exhibition, allowance, fixed payment. King Lear, i. 2. 25; Othello, i. 3. 238; London Prodigal, i. 1. 10. Med. L. exhibitio, ‘praebitio’; exhibere, ‘praebere alimenta et ad vitam necessaria’ (Ducange). See Prompt. EETS. 161, and Rönsch, Vulgata, 312. Hence the term ‘exhibition’ in the University of Oxford for annual payments made by a College to deserving students.
exigent, state of pressing need, emergency, decisive moment. Julius Caesar, v. 1. 19; Ant. and Cl. iv. 12. 63; extremity, end, 1 Hen. VI, ii. 5. 9; phr. to take an exigent, to come to an end, A Merry Knack to know a Knave, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 546; exigents, straits, Marlowe, Edw. II, ii. 5 (Warwick).
exigent, an urgent command; a writ of exigent was one commanding the sheriff to summon the defendant to appear, and to deliver himself up on pain of outlawry. Butler, Hud. i. 1. 370; iii. 1. 1036. Anglo-F. exigende, L. exigenda, from exigere, to exact. See Cowell, Interpreter (s.v.).
exoster, a hanging-bridge, used by men besieging a city; ‘Exosters, Sambukes, Catapults’, Peacham, Comp. Gentleman, c. 9. L. exostra, Gk. ἐξώστρα, a bridge thrust out from the besiegers’ tower against the walls of the besieged place; deriv. of ὠθέειν, to thrust.
expend, to weigh, examine, consider. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. iii, c. 9, § 1; c. 29, § 3. L. expendere, to weigh out.
expert, to experience. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Nov., 186.
expire, to breathe out. Spenser, F. Q. i. 11. 45; iv. 1. 54; to fulfil a term, i. 7. 9; to fly forth from a cannon, Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 188.
expiscate, to ‘fish out’, i.e. to find out by inquiry. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, x. 181. L. expiscari, to fish out; deriv. of piscis, a fish.
explete, to complete, to satisfy; ‘To explete the act’, Speed, Hist. ix. 21, § 71; ‘Nothing under an Infinite can expleat the immortall minde of man’, Fuller, Pisgah, iv. 7. 123. L. explere, to fill out.
exploit, success; ‘His ambassadours hadde made no better exployte’, Berners, tr. Froissart, ii. 91. 272. ME. espleit, success (Gower, C. A. V. 3924), Anglo-F. exploit, espleit, esplait, speed, success (Rough List).