To conclude, his house was a common receipt for all those that came from Greece to Rome.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. 446.
Fountains I intend to be of two natures, the one that sprinkleth or spouteth water, the other a fair receipt of water, of some thirty or forty foot square, but without fish, or slime, or mud.—Bacon, Essays, 46.
Reclaim. A ‘reclamation’ is still sometimes a calling out against; but ‘to reclaim’ is never, I think, anything now but to call back again; never to disclaim.
Herod, instead of reclaiming what they exclaimed [Acts xii. 22], embraced and hugged their praises as proper to himself, and thereupon an angel and worms, the best and basest of creatures, met in his punishment, the one smiting, the other eating him up.—Fuller, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, b. ii. c. 8.
Recognize. This verb means now to revive our knowledge of a person or thing; to reacquaint oneself with it; but in earlier usage to review, as in my first quotation, to reconnoitre, as in my second.
In recognizing this history I have employed a little more labour, partly to enlarge the argument which I took in hand, partly also to assay, whether by any painstaking I might pacify the stomachs, or to satisfy the judgments of these importune quarrellers.—Foxe, Book of Martyrs; Epistle Dedicatory [of the Second Edition] to the Queen’s Majesty.
In quartering either in village, field, or city, he [a commander] ought himself to recognize all avenues, whereby his enemies may come to him.—Monro, His Expedition, p. 9.
Reduce. That which is ‘reduced’ now is brought back to narrower limits, or lower terms, or more subject conditions, than those under which it subsisted before. But nothing of this lies of necessity in the word, nor yet in the earlier uses of it. According to these, that was ‘reduced’ which was brought back to its former estate, an estate that might be, and in all the following examples is, an ampler, larger, or more prosperous one than that which it superseded.
The drift of the Roman armies and forces was not to bring free states into servitude, but contrariwise, to reduce those that were in bondage to liberty.—Holland, Livy, p. 1211.
There remained only Britain [i.e. Britany] to be reunited, and so the monarchy of France to be reduced to the ancient terms and bounds.—Bacon, History of King Henry VII.
That he might have these keys to open the heavenly Hades to reduced apostates, to penitent, believing, self-devoting sinners, for this it was necessary He should put on man, become obedient to death, even that servile punishment, the death of the cross.—Howe, The Redeemer’s Dominion over the Invisible World.
Shakespeare, Richard III., act v. sc. 5.
Reign. This is now in the abstract what ‘kingdom’ is in the concrete, but there was no such distinction once between them.
Romaunt of the Rose, 448.
Rejoice. Formerly used in the sense of to enjoy.
Then was mad pes on this manere, that he and his puple schuld frely rejoyce all the lond of the other side of Seyne.—Capgrave, Chronicle of England, p. 112.
In special he [Constantine] assigned and bequathe the lordschip of the west parte, which was Rome, to his eeldist sone Constantyn, which sone rejoiced the same parte so to him devysid, and that thorugh al his liif.—Pecock, Repressor, c. xiii.
| Religion, | } |
| Religious. |
Not, as too often now, used as equivalent for godliness; but like θρησκεία, for which it stands Jam. i. 27, it expressed the outer form and embodiment which the inward spirit of a true or a false devotion assumed. In the Middle Ages a ‘religion’ was a monastic Order, and they were ‘religious’ who had entered into one of these.
We would admit and grant them, that images used for no religion, or superstition rather, we mean of none worshipped, nor in danger to be worshipped of any, may be suffered.—Homilies; Against Peril of Idolatry.
Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 367.
Romaunt of the Rose, 6152.
Gower, Confessio Amantis, b. viii.
Remark. There are no ‘remarks’ now but verbal ones. ‘To remark’ was once to point out, to designate.
They [the publicans and harlots] are moved by shame, and punished by disgrace, and remarked by punishments, and frighted by the circumstances and notices of all the world, and separated from sober persons by laws and an intolerable character.—Bishop Taylor, Of Lukewarmness and Zeal, Serm. 13, part ii.
Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1308.
| Remonstrate, | } |
| Remonstrance. |
Its present sense, namely to expostulate, was only at a late date superinduced on the word. ‘To remonstrate’ is properly to make any show or representation in regard to some step that has been taken. It is now only such show or representation as protests against this step; and always assumes this step to have been distasteful; but this limitation lies not of necessity in the word.
Properties of a faithful servant: a sedulous eye, to observe all occasions within or without, tending to remonstrate the habit within.—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 309.
It [the death of Lady Carbery] was not (in all appearance) of so much trouble as two fits of a common ague; so careful was God to remonstrate to all that stood in that sad attendance that this soul was dear to Him.—Bishop Taylor, Funeral Sermon on Lady Carbery.
I consider that in two very great instances it was remonstrated that Christianity was the greatest persecution of natural justice and equality in the whole world.—Id., Life of Christ, Preface, § 32.
When Sir Francis Cottington returned with our king’s oath, plighted to the annexed conditions for the ease of the Roman Catholics, the Spaniards made no remonstrance of joy, or of an ordinary liking of it.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part i. p. 145.
No; the atheist is too wise in his generation to make remonstrances and declarations of what he thinks. It is his heart and the little council that is held there, that is only privy to his monstrous opinions.—South, Sermons, 1744, vol. ix. p. 78.
| Remorse, | } |
| Remorseful. |
In ‘remorseless’ and in the phrase ‘without remorse,’ we retain a sense of ‘remorse’ as equivalent with pity, which otherwise has quite passed away from it. It may thus have acquired this meaning. There is nothing which is followed in natures not absolutely devilish with so swift revulsion of mind as acts of cruelty. Nowhere does the conscience so quickly sting the guilty actor as in and after these; and thus ‘remorse,’ which is the penitence of the natural man, the penitence not wrought by the spirit of grace, while it means the revulsion of the mind and conscience against any evil which has been done, came to mean predominantly revulsion against acts of cruelty, the pity which followed close on these; and thus pity in general, and not only as in this way called out.
King Richard by his own experience grew sensible of the miseries which merchants and mariners at sea underwent. Wherefore, now touched with remorse of their pitiful case, he resolved to revoke the law of wrecks.—Fuller, Holy War, b. iii. c. 7.
Middleton, Wisdom of Solomon, c. v. 17.
Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, act iv. sc. 2.
Repeal. ‘To repeal’ (compare Old French ‘rapeler’) is to recall, and seldom or never applied now except to some statute or law, but formerly of far wider use.
Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI., act iii. sc. 2.
Milton, Paradise Lost, vii. 59.
Sylvester, Du Bartas, Eden, The Second Week.
Reprove. Now ‘to rebuke,’ but once equivalent to ‘disprove,’ and convertible with it.
As it [the Apology] has been well allowed of and liked of the learned and godly, so hath it not hitherto, for ought that may appear, been anywhere openly reproved either in Latin or otherwise, either by any one man’s private writing, or by the public authority of any nation.—Jewel, Defence of the Apology.
Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI., act iii. sc. 1.
Require. This has now something almost imperative in it; being less to request or to entreat than to command; but it was not so always.
We do instantly require and desire the Blessed Virgin Mary with all the holy company of heaven, continually to pray for us.—Will of Henry VIII.
Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, act iii. sc. 12.
| Resent, | } |
| Resentment. |
When first introduced into the language (this was in the seventeenth century; ‘vox nova in nostrâ linguâ:’ Junius), ‘to resent’ meant to have a sense or feeling of that which had been done to us; but whether a sense of gratitude for the good, or of enmity for the evil, the word itself did not decide, and was employed in both meanings. It has fared not otherwise with ‘ressentiment’ in French. Of this Génin, La Langue de Molière, writes, ‘Ce mot, dont l’usage a déterminé l’acception en mauvaise part, ne signifiait jadis que sentiment avec plus de force.’ Must we conclude from the fact that the latter is now the exclusive employment of it, that our sense of injuries is much stronger and more lasting than our sense of benefits?
Beaumont, Psyche, can. iv. st. 156.
Perchance as vultures are said to smell the earthliness of a dying corpse; so this bird of prey [the evil Spirit which personated Samuel] resented a worse than earthly savour in the soul of Saul, an evidence of his death at hand.—Fuller, The Profane State, b. v. c. 4.
The judicious prelate will prefer a drop of the sincere milk of the word before vessels full of traditionary pottage, resenting of the wild gourd of human invention.—Id., A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, b. iii. c. 1.
I resented as I ought the news of my mother-in-law’s death.—Sancroft, Variorum Shakespeare, vol. i. p. 518.
Sadness does in some cases become a Christian, as being an index of a pious mind, of compassion, and a wise, proper resentment of things.—Bishop Taylor, Sermon 23, part ii.
The Council taking notice of the many good services performed by Mr. John Milton, their Secretary for foreign languages, particularly for his book in vindication of the Parliament and people of England against the calumnies and invectives of Salmasius, have thought fit to declare their resentment and good acceptance of the same, and that the thanks of the Council be returned to Mr. Milton.—Extract from ‘The Council Book,’ 1651, June 18.
| Residence, | } |
| Resident. |
It will be seen from the quotations which follow that ‘residence’ in the seventeenth century meant something quite different from ordinary place of habitation, which is all the meaning which now it has.
Separation in it is wrought by weight, as in the ordinary residence or settlement of liquors.—Bacon, Natural History, § 302.
Of waters of a muddy residence we may make good use and quench our thirst, if we do not trouble them; yet upon any ungentle disturbance we drink down mud, instead of a clear stream.—Bishop Taylor, Sermon on the Gunpowder Treason.
The inexperienced Christian shrieks out whenever his vessel shakes, thinking it always a danger that the watery pavement is not stable and resident like a rock.—Id., Sermon 11, part 3.
| Restive, | } |
| Restiveness. |
Any one now invited to define a ‘restive’ horse would certainly put into his definition that it was one with too much motion; but in obedience to its etymology ‘restive’ would have once meant one with too little; determined to stand still when it ought to go forward. [It is the Old French restif, stubborn, drawing backward (see Cotgrave), from rester, Latin restare, to stand still.] Immobile, lazy, stubborn, are the three stages of meaning which the word went through, before it reached the fourth and present.
Bishops or presbyters we know, and deacons we know, but what are chaplains? In state perhaps they may be listed among the upper serving-men of some great man’s household, the yeoman ushers of devotion, where the master is too resty or too rich to say his own prayers, or to bless his own table.—Milton, Iconoclastes, c. xxiv.
Restive, or Resty, drawing back instead of going forward, as some horses do.—Phillips, New World of Words.
Nothing hindereth men’s fortunes so much as this: Idem manebat, neque idem decebat; men are where they were, when occasions turn. From whatsoever root or cause this restiveness of mind proceedeth, it is a thing most prejudicial.—Bacon, Advancement of Learning, b. ii.
The snake, by restiness and lying still all winter, hath a certain membrane or film growing over the whole body.—Holland, Pliny, part i. p. 210.
| Retaliate, | } |
| Retaliation. |
It has fared with ‘retaliate’ and ‘retaliation’ as it has with ‘resent’ and ‘resentment,’ that whereas men could once speak of the ‘retaliation’ of benefits as well as of wrongs, they only ‘retaliate’ injuries now.
Our captain would not salute the city, except they would retaliate.—Diary of Henry Teonge, Aug. 1, 1675.
[The king] expects a return in specie from them [the Dissenters], that the kindness which he has graciously shown them may be retaliated on those of his own persuasion.—Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, Preface.
His majesty caused directions to be sent for the enlargement of the Roman priests, in retaliation for the prisoners that were set at liberty in Spain to congratulate the prince’s welcome.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part i. p. 166.
Revoke. This has now a much narrower range of meaning than the Latin ‘revocare;’ but some took for granted once that wherever the one word could have been used in Latin, the other might be used in English.
Golding, Ovid’s Metamorphosis, b. xi.
Chapman, The Odyssey of Homer, b. xxiii. l. 5.
Rig. A somewhat vulgar word, with the present use of which, however, we are probably all familiar from its occurrence in John Gilpin:
But a ‘rig’ in its earlier use was not so often a strange uncomely feat, as a wanton uncomely person.
Let none condemn them [the girls] for rigs because thus hoyting with the boys, seeing the simplicity of their age was a patent to privilege any innocent pastime.—Fuller, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, b. iv. 6.
[Ripple. It is now in literary English a poetical word, and nothing is ‘rippled’ but the surface of the water. This is probably a distinct word from the ‘ripple’ of the Whitby dialect, which means to scratch slightly as with a pin upon the skin (see Robinson’s ‘Glossary,’ English Dialect Society, 1876). This is precisely the meaning of ‘ripple’ in the citation from Holland below. For cognates of this ‘ripple’ to scratch see Skeat’s ‘Dictionary’ (s. v. ‘rip’).]
On a sudden an horseman’s javelin, having slightly rippled the skin of his [Julian’s] left arm, pierced within his short ribs, and stuck fast in the nether lappet or fillet of his liver.—Holland, Ammianus, p. 264.
Rogue. There was a time when ‘rogue’ meant no more than wandering mendicant. What of dishonesty is implied now in the word was afterwards superinduced upon it; as has also been the case with ‘tramp’ and ‘vagabond.’
Shakespeare, King Lear, act iv. sc. 7.
Rogue signifieth with us an idle sturdy beggar, that, wandering from place to place without passport, after he hath been by justices bestowed upon some certain place of abode, or offered to be bestowed, is condemned to be so called; who for the first offence is called a rogue of the first degree, and punished by whipping, and boring through the gristle of the right ear with a hot iron an inch in compass, and for the second offence is called a rogue of the second degree, and put to death as a felon, if he be above eighteen years old.—Cowell, The Interpreter, s.v.
The third sort of those that live unprofitably and without a calling are our idle sturdy rogues and vagrant towns-end beggars. I mean such as are able to work, yet rather choose to wander abroad the country, and to spend their days in a most base and ungodly course of life.—Sanderson, Sermons, 1671, vol. i. p. 197.
Romantic. It is much rarer to find words which in lapse of time have mended their position than those which have seen theirs grow worse. But such there are, and this is one of them. Who would have expected two centuries ago that ‘romantic’ would have held the place of honour which now it does; would have divided with ‘classical’ the whole world of modern literature?
Can anything in nature be imagined more profane and impious, more absurd, and indeed romantic, than such a persuasion [namely that whenever in Scripture the Covenant is mentioned, the Scotch Covenant was intended]? and yet, as impious and absurd as it was, it bore down all before it, and overturned the equallest and best framed government in the world.—South, Sermons, 1737, vol. vi. p. 42.
Room. In certain connexions we still employ ‘room’ for place, but in many more it obtains this meaning no longer. Thus one who accepts the words, ‘When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room’ (Luke xiv. 8), according to the present use of ‘room,’ will probably imagine to himself guests assembling in various apartments, some more honourable than other; and not, as indeed the meaning is, taking higher or lower places at one and the same table.
Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI., act iii. sc. 2.
If he have but twelve pence in’s purse, he will give it for the best room in a playhouse.—Sir T. Overbury, Characters: A Proud Man.
| Ruffian, | } |
| Ruffianly. |
The Old French ‘ruffien,’ the Italian ‘ruffiano,’ the Spanish ‘rufian,’ all signify the setter-forward of an infamous traffic between the sexes; nor will the passages quoted below leave any doubt that this is the proper meaning of ‘ruffian’ in English, others being secondary and derived from it. At the same time the ‘ruffian’ is not merely the ‘leno,’ he is the ‘amasius’ as well. For some instructive English uses of the word, see Ascham’s Scholemaster, Wright’s edit. pp. 44, 215.
Let young men consider the precious value of their time, and waste it not in idleness, in jollity, in gaming, in banqueting, in ruffians’ company.—Homilies; Against Idleness.
Xenocrates, casting but his eye upon Polemon, who was come into his school like a ruffian, by his very look only redeemed him from his loose life.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 112.
He [her husband] is no sooner abroad than she is instantly at home, revelling with her ruffians.—Reynolds, God’s Revenge against Murther, b. iii. hist. 11.
Who in London hath not heard of his [Greene’s] dissolute and licentious living; his fond disguising of a Master of Art with ruffianly hair, unseemly apparel, and more unseemly company?—G. Harvey, Four Letters touching Robert Greene, p. 7.
Some frenchified or outlandish monsieur, who hath nothing else to make him famous, I should say infamous, but an effeminate, ruffianly, ugly, and deformed lock.—Prynne, The Unloveliness of Love-locks, p. 27.
Rummage. At present so to look for one thing as in the looking to overturn and unsettle a great many others. It is a sea-term, and signified at first to dispose with such orderly method goods in the hold of a ship that there should be the greatest possible room, or ‘roomage.’ The quotation from Phillips shows the word in the act of transition from its former use to its present.
And that the masters of the ships do look well to the romaging, for they might bring away a great deal more than they do, if they would take pain in the romaging.—Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. i. p. 308.
To rummage (sea-term): To remove any goods or luggage from one place to another, especially to clear the ship’s hold of any goods or lading, in order to their being handsomely stowed and placed; whence the word is used upon other occasions, for to rake into, or to search narrowly.—Phillips, New World of Words.
| Sad, | } |
| Sadly, | |
| Sadness. |
This had once the meaning of earnest, serious, sedate. The passage from Shakespeare quoted below marks ‘sadly’ and ‘sadness’ in their transitional state from the old meaning to the new; Benvolio using ‘sadness’ in the old sense, Romeo pretending to understand him in the new. For the etymology of ‘sad’ see Mayhew-Skeat, Dict. of Middle English.
Chaucer, The Manciples Tale.
He may have one year, or two at the most, an ancient and sad matron attending on him.—Sir T. Elyot, The Governor, b. i. c. 6.
Earl of Surrey, The Faithful Lover, p. 33 (ed. 1717).
Chaucer, The Knightes Tale.
Therfor ye, britheren, bifor witynge kepe you silf, lest ye be disseyved bi errour of unwise men, and falle awei fro youre owne sadness [a propriâ firmitate, Vulg.].—2 Pet. iii. 17. Wiclif.
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, act i. sc. 1.
Sampler. This has now quite dissociated itself in meaning from ‘exemplar,’ of which it is the popular form, as ‘sample’ has done from ‘example;’ not so, however, once.
Job, the sawmpler of pacience.—Preparatory Epistles of St. Jerome to Wiclif’s Bible.
Sash. At present always a belt or girdle of the loins; not so, however, when first introduced from the East. By the ‘sash,’ or ‘shash’ as it was then always spelt, was understood the roll of silk, fine linen, or gauze, worn about the head; in fact a turban. The word is of Persian origin.
Shash: Cidaris seu tiara, pileus Turcicus, ut doct. Th. H. placet, ab It. Sessa, gausapina cujus involucris Turcæ pileos suos adornant.—Skinner, Etymologicon.
So much for the silk in Judea, called Shesh in Hebrew, whence haply that fine linen or silk is called shashes, worn at this day about the heads of eastern people.—Fuller, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, b. ii. c. 14.
He [a Persian merchant] was apparelled in a long robe of cloth of gold, his head was wreathed with a huge shash or tulipant of silk and gold.—Herbert, Travels, 1638, p. 191.
| Scarce, | } |
| Scarcely, | |
| Scarcity. |
Now expressing the fact that the thing to which this epithet is applied is rare, not easily to be come by; but in the time of Chaucer, Wiclif, and Gower, and till a later day, parsimonious or stingy. For the derivation see Skeat’s Dictionary.
Ye schul use the richesses the whiche ye han geten by youre witte and by youre travaile, in such a maner, that men holde yow not skarse ne to sparynge ne fool-large; for right as men blamen an avërous man bycause of his skarsite and chyncherie, in the same manere is he to blame that spendeth over largely.—Chaucer, The Tale of Melibœus.
A man is that is maad riche in doynge scarsli [parce agendo, Vulg.]—Ecclus. xi. 18. Wiclif.
For I seie this thing, he that sowith scarseli schal also repe scarseli.—2 Cor. ix. 6. Id.
Davison, Poetical Rhapsody, p. 256.
| Secure, | } |
| Securely, | |
| Security. |
In our present English the difference between ‘safe’ and ‘secure’ is hardly recognized, but once it was otherwise. ‘Secure’ (‘securus,’ from sē- + cura) was subjective; it was a man’s own sense, well grounded or not, of the absence of danger; ‘safe’ was objective, the actual fact of such absence of danger. A man, therefore, might not be ‘safe,’ just because he was ‘secure’ (thus see Judges xviii. 7, 10, 27, and Paradise Lost, iv. 791). I may observe that our use of ‘secure’ at Matt. xxviii. 14, is in fact this early, though we may easily read the passage as though it were employed in the modern sense. ‘We will secure you’ of our Version represents ἀμερίμνους ὑμᾶς ποιήσομεν of the original.
Quarles, Emblems, ii. 14.
We cannot endure to be disturbed or awakened from our pleasing lethargy. For we care not to be safe, but to be secure.—Bishop Taylor, Of Slander and Flattery.
Ben Jonson, The Forest, xi.
Shakespeare, Richard II., act ii. sc. 1.
Id., ibid., act iii. sc. 2.
The last daughter of pride is delicacy, under which is contained gluttony, luxury, sloth, and security.—Nash, Christ’s Tears over Jerusalem, p. 137.
Webster, Duchess of Malfi, act v. sc. 2.
| Sedition, | } |
| Seditious. |
There was an attempt on the part of some scholarly writers at the beginning of the seventeenth century to keep ‘sedition’ true to its etymology, and to the meaning which ‘seditio’ bears in the Latin. This is the explanation of its employment as a rendering of διχοστασίαι, Gal. v. 21, as quoted below; which in our present English would be more accurately rendered, secessions, dissensions, or divisions; in exactly which sense ‘seditious’ is there used by our Translators. So too, when Satan, in the quotation given below, addresses Abdiel ‘seditious Angel,’ this is to find the same explanation, as is clear from the words which immediately follow. He the one faithful, taking the Lord’s side, had in so doing divided the ranks of those who adhered to the fallen Archangel, and separated from them, being therein ‘seditious.’ The quotation from Bishop Andrewes not less evidently shows how distinct in his mind ‘seditions’ were from those overt acts of petty treason which we now call by this name; however, they might often lead to such.
Whom you find thus magnifying of changes and projecting new plots for the people, be sure they are in the way to sedition. For (mark it) they do sedire, that is seorsim ire, go aside; they have their meetings apart about their new alterations. Now of sedire comes sedition, side-going. For if that be not looked to in time, the next news is, the blowing of a trumpet, and Sheba’s proclamation, We have no part in David. It begins in Shimei, it ends in Sheba.—Andrewes, Of the Gunpowder Treason, Serm. 6.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, ... seditions (in R.V. ‘divisions’).—Gal. v. 20, 21. (A.V.)
Milton, Paradise Lost, vi. 150.
See. Not always confined as now to the seat or residence of a bishop; nor indeed did it necessarily involve the notion of a seat of authority at all.
Chaucer, The Monkes Tale.
Id., The Hous of Fame, b. iii. (Skeat, p. 156).
The Lord smoot all the fyrst gotun in the loond of Egipte, fro the fyrst gotun of Pharao, that sat in his see, unto the fyrst gotun of the caitiff woman that was in prisoun.—Exod. xii. 29. Wiclif.
Spenser, Fairy Queen, iv. 10, 30.
Seedsman. Between the ‘seedsman’ and the ‘sower’ there is now a useful distinction. The one sells the seed; the other scatters it in the furrow; but the distinction is comparatively modern.