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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    As when he drinkes out all the totall summe, Gave it the stile ol supernagullum; And when lie quaffing doth his entrailes wash, ’Tis call’d a hunch, a thrust, a whiffe, a flash ; And when carousing makes his wits to faile, They say he hath a rattle at his taile. Taylor’s Workes, 1630. HUNGARIAN. A cant term, probably formed in double allusion to the free- booters of Hungary, that once in- fested the continent of Europe, and to the word hungry. Away, I have knights and colonels at my house, and must tend the Hungarians. Merry Dev. of Edm., 0. PL, v, 267. This is said by an innkeeper, who probably was meant to speak of hungry guests. Afterwards he gives it us in the other sense : Come, ye Hungarian pilchers, [for flickers] we are once more come under the zona torrida of the forest. Ibid., p. 285. The middle aile [of St. Paul’s] is much frequented at noon with a company of hungarians, not walking so much for recreation as need. Luyton’s London, Hurl. Misc., ix, 314. Hungarian is the reading of the folio edition of Shakespeare, where the original quarto has Gongarian. Merry Wives of Windsor, i, 3. The latter is thought to be the right reading. See Gongarian. *\To HUNGER. To starve. At last the prince to Zeland came hymselfe To hunger Middleburgh, or make it yeeld. Gascoigne’s Works, 1587. ■fHUNGERBANED. Bitten with hun- ger, starved. Whereby it cometh to passe that the people depart out of church full of nmsicke and harmonie, but yet hungerbanrd and fasting, as touching heavenly foode and doctrine. Northbrooke, Treatise against Dicing, 1577. f HUNGER-BITTEN. Starved. Here also be two verie notorious rivers, Oxus and Maxera, which the tigres, when they bee hunger-bitten, swim over sometimes, and at unwares do much mis- chief in the parts bordering upon them. Ammianus Marcellinus, 1609. And this food failing, they were forc’d to eat The crums and scraps of refuse bread and meat. And w ith their hands to break (all hungerbit) The sacred food, for other use more fit. Virgil, by Vicars, 1632. jTIUNGERLIN. A sort of short furred robe, so named from having been derived from Hungary. A letter or epistle, should be short-coated, and closely couchd; a hungerlin becomes a letter more hansomly then a gown. Howell’s Familiar Letters, 1650. THUNKS. A term of contempt, ap- plied especially to a miser. I, I will peace it, if 1 catch the hunkes. Historic of Albino and Bellama, 1638. To HUNT COUNTER. To hunt the wrong way, to trace the scent back- wards. When the hounds or beagles hunt it by the heel, we say they hunt counter. Gentl. Beer., 8vo ed., p. 16. To hunt by the heel must be to go towards the heel instead of the toe of the game, i. e., backwards. “ To hunt counter, retro legere vestigia.” Coles' Lat. Diet. You mean to make a hoiden or a hare O’ me, t’ hunt counter thus, and make these doubles. B. Jons. Tale cf a Tub, ii, 6. A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry foot wrell. Com. of Err., iv, 2. This is contradictory, as to hunting, for to draw dry foot, is to pursue rightly in one way ; to hunt counter, is to go the wrong way; but it is a quibble upon a bailiff, as hunting for the Counter, or Compter prison. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry! O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs. Haml., iv, 5, And trulie, answered Euphues, you are worse made for a hound than a hunter, for you mar your sent with carren, before you start your game, which maketh you hunt often counter. Euph. Engl., A a 1. It seems to be an error to join the twro wrords into one, as if to make a name, in this passage: You hunt-counter, hence! avaunt! Falstaff means rather to tell the man that he is on a wrong scent: “ You are hunting counterthat is, the wrong way. In the old quartos the words are disjoined accordingly : You hunt counter, hence! avaunt! 2 Hen. IV, i, 2. We see, by the passage in Hamlet, that hunting counter was used with latitude for taking a false trail, and not strictly confined to going the wrong way. A HUNT’8-UP. A noise made to rouse a person in a morning; originally a tune played to wake the sportsmen, and call them together, the purport of which was, The hunt is up ! which was the subject of hunting ballads also. In Puttenham’s Art of English Poesy it is said, that one Gray grew into good estimation with Henry the Eighth and the duke of Somerset, “for making certaine merry ballades, whereof one chiefly was, the hunte is up, the hunte is up.” D 2, b. Such ballads are still extant. Mr. Douce gives one, which, perhaps, is the original. Illustr. of Sh., vol. ii, p. 192. Another is very short, but not very moral :