—In a translation of Luther's Revelation of Antichrist by the Protestant martyr Frith, the word sinage occurs in a list of ecclesiastical payments, which the popish prelates were wont to exact from the parochial clergy.
If any of your correspondents can say what sinage means, he may oblige me still further by explaining the word distord, in the same page; where it is said "they stir princes and officers to distord against them," viz., against such as resist the claims of churchmen.
Is there any authority for supposing that sclawnder, ordinarily slander, may sometimes mean injury, without reference to character? It is certain that the parallel term calumnia was so used in monkish Latin.
H. W.
Miss.
—It is generally, I believe, understood that, prior to the time of Charles II., married women were called Mistress, and unmarried had Mistress prefixed to their Christian name; and that the equivocal position of many in that reign, gave rise to the peculiar designation of Miss or "Mis." Can any of your readers show an earlier use of the term than the following, from Epigrams of all Sorts, by Richard Flecknoe, published 1669?
"To Mis. Davis on her excellent Dancing.
Dear Mis., delight of all the nobler sort,
Pride of the stage and darling of the court."
Again, was the term, when used with especial reference to these ladies, always spelt with one s, as Mis?