hay, hey, a hedge. Thersites, ed. Pollard, 1. 155; ‘A hay (implieth) a dead fence that may be made one yeere and pulled downe another’, Norden, Survey in Harrison’s England (NED.). In E. Anglia a ‘hey’ is the term used for a clipped quickset hedge. ME. hay, a hedge (Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 54). OE. hege, ‘sepes’ (Ælfric); cp. OF. haie, hedge (Rom. Rose, 50).
hay, hey, a country-dance, of the nature of a reel; ‘The antic hay’, Marlowe, Edw. II, i. 1 (Gaveston); Chapman, Bussy D’Ambois, i (Henry); ‘Rounds and winding Heyes’, Davies, Orchestra, lxiv (Arber, Garner, v. 39).
hay, interj., a term in fencing. B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. iv. 7 (Bobadil); a home-thrust, Romeo, ii. 4. 27. Ital. hai, thou hast (Florio); cp. L. habet; exclaimed when a gladiator was wounded.
hay-de-guy (-guise), a kind of ‘hay’ or dance. Heydeguyes, pl., Spenser, Shep. Kal., June, 27; ‘We nightly dance our hey-day-guise’, Robin Goodfellow, 102, in Percy’s Reliques (ed. 1887, iii. 204). In Somerset and Dorset the word is used for merriment, high spirits, rough play, see EDD. (s.v. Haydigees).
haye, a net for catching rabbits. B. Jonson, Alchemist, ii. 1 (Surly); Two Angry Women, iv. 1. 14. Hay-net is still in use in Kent and E. Anglia (EDD.). ME. hay, nete to take conyys, ‘cassis’ (Prompt. EETS. 211).
hay-ree, a carter’s cry in urging on his horses. Nash, Summer’s Last Will (Harvest), in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, viii. 52. In prov. use in Derbyshire (EDD.). See [ha and ree].
hayte and ree, words used by a carter in urging on or directing his horses. Heywood, Fortune by Land and Sea, ii. 1 (Clown) (vol. ii, 384). In Yorkshire the carters say ‘hite’ and ‘ree’, as calls to the horse to turn to left or right, see EDD. (s.v. Hait). ‘Hait’ is in gen. prov. use in Scotland and England, as a call to urge horses or other animals to go on (id.). ME. hayt: ‘Hayt, Brok!, hayt, Scot!’ (Chaucer, C. T. D. 1543). Cp. Swed. dial. häjt, a cry to the ox or horse to turn to the left. Rietz (s.v. Hit).
haytye, defiance. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 301, 17 (rendering of ahatine in the F. text). F. aatie, ahatie, ‘haine, querelle, provocation, engagement, lutte’ (Partonop. de Blois, 9585), also aatine, ahatine, from ahatir (aatir), ‘se hâter, s’engager à un combat, accepter une provocation’ (Chron. des ducs de Normandie); see Ducange. Cp. s’ahastir, ‘se hâter’ (Moisy).
haze, for ha ’s = have us. Udall, Roister Doister, iii. 4. 7; iv. 3 (Roister).
hazelwood. ‘Yea, hazelwood!’ (meaning, ‘why, of course!’), Gascoigne, in Hazlitt’s ed., ii. 23, 285. The exclamation implies that the information given is of a very simple description, and that the hearer knows a great deal more of the matter than the informant. In Chaucer’s Tr. and Cr. iii. 890, there occurs the fuller form, ‘Ye, haselwodes shaken’, i.e. Yea, hazelwoods shake (when the wind blows); in the same poem, v. 505, ‘Ye, haselwode!’.