Volume 1

A glossary, or, Collection of words, phrases, names, and allusions to customs, proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require illustration, in the works of English authors, particularly Shakespeare, and his contemporaries / [Robert Nares].

  • Robert Nares
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A glossary, or, Collection of words, phrases, names, and allusions to customs, proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require illustration, in the works of English authors, particularly Shakespeare, and his contemporaries / [Robert Nares]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    have introduced a boy called Halfe- penie for that ingenious purpose : Ri. Dromio, looke heere.now is my hayid on my halfe- peny. Half. Thou liest, thou hast not a farthing to lay thy hands on, I am none of thine. Mother Bombie, ii, 1. But the blinde [deafe] man, having his hand on another half e-penny, said, What is that you say, sir ? Hath the clocke strucken? Notes on Du Bartas, To the Reader, 2d page. HALFENDEALE. One half; said to be a Chaucerian word. Tliat now the humid night was farforth spent. And hevenly lamps were halfendeale ybrent. Spens. F. Q., Ill, ix, 53. fHALF-PIKE. A particular exercise with the pike. Jer. Well, ile trie one course with thee at the halfe pike, and then goe,—come draw thy pike. Tragedy of Hoffman, 1631. HALIDOM. Holiness, faith, sanctity. Haligdome, Saxon. Holy, with the termination dome ; as kingdom, Chris- tendom, &c. Holy dame is not the true origin. By my hallidom, I was fast asleep. Two Gent, of Fer., iv, 2. Now, on my faith and holy-dom, we are Beholden to your worship. B. Jons. Tale of a Tub, iv, 6. Now sure, and by my hallidome, quoth he. Ye a great master are in your degree. Spens. M. Hub., 545. f HALKARD. A person of low degree. A kalkard or of low degree, proletarius. Withals’ Dictionarie, ed. 1608, p. 268. A HALL, A HALL. An exclamation commonly used to make room in a crowd, for any particular purpose, as we now say a ring, a ring ! Come, musicians, play. A hall! a hall! give room, and foot it, girls. Rom. Jul., i, 6. And help with your call For a hall! a hall! Stand up to the wall, Both good men and tall. B. Jons. Masque of Gipsies Metam., vi, 110, Whalley. Then cry a hall! a hall! ’Tis merry in Tottenham-hall when beards wag all. Ibid., Tale of a Tub, v, 9. A hall! a hall! Roome for the spheres, the orbs celestiall Will dance Kemp’s jigge. Marston, Sat., Ill, xi, p. 225. Marshall! an hall there! Pray you, sir, make roome For us poor knights who in the fag-end come. Parthenia’s Passions, in Brathwaite’s Honest Ghost, p. 293. It seems also to have been used to call people together to attend a spec- tacle, or ceremony. Thus, in the Widow’s Tears, Argus comes in, and cries a hall! a hall! in order to call the servants together, when there is only one person besides himself on the stage: A hall! a hall! who’s without, there ? [Enter two or three with cushions.] Come on; y’are proper grooms, are ye not ? slight, I think y’are all bridegrooms, ye take your pleasures so; a company of dormice. Their honours are upon coming, and the room not ready. 0. PL, vi, 185. So: A hall! a hall! let all the deadly sins Come in, and here accuse me. Herod. Antip. fHALL-DAY. A court day. An hall day: a court day: a day of pleading, as in terme time at Westminster hall, &e. Nomenclator, 1685. HALLOWMAS. The mass or feast- day of All-hallows, that is All Saints. Shakespeare alludes to a custom rela- tive to this day, some traces of which are said to bestill preserved in Stafford- shire ; where, on All Saints’ day, the poor people go from parish to parish a souling, as they call it, that is, begging, in a certain lamentable tone, for a kind of cakes called soul-cakes, and singing a song which they call the souler’s song. Several of these terms clearly point out the condition of this benevolence, which was, that the beggars should pray for the souls of the giver’s departed friends, on the ensuing day, Nov. 2, which was the feast of All Souls. To watch like one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallow-mas. Two Gent, of V., ii, 1. My wife to France; from whence, set forth in pomp. She came adorned hither, like sweet May, Sent back like Hallow-mas, or short’at of day. Rich. II, v, 1. I am convinced that I have seen hallows, for saints, separately used, but have not marked the reference. HALSE. Neck; a Saxon word, which seems to have remained longer in use in the phrase of hanging by the halse, than in any other. It occurs in Chau- cer, Cant. Tales, 4493 and 10253, and a verb made from it, to halse, to embrace, is used by him and Gavin Douglas, in the glossary to whose Virgil it is explained. A theevisher knave is not on live, more filching no more false, Many a truer man than he hase hanged up by the halse. Gammer Gurton, 0. PL, ii, 64. Hence, probably, halter, for holster, as being applied to the neck. To HALSE, or HAULSE. To embrace, or hang on the neck, is used by Spenser also: Instead of strokes, each other kissed glad And lovely haulst, from feare of treason free. F. Q., IV, iii, 49. \C. What say you? M. I will say nothing of hausing and kissing, I account that as nothing. Terence in English, 1614. 26