This crocodile is a mischievous four-footed beast, a dangerous vermin used to both elements.—Holland, Ammianus, p. 212.
Wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and vermin [καὶ τὰ θηρία], and worms, and fowls of the air.—Acts x. 12. Geneva.
The Lord rectifies Peter, and frames him to go by a vision of all crawling vermin in a clean sheet.—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 42.
Vilify. This now implies a great deal more than to hold morally cheap, which was all that in the seventeenth century it involved.
Can it be imagined that a whole people would ever so vilify themselves, depart from their own interests to that degree as to place all their hopes in one man?—Milton, Defence of the People of England, c. 7.
The ears of all men will be filled with deceitful figments and gainful lies, the merits of Christ’s passion will be vilified and maimed.—H. More, The Mystery of Iniquity, b. ii. c. 7, § 11.
The more I magnify myself, the more God vilifies me.—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 469.
| Villain, | } |
| Villany. |
A word whose story, like that of ‘churl,’ is so well known that one may be spared the necessity of repeating it. It was, I think, with ‘villany’ that there was first a transfer into an ethical sphere, though it is noticeable how ‘villany’ till a very late day expressed words foul and disgraceful to the utterer much oftener than deeds.
Pour the blood of the villain in one basin, and the blood of the gentleman in another; what difference shall there be proved?—Becon, The Jewel of Joy.