Comedy plays; English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
INOWE, enough.
I-WIS, I-WYS, certainly, indeed, truly.
JAKES, privy, cesspool: Gammer racks her vocabulary for terms
of reproach.
JAPE, jest, joke.
JET, JETTETH, in modern phrase to put on "side" (in word or
act), brag, strut, vaunt, swagger: also in a weaker sense = to
go.
KIND, nature.
LEAD, copper.
LESE, lose.
LET, hindrance, hinder: archaic except in the phrase "without
let or hindrance."
LEVE, dear, beloved: _i.e. lief_.
LICKDISH, parasite.
LITHER, sluggish, spiritless, or as Hazlitt says "wicked," but
the true reading is an open question.
LONGS, is appropriate to, fitting for, beseeming.
LOOSE-BREECH, a slovenly lout.
LOSE (p. 27), read _lese_ for the rhyme.
LOSEL, a generic reproach--profligate, rake, scoundrel; and (in
weakened form) ne'er-do-well, good-for-nothing.
MALT-WORM, tippler, toper.
MAS, a vulgar or jocular shortening of _master_, usually
followed by a proper name or official title: also Mast.
MASTERDOM, mastership.
MELL, meddle, fight, interfere.
MEVE, move.
MINDS, intends, purposes.
MINIONS, wantons, strumpets: also in a weaker sense, favourite,
darling.
MO, more.
MOILING, ado, toiling.
MOT, may.
NARSE, one of many instances in which _n_ is found prefixed to
a word properly commencing with a vowel: cf. _newt_,
_nickname_, _nuncle_; also the converse flexion omitting _n_,
_adder_, _apron_, _umpire_, _orange_, for _nadder_, _napron_,
_numpire_, _norange_.
NAWL, awl: see previous entry.
NE, nor.
NEAR, nearer.
NICELY, carefully, quietly, gently.
NOBLE, coin value 6s. 8d.: see Chold and Hold.
NOTHER, neither, nor.
ON-LIVE, alive, of which on-live is an earlier form.
OR, ere.
OUGHT, owed.
PAD, see Straw.
PALTER, to speak indistinctly, mumble.
PARTS, parties.
PARTY, person: once literary but now vulgar.
PATCH, (_a_) fool, buffoon, jester: the nickname of Cardinal
Wolsey's domestic fool, whose real name was Sexton. Murray
suggests the influence of It. _pazzo_ (= fool), combined with
the motley wear of professional buffoons.
(_b_), beat, drub, "dust."
PATINS, "it went on _patins_" (p. 27), _i.e._ a great clatter
was made: often used figuratively of the tongue.
PERFIT, perfect.
PES, hassock: an East Anglian word.
PIGSNIE, an endearment.
PILD, stripped, shorn: whether by shaving or disease.
PILL, plunder, strip.
PIN, latch, bolt.
PISSING WHILE, a short time.
PLANCH, to plank on: _i.e._ to plaster by patching all round.
POUPED, deceived.
PRANCOME, anything odd or strange, a trick, device.
PUDDINGS, entrails, guts.
PULLEN, poultry.
QUEAN, a wanton.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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