The steady advance towards completion of the great Oxford Dictionary has made it possible for the Delegates of the Clarendon Press to authorize the preparation and issue of this book, which is primarily the outcome of an analysis of Shakespeare's vocabulary conducted in the light of the results published in the Dictionary. The application of these results to the making of a glossary to a single author, if it is to have an independent value and to be true to the facts, must not be a mere mechanical transference of definitions and classifications of meanings such as an industrious compiler might make with small expenditure of time and labour. Such a work as is here attempted is one of difficulty and delicacy, and there are pitfalls even for the expert; but, relying upon a fifteen years' experience on the editorial staff of the Dictionary, I have allowed myself a wide freedom of adaptation, and trust at the same time to have escaped such errors as would be almost inevitable if a task of this kind were undertaken by one who knew the great book only from the outside and had no adequate training in lexicographical method.

The aim of the Shakespeare glossary now presented to the reader is to supply definitions and illustrations of words or senses of words now obsolete or surviving only in provincial or archaic use, together with explanations of others involving allusions not generally familiar, and of proper names carrying with them some connotative signification or offering special interest or difficulty in the passages in which they occur. Senses still current in general literature have also been occasionally illustrated, chiefly where there is contextual obscurity, or where it seemed desirable, for one reason or another, to give a complete conspectus of a word that has many ramifications of meaning. Words of this last class have received very diverse treatment according to the circumstances of their usage; but a feature common to the greater number of them is the introduction of the scheme of meanings by a statement indicating how far Shakespeare's uses are those of his contemporaries or are peculiar to him, what senses are first exemplified--as far as present evidence shows--in his works or in those of Elizabethan writers generally, what is the relative frequency of the various senses, or supplying information of a more general character as to their status or origin. The elucidation of idiom, the definition of colloquial phrases, and the detailed illustration of specialized uses of pronouns and of the so-called particles, are points on which I have bestowed much care. I have throughout recorded any important readings and spellings of the original folio and quarto editions, as well as conjectural emendations, even when these are certainly wrong, as is the case with Pope's widely accepted marish. It is hoped that this information as to variant readings will enable the student to take his first steps in textual criticism, and will give him an insight into the problems that have to be solved in establishing the text. I have also made it a part of my plan to bring together evidence to show the relation of the poet's vocabulary to that of the dialects of the midland area, and in particular the dialect of his own county, Warwickshire. Interesting, and here and there entirely fresh, information on this head will be found under the words ballow, Basimecu, batlet, blood-bolter'd, bum-baily, chop, door, elder-gun, father, gallow, geck, grow to (p. 256), honey-stalks, line substantive, mobled, muss, pash, potch, sheep, sight, tarre, tun-dish, vails, wheel. Among articles in which non-midland dialects have been drawn upon to illustrate the status or interpretation of a word may be mentioned dispurse, handsaw, overscutched, side verb. In one noteworthy instance--that of minnick or minnock--a collation of dialect evidence has led to the tentative restoration of a word which has been almost universally excluded from the text since the time of Johnson, who regarded it as a genuine word and the right reading. Another special feature of this glossary is that it includes obsolete or technical terms that occur only in stage directions, for example sennet. The common view has been that these form no part of what Shakespeare wrote, but their apperance in the oldest editions of the plays seemed to me sufficient ground for treating them here.

One who enters at this time of day upon so well worked a field of investigation as the language of Shakespeare can hope to do little more in the direction of novelty or originality than present a comparatively few points with a greater degree of clearness or certainty than has been achieved by his many predecessors. The following articles in the present book may, however, be referred to as recording words or facts about words that have been either ignored or imperfectly explained by many previous glossarists:--a-life, enew (a palmary emendation of Keightley's), great-belly and thin-belly doublet, minnick (referred to above), relish (=to warble), salt rheum, the verb sol-fa, washing (=swashing). A long list might be given of words concerning which I have been able to supply information not usually accessible in books of this kind, or to bring forward suggestions to some extent new, bearing upon a textual question or an interpretation; the following are selected as typical:--accommodation, alarm alarum, Arthur's show, bloat, the two participial adjectives compact, the two adjectives dear, dismal, foregone conclusion, holy-ale, hue, humour, inn, Lethe, metal mettle, nonce, ordinate, Provincial rose, Roman hand, the adjective royal, Salique, scrowl, sob (in the manage), soiled, spright, sprite, steppe, three-man-song-men, tidy, token, tract, the verb trash, travail travel, unbraided, vale, weird sisters, whinid'st, wilful-blame, worldly, wot.

This glossary contains considerably more matter than any other select glossary of similar scope, and it is expected that many who glance over its pages will express the opinion that it takes in more than is necessary for the guidance of a reader of average literary knowledge; but a careful examination made with a view to ascertaining what proportion of the vocabulary here dealt with can be truly described as present-day English will prove such a criticism to be ill-founded. And here it may not be out of place to suggest a method of study to the serious student to whom an accurate and even minute knowledge of the meaning of the poet's words is no bar to the enjoyment of his poetry. He will do well from time to time to examine the articles in the glossary, especially the longer ones and those concerned with words of Latin origin, apart from the reading of any Shakespearian text; he will in this way discover how much he is in danger of missing or misunderstanding, and will gradually acquire that attitude of alertness which is essential to the appreciation of the richness and subtlety of Elizabethan English.

To make a selection of words and meanings that should satisfy all, and to carry out their illustration in a perfectly consistent manner, would be alike impossible, even with an expenditure of double the time that has been given to the present book, the compilation of which has occupied the full working days of a year and a half. It is hoped, however, that the oversights and inconsistencies inevitable in a book which, although of slender dimensions, comprises close upon ten thousand separate articles, will not prove to be so numerous or so serious as to impair its general accuracy and usefulness.

Of the lexical works devoted to Shakespeare I am chiefly indebted to Schmidt's Shakespeare-Lexicon and Bartlett's Concordance. For textual matters the Cambridge Shakespeare has of course been indispensable. The commentaries from which I have derived the greatest help are those of the Clarendon Press series of select plays, edited by W. Aldis Wright and W. G. Clark, and those of the Arden Shakespeare, of which the volumes by the late H. C. Hart must be specially mentioned for the wealth of illustrative quotation which is distributed among the notes. In investigating technical terms I have had recourse as far as possible to treatises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but I have frequently turned with advantage to Rushton's Shakespeare a Lawyer, and Shakespeare and Music by Dr. E. W. Naylor, who has kindly allowed me to consult him on some musical difficulties.

In the preparation of material and the verification of references I have been assisted throughout by Mr. J. W. Birt, of the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Charles Talbot Onions
May, 1911.

§ 1. SHAKESPEARIAN EDITORS, COMMENTATORS, AND CRITICS.

CAMPBELL (Thomas) 1777-1844; ed. 1838.

CAPELL (Edward) 1713-81; ed. 1768.

CHALMERS (Alexander) 1759-1834; ed. 1805.

CLARK (W. G.), GLOVER (J.), and WRIGHT (W. A.); ed. 1863-6 [the Cambridge Shakespeare], reissued 1891-3.

CLARK (W. G.) and WRIGHT (W. A.); ed. 1866, [the Globe edition]; 1868, &c. [select plays, Clarendon Press series].

CLARKE (Charles and Mary Cowden); ed. 1860, 1864.

COLLIER (John Payne) 1789-1883; ed. 1844.

CRAIG (William James) died 1906; ed. 1892 [the Oxford Shakespeare].

DELIUS (Nicolaus); ed. 1854; 1877 [the Leopold Shakespeare].

DOWDEN (Edward) died 1913; ed. plays in the Arden Shakespeare; poems 1903.

DYCE (Alexander) 1798-1869; ed. 1857.

FARMER (Richard) 1735-1797.

FURNESS (Horace Howard) senior and junior; ed. 1871, &c.

HALLIWELL (James Orchard) 1820-89; ed. 1851-3.

HANMER (Sir Thomas) 1677-1746; ed. 1743-4.

HARNESS (William) 1790-1869; ed. 1825.

HART (H. Chichester) died 1908; ed. plays in the Arden Shakespeare.

HEATH (Benjamin) 1704-66.

HUDSON (Henry Norman) 1814-86; ed. 1851-6.

JOHNSON (Samuel) 1709-1784; ed. 1765.

KEIGHTLEY (Thomas) 1789-1872; ed. 1865.

KNIGHT (Charles) 1791-1873; ed. 1839-42, 1867.

MALONE (Edmund) 1741-1812; suppl. to Johnson and Steevens's ed. 1780; ed 1790; ed. by James Boswell the younger 1821 [the third variorum].

NAPES (Robert) 1753-1829.

POPE (Alexander) 1688-1744; ed. 1725.

REED (Isaac) 1742-1807; ed. 1785; 1803 [the first variorum ]; 1813 with notes by Malone [the second variorum].

ROLFE (William James); ed. 1871-96 [the Friendly edition].

ROWE (Nicholas) 1674-1718; ed. 1709.

SCHMIDT Alexander) 1816-87; Shakespeare-Lexicon 1874-5, 1886; 1902.

SINGER (Samuel Weller) 1783-1858; ed. 1826.

SPEDDING (James) 1808-81.

STAUNTON (Howard) 1810-74; ed 1858-60.

STEEVENS (George) 1736-1800; ed. with Samuel Johnson 1773.

THEOBALD (Lewis) 1688-1744; ed. 1733.

WALKER (William Sidney) 1795-1846.

WARBURTON (William) 1698-1779; ed. 1857-9, 1883.

WHITE (Richard Grant) 1821-85; ed. 1857-9, 1883.

WRIGHT (W. Aldis) see CLARK

WYNDHAM (George) died 1916; ed. poems 1898.

§ 2. AUTHORS AND WORKS CITED.

ASCHAM (Roger) 1515-68; Toxophilus [treatise on archery] 1545.

BACON (Sir Francis) 1561-1626.

BAILEY (Nathaniel) died 1742; An Universal Etymological English Dictionary 1721, &c.

BARET (John) died 1580 (?); An Alvearie or triple Dictionarie, in Englishe, Latin, and French 1573; An Alvearie or quadruple dictionarie, containing foure sundrie tongues, English, Latine, Greeke, and French 1580.

BLOUNT (Thomas) 1618-79; Glossographia; or a Dictionary interpreting all such hard words, of whatsoever language, now used in our refined English tongue 1656, 1661, 1674, &c.; N--: a Law-Dictionary 1670, 1691.

BLUNDEVILLE (Thomas); The Art of Riding [with] The Order of Curing Horses diseases 1580.

BORDE (Andrew) died 1549; A compendyous Regyment or Dyetary of Helth 1542.

BOTONER or WORCESTER (William) 1415-82 (?); Itinerarium.

BOURNE (William) died 1583; A Regiment for the Sea: conteyning most profitable rules...of navigation 1574.

BRETON (Nicholas) 1545(?)-1626(?).

BROWNE (Sir Thomas) 1605-82.

CAXTON (William) died 1491.

CHAPMAN (George) 1559(?)-1634.

CHAUCER (Geoffrey) died 1400.

COKE (Sir Edward) 1552-1634; The First Part of the Institvtes of the Lawes of England 1628.

Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiasticall 1604.

COPLEY (Anthony) 1567-1607(?); A Fig for Fortune 1596.

COTGRAVE (Randle) died 1634 (?); A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues 1611 [cited as Cotgr.]; (another edition) Whereunto is also annexed, a dictionarie of the English set before the French by S[herwood] 1632 [cited as Sherwood].

COVERDALE (Miles) translator of the Bible 1488-1568.

COWELL (John) 1554-1611; The Interpreter; or Booke containing the signification of Words ... mentioned in the Lawe-writers or Statutes 1607.

CUDWORTH (Ralph) 1617-88.

DANIEL (Samuel) 1562-1619.

DAY (John); The Ile of Gvls 1606.

Dictionary (A New) of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew. By B. E. Gent. about 1700.

DOUGLAS (Gawin) died 1522.

DRAYTON (Michael) 1563-1631; The Moone-Calfe 1627; Dowsabel 1593.

DRYDEN (John) 1631-1700.

DYMMOK (John); A Treatice on Ireland, about 1600.

ELYOT (Sir Thomas) died 1546; The Dictionary of syr Thomas Eliot knyght 1538.

EVANS (A. B. and S.); Leicestershire Words, Phrases and Proverbs 1881.

FLETCHER (John) 1579-1625; The Woman hater 1607; The Spanish Curate, about 1622.

FLORIO (John) died 1625; A Worlde of Wordes, or most copious and exact Dictionarie in Italian and English 1598, (enlarged ed.) 1611.

FOXE (John) 1516-87; Actes and Monuments of these latter and perillous dayes 1563, 1570, &c. [known as 'The Book of Martyrs'].

FULLER (Thomas) 1608-61; The Church-History of Britain 1655.

GASCOIGNE (George) died 1577; The delectable history of Dan Bartholomew of Bath 1572-5.

GERARDE (John) 1545-1612; The Herball, or generall historie of plantes 1597.

GOLDING (Arthur) died 1605(?); The xv. Bookes of P. Ovidius Naso entytuled Metamorphosis, translated oute of Latin into English meeter 1567.

GREENE (Robert) died 1592; The Scottish Historie of James the fourth.

GUILLIM (John) 1565-1621; A Display of Heraldrie 1610.

HALL (Edward) died 1547; The Union of the two noble and illustrate famelies of Lancastre and Yorke. [=Hall's Chronicle.]

HALL (Joseph) 1574-1656; Virgidemiarum, sixe bookes of .... satyrs 1597.

HARSNET (Samuel) 1561-1631; A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures ... vnder the pretence of casting out diuels 1603.

HARVEY (Gabriel) 1550(?)-1631.

HESLOP (Oliver); Northumberland Words 1892-4.

HEYWOOD (John) died 1580 (?); A Dialogue, conteyninge the number in effecte of all the Proverbes in the Englishe tunge 1561.

HOCCLEVE (Thomas) died 1450 (?).

HOLINSHED (Raphael) died 1580 (?); The Chronicles of Englande, Scotlande, and Irelande 1577.

HOLLAND (Philemon) 1552-1637; The Historie of the World, commonly called the Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus 1601; The Philosophie, commonly called the Morals, written by ... Plutarch of Chæronea 1603.

HOLME (Randle) 1627-99; The Academy of Armory, or a storehouse of armory and blazon 1688.

JONSON (Ben) 1573 (?)-1637; Epigrams, published 1616 and 1640.

KYD (Thomas) 1558-94; The Tragedie of Soliman and Perseda 1592.

LATHAM (Simon) flourished 1618; Lathams Falconry, or the Faulcons Lure and Cure 1615-18.

LELAND (John) died 1552; Itinerarium [1534-43].

LILY (William) died 1522; Brevissima Institutio [Latin grammar].

MARLOWE (Christopher) 1564-93; The Jew of Malta, about 1590; Tamburlaine 1587-8.

MIDDLETON (Thomas) died 1627; The Roaring Girle 1611.

MILTON (John) 1608-74; Paradise Lost 1667.

MINSHEU (John) flourished 1600-17; 'H , id est Ductor in Linguas, The Gvide into Tongves 1617.

MORE (Sir Thomas) 1478-1535.

NASHE (Thomas) 1567-1601.

NORTH (Thomas) died 1601(?); The Lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes, compared together by ... Plutarche of Chæronea: translated out of Greeke into French by J. Amyot, ... Bishop ofAuxerre ... and out of French into Englishe by T. North 1579.

OVERBURY (Sir Thomas) 1581-1613.

PALSGRAVE (John) died 1554; Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse 1530. [French grammar and vocabulary; cited as Palsgr.]

PEELE (George) died 1597 (?); The Turkish Mahamet and Hyrin the fair Greek.

RANDOLPH (Thomas) 1605-35.

RAY (John) 1627-1705; A Collection of English Words not generally used ... in two Alphabetical Catalogues. The one of such as are proper to the Northern, the other to the Southern Counties 1674.

RIDER (John) 1562-1632; Bibliotheca Scholastica, a double Dictionarie. Penned for all those that would have within short space the use of the Latin Tongue, either to speake or write 1589.

Robyn Hode (A Lytell Gest of), about 1500.

SHERWOOD: see COTGRAVE.

SKELTON (John) died 1529; A ... tratyse vpon a goodly Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell 1523; The boke of Phyllyp Sparowe.

SKINNER (Stephen) 1623-67; Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ 1671.

SMITH (Sir Thomas) 1513-77; The Common Welth of England 1583.

SMYTH (Sir John) 1534 (?)-1607; Certain Discourses ... concerning the formes and effects of diuers sorts of Weapons, and other verie important matters Militarie 1590.

SPENSER (Edmund) died 1599; The Faerie Queene 1590-6.

STERNHOLD (Thomas) and HOPKINS (John); The whole booke of Psalmes collected into Englyshe Meter 1564.

STOW (John) died 1605; A breviat Chronicle contaynynge all the Kynges 1561.

STUBBES (Philip) flourished 1581-93; The Anatomie of Abuses 1583.

SWETNAM (Joseph); Swetnam the woman-hater, arraigned by women 1620.

TORRIANO (Giovanni); Vocabolario Italiano & Inglese, a Dictionary Italian & English 1659.

WRIGHT (Thomas) 1810-77; Dictionary of obsolete and provincial English 1857.

The text used in the illustrative quotations is that of the Oxford Shakespeare, edited by W. J. Craig, except in a few instances where it has been set aside for some special reason. Where its numeration of act, scene, and line differs greatly from that of other widely used editions, a second reference is given within square brackets; so that the Glossary is available for all unabridged editions of the works.

Variant readings, and interpretations of particular quotations, are placed within round brackets; words inserted to complete the sense within square brackets; '&c.' following a quotation reference indicates that more examples occur in the same play or poem.

Paraphrases of passages which are quoted very briefly or indicated by a reference only are sometimes given between inverted commas, e.g. ADVANTAGE substantive 3.

* denotes a word, phrase, or passage the meaning of which is disputed. Alternative explanations of these are arranged under letters (a) (b) (c); see e.g. PURELY.

+ denotes a conjectural emendation, e. g. MARISH+; or a form of a word substituted by modern editors for the form found in old editions, e. g. STATUA+.

´ placed after a vowel marks the Shakespearian stressing of the word in question; e. g. ASP'ECT; u'nfelt, unfe'lt in the quotations under the word.

(Shakespearian), (Elizabethan) placed immediately after a word or a definition mean that the words or the sense defined is peculiar to Shakespeare, characteristic of the Elizabethan period, respectively; (not pre-Shakesperian), (not pre-Elizabethan) are used with corresponding implication: (once), (twice) = occurs only once, twice, in Shakespeare.

In the introductory note (immediately following the head word) of articles in which two or more meanings are treated, the meanings are referred to by their numbers, and the remarks appropriate to each are placed after the respective number. Thus, when expanded, the note under the word CABIN verb will read: With sense 1 compare sense 2 of the substantive CABIN; sense 2 has been echoed by modern writers. The note under the word LINE substantive¹: Sense 1 involves a metaphor from angling; sense 7 is recorded only from Shakespeare.

Etymological statements are placed within square brackets. The term 'aphetic' is applied to a form produced by the loss of an unaccented vowel at the beginning of a word, e. g. LEGE, for 'allege'.

F₁, F₂, F₃, F₄ = 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Folio edition (of 1623, 1632, 1663, 1685, respectively); Ff = all the Folio editions.

Q₁, Q₂, Q₃, Q₄ = 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Quarto editions; Qq = all the Quarto editions of a particular play or poem.

The method of recording variants is illustrated by the following examples:

compulsative (Shakespearian; all Folios), compulsatory (all Quartos)--means that the first form, which is peculiar to Shakespeare, is the reading of the Folios; the Quartos having the second form.

list substantive²....Othello II. i. 104 (1st Quarto; 2nd, 3rd Quarto and All Folios leaue)--means that the 1st Quarto reads list, the 2nd and 3rd Quartos and all the Folios leaue.

mistful+ (Folios mixtfull)--means that mistful does nt occur in any old editin, all theFolios reading mixtfull.

undistinguished ... O undistinguish'd (1st Quarto and all the Folios indistinguished) space of woman's will! (all Quartos wit)--informs us that the old editions have the following readings (minor differences of spelling being neglected):--
Folios O indistinguish'd space of woman's will;
1st Quarto O indistinguish'd space of woman's wit;
2nd and 3rd Quartos O undistinguish'd space of woman's wit.

Italic type is resticted to quotations from the text of Shakespeare. Small capitals are employed in referring from one article to another. An article immediately preceding or following is referred to as 'prec.' or 'next'.

a¹: for 'ha'=he, in modern editions usually a', or replaced by he Hamlet II. i. 58 There was a' gaming.

a²: for 'ha' (which see) = have Love's Labour's Lost V. ii. 17, Hamlet IV. v. 65.

a³: (worn-down form of 'of' and 'on', frequently in Folios and Quartos and retained in a few places in modern editions, but usually altered to o', of, or on)
1 = of Much Ado About Nothing III. ii. 42 a mornings. (Compare A-DAYS, A-NIGHTS, O'CLOCK.)
2 = on The Life of King Henry V IV. iii. 42 a tip-toe.(Compare A-HEIGHT, A-HIGH.)
3 = in All's Well that Ends Well II. i. 27 kept a coil. (Compare A-PIECES.)

a used, without affecting the meaning, to provide an extra syllable in burlesque verse The Winter's Tale IV. ii. 134, 136 [iii. 133, 135], IV. iii. 326 [iv. 324] My dainty duck, my dear-a, Hamlet IV v. 170, &c.

abandoned: banished, kept away from The Taming of the Shrew Induction ii. 117.

abase: to lower (the eyes) The Second Part of King Henry VI I. ii. 15, The Tragedy of King Richard III I. ii. 248 (the Folios).

abate: (1 the usual sense; the corresponding intransitive sense 'decrease' is rare; 2 is common Elizabethan; 3-6 are rare)
1 to lessen, shorten A Midsummer-Night's Dream. III. ii. 432 Abate thy hours!
2 to blunt, figuratively The Second Part of King Henry IV I. i. 117 his metal ... once in him abated, The Tragedy of King Richard III V. iv. 48 [v. 35] Abate the edge of traitors.
3 to deprive of King Lear II. iv. 161 abated me of half my train.
4 to bar, except Love's Labour's Lost V. ii. 545 Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again Cannot pick out five such.
5 to depreciate (a person) Cymbeline I. iv. 78 I would abate her nothing.
6 to humble Coriolanus III. iii. 130 most Abated captives.

abatement: (in sense 1 usually legal metaphor)
1 reduction, diminution Hamlet IV. vii. 120 abatements and delays, King Lear I. iv. 64, Cymbeline V. iv 21.
2 depreciation of a person's character Twelfth-Night I. i. 13.