in; in-and-in, a gambling game for three persons, with four dice; in-and-in was when there were two doublets, or all four dice alike, which swept all the stakes. B. Jonson, New Inn, Bat Burst, an in-and-in man, i.e. a professed gambler. See Halliwell. In by the week, (?) prepared to go on for a week, Udall, Roister Doister, i. 2. 4. In dock, out nettle, a popular charm, said when rubbing a dock-leaf on the skin, to remove the effects of a sting by a nettle. Hence applied to a change from pain to joy, or to any exhibition of inconstancy or unsteadiness (Nares). Udall, Roister Doister, ii. 3. 8; Heywood, English Proverbs, 54, 133. In prov. use, see EDD. (s.v. Nettle). ME. Netle in, dokke out (Chaucer, Tr. and Cr. iv. 461). See Skeat, Early English Proverbs, § 187.
incarnadine, to dye red. Macbeth, ii. 2. 62. Incarnadine = F. incarnadin; Ital. incarnadino, carnation colour (Florio); lit. flesh-colour, deriv. of carne, flesh.
†incartata, an (assumed) term in fencing. Pl. incartata’s, Nabbes, Microcosmus, ii. 1 (Choler). Nabbes explains it as being one of the ‘terms in our dialect to puzzle desperate ignorance’.
incend, to heat; to inflame, incite. Incended, heated, Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, bk. iii, c. 3; Governour, bk. i, c. 23, § last but one. L. incendere, to set on fire.
incense, to ‘insense’, to make to understand. Hen. VIII, v. 1. 43. ‘To insense’ (also written ‘incense’) is in gen. prov. use in the sense of ‘to cause to understand, to explain’ in Scotland and Ireland, also in England, from the north to Somerset and Cornwall; see EDD. Anglo-F. ensenser, to inspire, persuade (Gower).
incentive, enkindling; ‘Incentive reed . . . pernicious with one touch to fire’ (i.e. the gunner’s match), Milton, P. L. vi. 519.
inceration, a bringing to the consistency of wax. B. Jonson, Alchemist, ii. 1 (Face). Deriv. of L. cera, wax. Cp. [ceration].
inchoation, beginning. Bacon, Hen. VII (ed. Lumby, pp. 62, 92). L. inchoatio, beginning (Vulgate, Heb. vi. 1); deriv. of inchoare, to begin.
inchpin, a name among huntsmen for the sweetbread of a deer; by some explained as ‘the lower gut’, so Cotgrave (s.v. Boyau); Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, i. 219; ‘The sweete gut which some call the Inchpinne’, Turbervile, Hunting, 134; B. Jonson, Sad Sheph. i. 2 (Robin).
incision, blood-letting. To make incision, to let blood, in order to cure, As You Like It, iii. 2. 75; gallants were in the habit of stabbing their arms, to prove their love for a mistress, Merchant of Venice, ii. 1. 6.