Ballad of John de Reeve, 155.
What Liverye is, we by common use in England knowe well enough, namelye, that it is, allowaunce of horse-meate, as they commonly use the woord in stabling, as to keepe horses at liverye, the which woord, I gess, is derived of livering or delivering foorth theyr nightlye foode. Soe in great howses the liverye is sayd to be served up for all night. And Liverye is also called the upper garment which serving-men weareth, soe called (as I suppose) for that it is delivered and taken from him at pleasure.—Spenser, View of the State of Ireland, p. 623 (Globe edition).
The emperor’s officers every night went through the town from house to house, whereat any English gentleman did repast or lodge, and served their liveries for all night; first the officers brought into the house a cast of fine manchet, and of silver two great pots, and white wine, and sugar, to the weight of a pound, &c.—Cavendish, Life of Cardinal Wolsey.
| Loiter, | } |
| Loiterer. |
Whatever may be the derivation of ‘to loiter,’[17] it is certain that it formerly implied a great deal more and worse than it implies now. The ‘loiterer’ then was very much what the tramp is now.
God bad that no such strong lubbers should loyter and goe a begging, and be chargeable to the congregation.—Tyndale, Works, p. 217.
He that giveth any alms to an idle beggar robbeth the truly poor; as S. Ambrose sometimes complaineth that the maintenance of the poor is made the spoil of the loiterer.—Sanderson, Sermons, 1671. vol. i. p. 198.
Yf he be but once taken soe idlye roging, he [the Provost Marshal] may punnish him more lightlye, as with stockes or such like; but yf he be founde agayne soe loytring he may scourge him with whippes or roddes; after which yf he be agayne taken, lett him have the bitterness of the marshall lawe.—Spenser, View of the State of Ireland, p. 679 (Globe Edition).
They spend their youth in loitering, bezzling, and harlotting.—Milton, Animadversions on Remonstrants’ Defence.
Lover. This word has undergone two restrictions, of which formerly it knew nothing. A natural delicacy, and an unwillingness to confound under a common name things essentially different, has caused ‘lover’ no longer to be equivalent with friend, but always to imply a relation resting on the difference of sex; while further, and within these narrower limits, the ‘lover’ now is always the man, not as once the man or the woman indifferently. We may still indeed speak of ‘a pair of lovers,’ but then datur denominatio a potiori. ‘Leman’ had something of the same history, though that history ended in leaving this a designation of the woman alone.