eld, to ail; ‘What thing eldeth thee?’ Thersites, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 414. Cp. aild, prov. pronunc. of ail (vb.): ‘He’s allus aildin’ (Worcestersh.); aildy, ailing, poorly, ‘I be very aildy to-day’ (Northampton); so in Beds., teste J. W. Burgon, see EDD. (s.v. Ail and Aildy). In Shropsh. they say elded for ailed.
elder, an elder-tree. It was an old belief that Judas Iscariot hung himself upon an elder. See L. L. L. v. 2. 610; B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, iv. 4 (Carlo). See P. Plowman, C. ii. 64 (Notes, p. 31).
elegant, for [alicant], q.v. A Cure for a Cuckold, iv. 1. 18.
element, the sky. Julius Caes. i. 3. 128; Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 116; Milton, Comus, 299. In common prov. use in the west country. A Somerset man describing a thunderstorm would say, ‘Th’ element was all to a flicker’ (EDD.).
elenche, elench, a logical refutation, a syllogism in refutation of an argument. Massinger, Emperor of the East, ii. 1 (Theodosius). Also, a sophistical argument, a fallacy; Bacon, Adv. of Learning, bk. ii, § xiv. 5. L. elenchus, Gk. ἔλεγχος, cross-examination.
elk, the wild swan, or hooper. ‘The Elk’, in the margin of Golding’s tr. of Ovid, Metam. xiv. 509; ‘In hard winters elks, a kind of wild swan, are seen’, Sir T. Browne (Wks. ed. 1893, iii. 313); ‘Swanne, some take thys to be the elke or wild swanne’, Huloet. See [ilke].
ellops, a kind of serpent. Milton, P. L. x. 525. Gk. ἔλλοψ, ἔλοψ, lit. ‘mute’, an epithet of fish (so Prellwitz); name for a certain sea-fish, probably the sword-fish or sturgeon, later, a serpent.
embase, to debase, lower. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 6. 20; Sonnet 82.
embassade, a mission as ambassador. 3 Hen. VI, iv. 3. 32; also, quasi-adv., on an embassy, Spenser, Hymn in Honour of Beauty, 251. F. embassade, an embassage; also an embassador accompanied with his ordinary train (Cotgr.).
embay, to bathe, drench, wet, steep. Spenser, F. Q. i. 10. 27; ii. 12. 60. Metaph., to bathe (oneself in sunshine); Muiopotmos, 200; to pervade, suffuse, F. Q. i. 9. 13.