But I yow pray and charge upon your lyf,
That what wyf that I take, ye me assure
To worschippe whil that hir lif may endure.
Chaucer, The Clerkes Tale, 108.
Man, that was made after the image and likeness of God, is full worshipful in his kind; yea, this holy image that is man God worshippeth.—Foxe, Book of Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe.
Wretched. What has been observed on ‘Unhappy’ explains and accounts also for the use of ‘wretched’ as = wicked. ‘Wretch’ still continues to cover the two meanings of one miserable and one wicked, though ‘wretched’ does so no more.
Nero regned after this Claudius, of alle men wrechidhest, redy to alle maner vices.—Capgrave, Chronicle of England, p. 62.
To do evil gratis, to do evil for good, is the wretchedest wickedness that can be.—Andrewes, Of the Conspiracy of the Gowries, serm. 4.
Younker. Now, as far as it is used at all, equivalent to ‘youngster;’ but the ‘younker’ of our Elizabethan and earlier literature was much more nearly the German ‘junker,’ or Jung Herr, the young lord,—or perhaps ‘squire’ would be nearer the mark,—or youthful gallant. [We borrowed the word from the Dutch ‘jonker’ or ‘jonkheer’ (= ‘jong’ young + ‘heer’ gentleman). See Skeat’s Dictionary.]
Yf some of them can get a fox tale or two, or that he may have a capons feder or a goose feder, or any long feder on his cap, than he is called a yonker.—Boorde, The Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, 1547.