A glossary of Tudor and Stuart words, especially from the dramatists

by Walter W. Skeat

solein; see [solayne].

solf, to sing the notes of the sol-fa, or gamut; to sing. Calisto and Melibaea, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 71; solfe, Skelton, Phyllyp Sparowe, 415. ME. solfe (P. Plowman, B. v. 423).

†solidare, a small piece of money. Timon, iii. 1. 46. Not found elsewhere.

sollar, an upper room. Udall, tr. Erasmus, Acts xx. 8 (= ὑπερῷον, cenaculum); a loft, ‘Sollars full of wheat’, Marlowe, Jew of Malta, iv. 1 (Barabas). The word is still in prov. use in various parts of England with many meanings: esp. an upper room, a first-floor apartment; loft or garret (EDD.). The Gk. word ὑπερῷον (Vulg. cenaculumm) in Acts xx. 8 is rendered by soler in Wyclif’s tr. (Luther has söller). In the Heliand and in Tatian soleri = ‘cenaculum’. ME. solere or lofte, ‘solarium’ (Prompt.); ‘Soler-halle at Cantebregge’ (Chaucer, C. T. A. 3990, see Notes); OE. solor (soler-); L. solarium, a part of the house exposed to the sun, esp. a flat house-top (Vulgate, 2 Sam. xi. 2).

somedele, somewhat, in some measure, Spenser, Shep. Kal., Dec, 40. In prov. use in Scotland, Yorks., Northants, see EDD. (s.v. Some, 1 (3)). ME. somdel, in some measure (Chaucer, C. T. A. 3911).

somer, a ‘summer’, a supporting beam, a support. Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 5. 22. In prov. use, see EDD. (s.v. Summer, sb.²). F. sommier, ‘the piece of timber called a Summer’ (Cotgr.); OF. somier, a pack-horse (Burguy); Med. L. saumarius, sagmarius, ‘equus clitellarius’ (Ducange); deriv. of sagma, a pack, burden; Gk. σάγμα. See Dict. (s.v. Sumpter). For the development of meaning from ‘a kind of horse’ to a ‘timber-beam’, cp. F. poutre, (1) a filly, (2) a supporting beam.

somner, an official summoner. Middleton, A Trick to catch, ii. 1 (Lucre). ME. somner (P. Plowman, C. iii. 59); somnour, summoner, apparitor, an officer who summoned delinquents before the ecclesiastical courts (Chaucer, C. T. A. 543).

sonde, a sending, a messenger. Morte Arthur, leaf 420, back, 13; bk. xxi, c. 1. OE. sand (sond), a sending, message.

sonties: in phr. by God’s sonties, an oath used by old Gobbo in Merch. Ven. ii. 1. 17. The same as God’s santy, Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. I, v. 2 (Bellafront). Adapted from OF. saintée, sancteit, sanctity, holiness (Godefroy).

soop, to sweep; ‘A sooping traine’, Return from Parnassus, i. 2 (Judicio); sooping it, sweeping alone; id., v. 1 (Studioso). Icel. sōpa, to sweep.