Such as Socrates was, who being greatly abused by an insolent, audacious and gracelesse youth, that spared him not, but had spurned and kicked him with his heeles, seeing those about him to be very angrie and out of patience, stamping and faring as though they would run after the partie, to be avenged of such indignitie. How now, my masters, (quoth he,) what if an asse had flung out, and given me a rap with his heeles, would you have had me to have yerked out and kicked him againe? йolland's Plutarch, p. 12, 1. 33.

Avengement, sb. (2 Sam. xxii. 48, m.; Ps. xviii. 47, m.). Vengeance.

Vindice: f. Reuenge, auengement, vengeance, punishment.
Cotgrave, Fr. Dict.

Avoid, v.i. (1 Sam. xviii. 11; Wisd. xvii. 17). Fr. vuider, vider, to make empty, clear out. Intransitively to depart, escape. Webster marks as improper the usage of the word in 1 Sam.: 'David avoided out of his presence twice,' but it is supported by many examples in old English. He woulde neuer haue suffered him to auoyd his handes or escape his power. Hall, Rich. III. f. 6b.

Well done, avoid, no more.

Shakespeare, Temp. IV. 1.

Void is used in the same sense in Chaucer:

Alle the rokkes blake

Of Breteigne were y-voided everichon.

Chaucer, Franklin's Tale, 11471.

The following example illustrates the usage of the word as it passed from its original to its present meaning:

One time it happened that he met him so in a narrow street that he could not avoid but come near him. Latimer, Serm. P. 441.

Avouch, v. t. (Deut. xxvi. 17, 18; Luke xx. c.; Acts iv. c.). Lat. advocare, through Fr. voucher. To acknowledge, avow. The original is simply 'caused to say.' 'Thou hast

this day made Jehovah to say or promise, and Jehovah hath made thee promise;' i. e. 'ye have mutually promised, accepted and ratified the conditions, one of the other.' Such is the explanation which Gesenius gives of this disputed passage. The process by which avouch arrived at the sense in which it is there employed is explained by Mr Wedgwood (Dict. of Eng. Etym. s.v.). Under the feudal system, when the right of a tenant was impugned he had to call upon his lord to come forwards and defend his right. This in the Latin of the time was called advocare, Fr. voucher a garantie, to vouch or call to warrant. Then as the calling on an individual as lord of the fee to defend the right of the tenant involved him in the admission of all the duties implied in feudal tenancy, it was an act jealously looked after by the lords, and advocare, or the equivalent Fr. avouer, to avow, came to signify the admission by a tenant of a certain person as feudal superior. Finally with some grammatical confusion, Lat. advocare, and E. avow or avouch, came to be used in the sense of performing the part of the vouchee or person called upon to defend the right impugned.' Hence to assert, maintain :

And though I could

With barefaced power sweep him from my sight,
And bid my will avouch it.

Shakespeare, Macb. III. I.

The secte of Saduceis who denied the resurrection of bodyes, auouchyng manne wholy to peryshe after deathe. Udal's Erasm. Mk. xii. 18.

This thynge do I auouch vnto you. Ibid. xiii. 28.

The full force of the word will be seen in the following examples from Cotgrave's Fr. Dict.

Advouäteur: m.

An aduower, auoucher; answerer, vndertaker for; also, one that acknowledges, and challenges his beast, taken dammage-fesant.

Advouër. To aduow, auouch;...acknowledge, confesse to be, take as, or for, his owne.

Await, sb. (Acts ix. 24). Ambush; connected with Fr. guet. Obsolete as a substantive.

The lyoun syt in his awayt alway
To slen the innocent if that he may.

Chaucer, Friar's Tale, 7239.

For hate is ever upon await.

Gower, Conf. Am. I. p. 311.

Spenser, F. Q. VI. 6. § 44.

He watcht in close awayt with weapons prest.

So wait is found in Gower (Conf. Am. 1. p. 260):

And therupon he toke a route
Of men of armes and rode oute
So longe and in a waite he lay.

Awaked, for Awoke, the past tense (Gen. xxviii. 16, &c.), and past participle of Awake. It is the common form in Shakespeare.

In which hurtling,

As You Like It, IV. 3.

From miserable slumber I awaked.

'Faith, not for me, except the north-east wind,
Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
Awaked the sleeping rheum.

Rich. II. I. 4.

Mer. of Ven. v. I.

Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awaked.

Away with, v. t. (Is. i. 13). To endure, suffer, put up with.

Hauing been long accustomed to the olde soureswyg of Moses lawe, they coulde not awaie with the muste of euangelical charitee. Udal's Erasmus, Luke, f. 74 r.

Latimer uses the same expression:

“Trouble, vexation and persecution, which these worldly men cannot suffer nor away withal. Rem. p. 303.

I looked on the epistle: tush, I could not away with that neither. Id. Serm. p. 247.

For we are afraide forsoothe lest, if wee shoulde speake that he would be offended which cannot away with the truth. Northbrooke, Poor Man's Garden (1573), fol. 8 b.

She never could away with me.

Shakespeare, 2 Hen. IV. III. 2.

This creature (i. e. the ass) of all things can worst away with cold. Holland's Pliny, VIII. 43.

6

In the phrases away with him,' 'away with such a fellow,' the meaning is entirely different, and corresponds with the A.-S. original at-wegan, 'to take away.' Thus Latimer (Serm. p. 344);

Let us not make a shew of holiness with much babbling, for God hath no pleasure in it; therefore away with it.

A-work (2 Chr. ii. 18). A compound formed like ado, abroach, asleep.

So that skill in the weapon nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work. Shakespeare, 2 Hen. IV. IV. 3.

I now perceive, it was not altogether your brother's evil disposition made him seek his death, but a provoking merit, set a-work by a reproveable badness in himself. Id. Lear, III. 5.

We should use in such phrases either 'working' or 'to work.'

B.

Babbler, sb. (Eccl. x. 11: Acts xvii. 18; Ecclus. xx. 7). A prater, foolish talker. The word is evidently imitative, like the Fr. babiller. Mr Wedgwood says it is derived "from ba, ba, representing the ineffectual attempt of a child at talking."

The secret man, heareth many confessions; for who will open himselfe, to a blab or a babler? Bacon, Ess. VI. p. 19.

Babbling, sb. (Prov. xxiii. 29; 1 Tim. vi. 20; 2 Tim. ii. 16; Ecclus. xix. 6; xx. 5). Idle talking.

I speak of faithful prayer: for in times past we took bibling babbling for prayer, when it was nothing less. Latimer, Serm. P. 507.,

I hate ingratitude more in a man

Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,
Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption
Inhabits our frail blood.

Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, III. 4.

We have adopted Steevens's punctuation of this passage. In the Folios it is not certain whether 'babbling' is to be taken as a substantive, or as an adjective with the noun following.

Backbite, v.t. (Ps. xv. 3). To slander, calumniate. The A.-S. bac-slitol, i.e. back-slitter, is used to denote a slanderer, and Shakspeare (Meas. for Meas. III. 2) applies the epithet backwounding in the same sense:

Gower (Conf. Am. I. p. 173), in sketching the character of the detractor, says:

Of such lesinge as he compasseth

Is none so good, that he ne passeth
Betwene his tethe and is backbited,
And through his false tunge endited.

To backbite and to bosten

And bere fals witnesse.

Piers Ploughman's Vis. 1043.

'Eyebite' is used in Holland's Plutarch (Morals, p. 723) of the effects of the evil eye, and those who bewitch with their eyes are called 'eye-biters.'

Backbiter, sb. (Rom. i. 30). A detractor, slanderer. Homicide is eek by bakbytyng, of whiche bakbiters saith Salomon, that thay have twaye swerdes with whiche thay slen here neighebors. Chaucer, Parson's Tale.

Are not some men themselves meere poisons by nature? for