About sunset, coming near the Wild Island, Pantagruel spied afar off a huge monstrous physeter, a sort of whale, which some call a whirlpool.—Rabelais, Pantagruel, b. iv. c. 33. [This creature is suggested by ‘Leviathan descript par le noble prophete Moses en la vie du sainct home Job.’]
| Whisperer, | } |
| Whispering. |
There lay in ‘whisperer’ once, as in the ψιθυριστής of the Greeks, the ‘susurro’ of the Latins, the suggestion of a slanderer or false accuser, which has now quite passed away from the word.
Now this Doeg, being there at that time, what doeth he? Like a whisperer or man-pleaser goeth to Saul the king, and told him how the priest had refreshed David in his journey, and had given unto him the sword of Goliath.—Latimer, Sermons, Parker edit., p. 486.
A whisperer separateth chief friends.—Prov. xvi. 28; cf. Ecclus. v. 14. (A.V.)
Kings in ancient times were wont to put great trust in eunuchs. But yet their trust towards them hath rather been as to good whisperers than good magistrates and officers.—Bacon, Essay, 44, Of Deformity.
Lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults.—2 Cor. xii. 20. (A. V.)
Whiteboy. Formerly a cockered favourite (compare Barnes’s use of ‘white son,’ Works, 1572, p. 192), but in later years one of the many names which the perpetrators of agrarian outrages in Ireland either assumed to themselves, or had given to them by others.
His first address was An humble Remonstrance by a dutiful son of the Church, almost as if he had said her whiteboy.—Milton, Prose Works, vol. i. p. 172.
The Pope was loath to adventure his darlings into danger. Those whiteboys were to stay at home with his Holiness, their tender father.—Fuller, Holy War, i. 13.