundantly shown, as indeed Piers Plowman had told us long ago, a dweller on the heath; then any living a wild savage life; thus we have in Wiclif (Acts xxviii. 1), ‘And the hethene men [barbari, Vulg.] diden to us not litil curtesie;’ and only afterwards was the word applied to those who resisted to the last the humanizing influences of the Christian faith. This ‘heathen’ is in Dutch ‘heyden’ (see Sewel); while less than two hundred years ago ‘hoyden’ was by no means confined, as it now is, to the female sex, the clownish ill-bred girl, but was oftener applied to men.
Shall I argue of conversation with this hoyden, to go and practise at his opportunities in the larder?—Milton, Colasterion.