| Cheat, | } |
| Cheater. |
The steps by which ‘escheat’ has yielded ‘cheat,’ and ‘escheatour’ ‘cheater,’ are interesting to trace. The ‘escheatour’ was an officer in each county who took notice of fines and forfeitures technically called ‘escheats’ on the royal manors, which had fallen in to the Crown, and certified these to the Exchequer. But he had commonly such a reputation for fraud and extortion in the execution of his office, that by an only too natural transition the ‘escheatour’ passed into the ‘cheater,’ and ‘escheat’ into ‘cheat.’ The quotation from Gurnall is curious as marking the word in the very act of this transition.
And yet the taking off these vessels was not the best and goodliest cheat of their victory; but this passed all, that with one light skirmish they became lords of all the sea along those coasts.—Holland, Livy, p. 444.
This man who otherwise beforetime was but poor and needy, by these windfalls and unexpected cheats became very wealthy.—Id. Plutarch’s Morals, p. 1237.
Falstaff. Here’s another letter to her. She bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me.—Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, act i. sc. 2.
By this impudence they may abuse credulous souls into a belief of what they say, as a cheater may pick the purses of innocent people, by showing them something like the King’s broad seal, which was indeed his own forgery.—Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour, 1639, vol. ii. p. 201.
Cheer. Cicero, who loves to bring out superiorities, where he can find them, of the Latin language over the Greek, urges this as one, that the Greek has no equivalent to the Latin ‘vultus’ (Leg. i. 9, 27); the countenance, that is, ethically regarded, as the ever-varying index and exponent of the sentiments and emotions of the soul (‘imago animi vultus est,’ De Orat. iii. 59, 221). Perhaps it may be charged on the English, that it too is now without such a word. But ‘cheer,’ in its earlier uses, of which vestiges still survive, was exactly such.
In swoot of thi cheer thou schalt ete thi breed, till thou turne ayen in to the erthe of which thou art takun.—Gen. iii. 19. Wiclif.
And Cayn was wrooth greetli, and his cheer felde doun.—Gen. iv. 5. Wiclif.
Each froward threatening cheer of fortune makes us plain;