It happed after that upon the buryels grewe a right fayr flourdelis.—Caxton, Legenda Aurea, 151. 2.
Butchery. Now a massacre where there is little or no resistance on the part of those who are its victims. It was used once as the place where animals were slaughtered. [But see N.E.D. for modern quotations of the word in this latter sense.]
Al thing that is seld in the bocherie ete ye, axynge nothing for conscience.—1 Cor. x. 25. Wiclif.
Whence came it that they call the shambles or butcherie at Rome where flesh is to be sold, macellum?—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 869.
Buxom. The modern spelling of ‘buxom’ (it was somewhat, though not much better, when it was spelt ‘bucksome’) has quite hidden its identity with the German ‘biegsam,’ ‘beugsam,’ bendable, pliable, and so obedient. Ignorant of the history of the word, and trusting to the feeling and impression which it conveyed to their minds, men spoke of ‘buxom health’ and the like, meaning by this, having a cheerful comeliness. The epithet in this application is Gray’s, and Johnson justly finds fault with it. [See N.E.D. for the two quotations.] Milton, when he joins ‘buxom’ with ‘blithe and debonair,’ and Crashaw, in his otherwise beautiful line,
‘I am born
Again a fresh child of the buxom morn,’
show that already for them the true meaning of the word, common enough in our earlier writers, was passing away; yet Milton still uses it in its proper sense in Paradise Lost,—‘winnowing the buxom air,’ that is, the yielding air.
I submit myself unto this holy Church of Christ, to be ever buxom and obedient to the ordinance of it, after my knowledge and power, by the help of God.—Foxe, Book of Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe.
Buxom, kind, tractable, and pliable one to the other.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, 316.