avoutry, adultery. Paston, Letters, no. 883; vol. iii, p. 317; Hickscorner, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 175. ME. avouterye (Chaucer). Anglo-F. avoulterie (Gower).
avowre, to vow, devote. Only in Phaer, Aeneid, viii. 85, Latin text (M iiij, l. 6). See NED.
awaite: in await (awate), in ambush. Fairfax, tr. Tasso, v. 18. Anglo-F. en await (agwait, agueit, agait), in ambush, lying in wait (Rough List, s.v. Await).
awaite: in phr. to have good awaite, to take good care. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. ii, ch. 5, § 10.
a-wallop, in a boiling state, boiling quickly. Golding, Metam. vii. 263; fol. 82 (1603). Cp. the prov. word wallop, ‘to boil violently with a bubbling sound’, in common use in Scotland and in various parts of England. See EDD. (s.v. Wallop, vb.2).
awbe, a bull-finch. Gascoigne, Philomene, l. 35. ME. alpe, ‘ficedula’ (Prompt.). See [nope].
awful, profoundly reverential. Richard II, iii. 3. 76; Dryden, Britannia, 106.
awhape, to amaze, confound. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 7. 5; v. 11. 32. ME. awhapen (Chaucer).
awk, reversed; the awk end, the wrong end, the other end. Golding, Metam. xiv. 300 (L. ‘conversae verbere virgae’); fol. 170, back (1603). See [auke].
awkward, untoward, unfavourable, adverse. 2 Hen. VI, iii. 2. 83; Marlowe, Edw. II, iv. 6. 34.