with, wyth, a twisted band of willow; ‘A wyth take him!’ (i.e. hang him—said of an Irishman), Beaumont and Fl., Coxcomb, iii. 2 (1 Servant); ‘An Irish Rebell condemned, put up a Petition to the Deputie, that he might be hanged in a With, and not in an Halter, because it had beene so used with former Rebels’, Bacon, Essay 39. In prov. use; see EDD. (s.v. With, sb.1). See Dict. (s.v. Withy).
withal = with, as placed at the end of the sentence. As You Like It, iii. 2. 328; used in the sense of likewise, besides, at the same time, Bible, 1 Kings xix. 1; Ps. cxli. 10; Acts xxv. 27; ‘Though he be merry, yet withal he’s honest’, Taming Shrew, iii. 2. 25; Bacon, Essay 58; phr. to do withal, ‘They fell sick and died: I could not do withal’ (i.e. I could not help it), Merch. Ven. iii. 4. 72; Northward Ho, iv (Doll); Cure for a Cuckold, iv. 2 (Urse). See Wright’s Bible Word-Book.
withdrawing-chamber, (the modern) drawing-room. Bacon, Henry VII (ed. Lumby, p. 24).
witness, a sponsor in Baptism, a godfather or godmother. B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, i. 1 (Littlewit); Magn. Lady, iv. 3. 16. So in Devon (EDD.).
wittol, a tame cuckold knowing himself to be so. Merry Wives, ii. 1. 3; B. Jonson, The Fox, v. 1 (Mosca); Beaumont and Fl., Knight of Malta, iii. 2 (Gomere); ‘Jannin, a wittall, one that knows and bears with or winks at his wife’s dishonesty’, Cotgrave. Bp. Hall uses the form witwal, which may be the older form, ‘Fond wit-wal, that wouldst load thy witless head With timely horns before thy bridal bed’ (Sat. i. 7. 17). The word orig. was a name for the green woodpecker, ‘Godáno, a witwall, a woodwall’, Florio. The ‘witwall’, like the cuckoo, was the subject of ribald jests. In Cheshire and Glouc. ‘witwall’ is a name for the woodpecker; in Suffolk a contented cuckold is called a ‘wittol’; see EDD. See [wetewold].
wizzel, weasand, windpipe. The City Match, iii. 4 (Quartfield). See [weesel].
woe, sad, sorrowful. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 8. 53; Temp. v. 1. 139; 2 Hen. VI, iii. 2. 73. In the north country very common in prov. use, pronounced wae: ‘I would be wae for the wife’s sake’, see EDD. (s.v. Woe, 3).
woman-tired, henpecked; ‘Thou art woman-tired, unroosted by thy dame Partlet here’, Wint. Tale, ii. 3. 74.
wondered, gifted with power to perform miracles; ‘So rare a wonder’d father’, Temp. iv. 1. 123.
wone, won, spellings of one; ‘Let no suche a wone prepare unto himself manye horsses’; Latimer, Sermons (ed. Arber, p. 32); ‘Att won houre’, Tyndale, Rev. xviii. 10 (1526). So also wons, once; Qu. Elizabeth, tr. of Boethius, bk. i, met. 3. See Index to Wright’s English Dialect Grammar (s.v. One).