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. 1. 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,

From miserable slumber I awaked.

As You Like It, IV. 3.

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

Rich. II. 1. 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.

In the phrases away with him,' 'away with such a fellow,' the meaning is entirely different, and corresponds with the A.-S. original œt-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 is 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-slítol, 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 neighbors. Chaucer, Parson's Tale.

Are not some men themselves meere poisons by nature? for

these slanderers and backbiters in the world, what doe they else but lance poison out of their black tongues, like hideous serpents. Holland's Pliny, XVII. 1.

Backbiting, sb. (2 Cor. xii. 20; Wisd. i. 11). Slander,

detraction.

Of these tuo spices cometh bacbityng; and this synne of bakbytyng or detraccioun hath certein spices. Chaucer, Parson's Tale.

And many a worthy love is greved
Through backbitinge of false envie.
Gower, Conf. Am. I. p. 175.

Backside, sb. (Ex. iii. 1; xxvi. 12; Rev. v. 1). The back part, the rear.

But what meane I to speake of the causes of my loue, which is as impossible to describe, as to measure the backside of heaven? Sidney, Arcadia, 66, 1. 47.

To the end that the points of their battell might the more easily bowe and enlarge themselues, to compasse in the Romaines on the backe side. North's Plutarch, Sylla, p. 508.

Used still as a provincialism. See 'Glossary of provincial words used in Herefordshire, and some of the adjoining counties,' by the late Sir G. C. Lewis,

6

Bakemeats, sh. (Gen. xl. 17). The margin renders literally, meat of Pharaoh, the work of a baker or cook.' Chaucer, in describing the Franklin's hospitality, says:

Withoute bake mete was never his hous
Of fleissch and fissch.

Prol. to C. Tales, 345.

And in The Parson's Tale he inveighs against the pride of the table, which consisted among other things in

Suche maner of bake metis and dische metis, brennyng of wilde fuyr, and peynted and castelid with papire.

It occurs in Shakespeare in the form 'baked meats:'

The funeral baked meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Ham. I. 2.

Baken, pp. (Lev. ii. 4). Baked.

Band, sb. from (A.-S. band or bend). A bond, or cord; it is of frequent occurrence both in the Bible (Judg. XV. 14; 2 Kings xxiii. 33, &c.) and as a provincialism, literally meaning anything that binds; thus in Yorkshire, string or twine is called band.

By Abraham, I maie understande

The father of heaven that can founde

With his sonnes bloode to breake that bande,
That the devill had brought us to.

Chester Play, I. p. 75.

For some in the daunce bir pincheth by the hande
Which gladly would see him stretched in a bande.

Barclay, Eclog. p. xxii.

But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands.

Shakespeare, Tempest, epil.

Be thou a prey unto the house of York,
And die in bands for this unmanly deed.

Id. 3 Hen. VI. 1. 1.

The form 'band' for 'bond,' in the sense of an obligation, is common in Shakespeare.

Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster,
Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,
Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son.

Rich. II. 1. I.

Band, sb. (Acts x. I; xxvii. 1, &c.). A body of soldiers. (It. banda, according to some from Med. Lat. bandus, a standard, banner); in the passage quoted, the Greek probably signifies 'a cohort.'

For amongst others, were the bandes which they called the Fimbrian bandes, men giuen ouer to selfe will, and very ill to be ruled by martiall discipline. North's Plutarch, Lucullus, p. 544

A legion of the Romaines (as Vigetius reporteth) contained 6000. warriours or moe: which legion was deuided into tenne bandes. Stow, Annals, p. 14.