hackster, haxter, a hacker, one who hacks; hence, a cut-throat, bravo, bully. Chapman, Bussy D’Ambois, iii (Monsieur); Hall, Satires, iv. 4. 60; haxter, Lady Alimony, i. 2 (Messenger).
hacqueton; see [haqueton].
had I wist, if I had but known. A common exclamation of one who repents too late. Spenser, Mother Hubberd’s Tale, 893; London Prodigal, iii. 1. 49; Two Angry Women, iv. 3 (Nicholas). ME. hadde I wist: ‘Upon his fortune and his grace Comth “Hadde I wist” ful ofte a place’, Gower (C. A. i. 1888).
hade, a strip of land left unploughed as a boundary line and means of access between two ploughed portions of a field. Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 6; Drayton, Pol. xiii. 222 and 400. In Corpus Coll., Oxford, there is a Map (date 1615) in which there is a description of certain arable lands having ‘hades’ of meadow and grass ground lying in the south field of Eynsham. See EDD. (s.v. Hade, sb.1).
hæmeræ, for hemeræ, pl., ephemera, ephemeral flies, day-flies. Greene, Friar Bacon, iii. 3 (1482); scene 10. 124 (W.); p. 171, col. 2 (D.). For ephemera, Med. L. ephemera, Gk. ἐφήμερα, neut. pl. of ἐφήμερος, lasting or living but a day.
hæmony. Name given by Milton to an imaginary plant having supernatural virtues. Milton, Comus, 638. Gk. αἱμώνιος, blood-red (probably with a theological allusion).
haft, to use shifts, haggle. Skelton, Magnyfycence, 1698; to cheat, id., Bowge of Courte, 521; hence hafter, a cheat, thief; id., Bowge of Courte, 138. Cp. Yorkshire word ‘heft’ in the sense of deceit, dissimulation, see EDD. (s.v. Heft, sb.3).
hafter, a wrangler; ‘Vitilitigator, an hafter, a wrangler, a quarreller’, Gouldman, Dict., 1678; so Baret, 1580.
hag, to trouble as the nightmare. Drayton, Heroic Ep. (Wks. ed. 1748, p. 108); spelt haggue, to vex, worry. Udall, tr. Apoph., Diogenes, § 95.
haggard, a wild female hawk, caught when in her adult plumage. Much Ado, iii. 1. 36; wild, intractable, inexperienced, B. Jonson, Magn. Lady, iii. 3 (Compass); Othello, iii. 3. 260; ‘I teach my haggard and unreclaimed Reason to stoop unto the lure of Faith’, Sir T. Browne, Rel. Med. (ed. Greenhill, 19). F. hagard, ‘hagard, wild, unsociable’ (Cotgr.).