harrot, a ‘herald’. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, iii. 1 (Sogliardo); Case is altered, iv. 4 (near the end). OF. heraut, herault. See NED.
harrow, interj., a cry of distress. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 43. ME. ‘I wol crye out harrow and alas’, Chaucer (C. T. A. 3286); Norm. F. harou, ‘Le cri ou la clameur de haro ou de harou était un appel public à la justice et à la protection’ (Moisy); see Didot.
harrow, to subdue, despoil. Spenser, F. Q. i. 10. 40. Used with reference to Christ’s ‘Harrowing of Hell’, or despoiling it by the rescue thence of the patriarchs, &c., as described in the pseudo-gospel of Nicodemus. See the passage from Legenda Aurea, cap. liv, quoted in Notes to P. Plowman, C. xxi. 261 (pp. 410, 411).
Harry-groat, a groat of Henry VIII. Beaumont and Fl., Scornful Lady, i. 2 (Young Loveless); Woman’s Prize, iii. 2 (Jaques); Mayne, City Match, ii. 3 (Aurelia).
hart of grece, a fat hart; ‘Eche of them slewe a harte of grece’, Adam Bell, 105 (Child’s Ballads, p. 251); Ballad of Robin Hood and the Curtal Fryar (Child’s Ballads, p. 299). See Nares (s.v. Greece).
hart-of-ten, a hart having as many as ten points on each horn, and therefore full-grown; ‘The total number of points, counting all the tines, is ten’, Cent. Dict. (s.v. Antler); ‘Whan an hart hath fourched, and then auntlere ryall and surryall, and forched on the one syde, and troched on that other syde, than is he an hert of .X. and the more’, Venery de Twety, in Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 151; ‘An Hart of tenne’, Gascoigne, Art of Venerie, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 311.
hartmans, harmans, the stocks. (Cant.) Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Song); ‘The harmans, the stockes’, Harman, Caveat, p. 84. See [harman-beck].
haskard, a base, vulgar fellow. Skelton, Garl. of Laurell, 606; id., Dethe of Erle of Northumberland, 24. See NED.
haske, a rush or wicker basket. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Nov., 16 (explained as ‘a wicker ped, wherein they use to carrie fish’); ‘Cavagna, a fishers basket, or haske’, Florio. See NED. (s.v. Hask).
hatch, a half-door, wicket with an open space above; ‘Ore [o’er] the hatch’, King John, i. 1. 171; ‘Take the hatch’ (jump over it), King Lear, iii. 6. 76; ‘As hound at hatch’ (i.e. like a dog set to watch the door’), Turbervile, The Lover to Cupid, st. 12 from end.