woman was, therefore, considered as a grievous affront. . . . Earle, in his character of a scold says, 'There's nothing mads or moves her more to outrage, then but the very naming of a wispe, or if you sing or whistle while she is scoulding.' Microcosmog. p. 278, ed. Bliss.

'Nay, worse, I'll stain thy ruff; nay, worse than that,

I'll do thus.

[Holds a wisp. M. Fost. Oh my heart, gossip, do you see this? was ever Woman thus abus'd?'

A New Wonder, A Woman never vex'd, by W. Rowley, 1632. 'So perfyte and exacte a scoulde that women mighte geve place, Whose tatling tongues had won a wispe.' Drant's Horace, Sat. 7. A wispe appears to have been one badge of the scolding woman in the ceremony of Skimmington

.....

'Good gentle Jone, with-holde thy hands,

This once let me entreat thee,

And make me promise never more

That thou shalt mind to beat me:

For feare thou weare the wispe, good wife,

And make our neighbours ride.'

Pleasures of Poetry, cited by Malone."

Nares's Gloss. (in which article Nares is indebted to Steevens as well as to Malone).

wist, knew, v. 55.

wistly, w stfully, eagerly, iv. 177; viii. 250, 326, 456.

wit, the mental power, wisdom, sense: Hath the fellow any wit that told you this? ii. 83; who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? ii. 289; Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard, iv. 123; of an excellent And unmatch'd wit and judgment, v. 519; Hector shall not have his wit this year, vi. 11; Where is my wit? vi. 51; Upon her wit doth earthly honour wait, vi. 297; our empress, with her sacred wit (see sacred wit, &c.), vi. 300; He that had wit would think, &c. vi. 302; brevity is the soul of wit, vii. 134.

wit, contrivance, stratagem: my admirable dexterity of wit, i. 406; Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit, vii. 262.

wit, to know: Now please you wit The epitaph, &c. viii. 55; As witting I no other comfort have, V. 33.

wit enough to keep himself warm—If he have, ii. 76; Am I not wise?

Kath. Yes; keep you warm, iii. 135: "Such a one has wit enough to keep himself warm is a proverbial expression [sufficiently obscure]” (STEEVENS).

"Wit, whither wilt?" iii. 58: A proverbial expression, not unfrequent in writers of the time.

witch, a wizard, a charmer: such a holy witch, That he enchants societies into him, vii. 655.

witch-I forgive thee for a, vii. 500: "From a common proverbial

reproach to silly ignorant females,-'You'll never be burnt for a witch'" (STEEVENS).

with, equivalent to by: unfolded With one that I have bred? vii.

592.

with himself—He is not, He is not himself, he is beside himself, vi. 293 ("Vix sum apud me, ita animus commotu'st metu," &c. Terence, Andria, v. iv. 34).

with that face? see face?-With that.

without contradiction, suffer the report-Which may, “Which, undoubtedly, may be publicly told" (JOHNSON), vii. 645.

witness'd usurpation-A, "An attestation of its ravage" (STEEVENS), iv. 316.

wits-Four of his five, ii. 76; your five wits, iii. 382; our five wits, vi. 402; my whole five [wits], vi. 420; thy five wits, vii. 300, 306; my five wits nor my five senses, viii. 419: "The wits seem to have been reckoned five, by analogy to the five senses, or the five inlets of ideas" (JOHNSON): "From Stephen Hawes's poem called Graunde Amoure [and La Belle Pucel], ch. xxiv. edit. 1554, it appears that the five wits were common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation [i. e. judgment], and memory.' Wit in our author's time was the general term for the intellectual power" (MALONE): But sundry passages might be adduced from early writers, who considered the five wits to be the five senses (see, for instance, the passage from the interlude of The Four Elements cited by Percy on act iii. sc. 4 of King Lear apud the Varior. Shakespeare; and the passages from Larke's Book of Wisdom and King Henry the Eighth's Primer in Hunter's New Illust. of Shakespeare, vol. ii. p. 271); though in the second of the above quotations from Shakespeare, iii. 382, wits cannot mean senses, and in the last of them, viii. 419, he expressly makes a distinction between wits and senses.

wit-snapper, "one who affects repartee" (Johnson's Dict.), ii.

393.

wittol-cuckold, a tame, contented cuckold, i. 372.

wittoly, cuckoldly, i. 371.

witty, knowing, sagacious, of sound judgment: Witty, courteous, liberal, v. 244; The deep-revolving witty Buckingham, v. 420; you must be witty now, vi. 48; our witty empress, vi. 327.

woe, woful, sorry: I'm woe for't, i. 230; Woe, woe are we, vii. 580; Woe is my heart, vii. 721; If thinking on me then should make you woe, viii. 384.

woe to that land that's govern'd by a child! v. 389: "Woe to thee, ( land, when thy king is a child." Ecclesiastes, x. 16.

woman-If I were a, &c. iii. 77: It must be remembered that in

508

WOMAN-WOODEN.

Shakespeare's time female characters were performed by boys or young men.

woman me, "affect me suddenly and deeply, as my sex are usually affected" (STEEVENS), iii. 244.

woman of the world—A: see world—A woman of the. woman'd, accompanied, haunted by a woman, vii. 435. woman-queller: see man-queller, &c.

woman-tir'd, woman-pecked, hen-pecked, iii. 445: see first tire. wombs, encloses, contains, iii. 480.

womby, hollow, capacious, iv. 448.

wonder'd, able to effect wonders, marvellously gifted: So rare a wonder'd father, i. 221: see note 101, i. 252.

wood, mad: like a wood woman, i. 279; wood within this wood, ii. 279; raging-wood, v. 64; frenzies wood, viii. 264.

woodbine, the bindweed, the convolvulus: So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle Gently entwine; the female ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the elm, ii. 305: On the words in Jonson's Vision of Delight,

"behold,

How the blue bindweed doth itself infold
With honeysuckle," &c.,

Gifford remarks; "This passage settles the meaning of the speech of Titania in Midsummer-Night's Dream .... The woodbine of Shakespeare is the blue bindweed of Jonson: in many of our counties the woodbine is still the name for the great convolvulus." Jonson's Works, vol. vii. p. 308: My friend the late Rev. John Mitford, an excellent botanist, who at one time had maintained in print that Gifford's explanation of "woodbine" was wrong, acknowledged at last that it was the only true one. (What an odd notion of poetic composition must those interpreters have who maintain that here woodbine and honeysuckle are put in apposition as meaning the same plant-and who, of course, consider entwine to be an intransitive verb!-a notion which Mr. Beisly (Shakspere's Garden, &c. p. 37) thus most ridiculously amplifies; "The name 'woodbine' denotes its character as a climbing plant; 'honeysuckle' the property of the flower, which contains a sweet juice"!)

woodcock, a cant term for a simpleton (the woodcock being proverbial as a foolish bird, perhaps because it is easily caught in springes or in nets), ii. 133; iii. 125, 259, 357; woodcocks, ii. 199; vii. 118.

wooden 0: see second 0.

wooden thing-A, "An awkward business, an undertaking not likely to succeed" (STEEVENS), v. 71.

WOODMAN-WORLD.

509

woodman, a forester, a huntsman ("seems to have been an attendant or servant to the officer called Forrester. See Manwood on the Forest Laws, 4to, 1615, p. 46," REED): prov'd best woodman, vii. 690; He is no woodman, viii. 303.

woodman, one who hunts female game, a wencher: Am I a woodman, ha? i. 411; a better woodman than thou takest him for, i. 503. woollen - Lie in the, ii. 86: "I suppose she means-between blankets, without sheets" (STEEVENS).

woolward for penance—I go, ii. 230: To go woolward was to wear woollen, instead of linen, next the skin,—a penance often formerly enjoined by the Church of Rome.

("make

Their enemies like Friers wool-ward to lie."

Exchange Ware at the Second Hand, &c. 1615, sig. B.)

woo't, for wilt, vii. 199 (five times), 564, 582.

word, a watch-word: Now to my word; It is, “Adieu," &c. vii. 125 (on which passage Steevens remarks," Hamlet alludes to the watchword given every day in military service, which at this time he says is Adieu, adieu! remember me! So in The Devil's Charter, a tragedy [by B. Barnes], 1607, 'Now to my watch-word" "); Give the word. Edg. Sweet marjoram. Lear. Pass, vii. 324.

word, a motto: The word, Lux, &c. viii. 25; The word, Me pompæ, &c. ibid.; The word, Quod me, &c. ibid.

word-I moralize two meanings in one: see moralize.

words me-He, He plies me with words, vii. 592.

work, "a term of fortification" (STEEVENS): and let 'em win the work, v. 569.

workings, "labours of thought" (STEEVENS): our dull workings,

iv. 370.

workings, acts: mock your workings in a second body (“ treat with contempt your acts executed by a representative," JOHNSON), iv.

391.

world-To go to the, To be married, to commence housekeeper, iii. 215; Thus goes every one to the world but I, ii. 93.

world-A woman of the, A married woman, iii. 70: see the preceding article.

world may laugh again—The, v. 141: "The world may look again favourably upon me" (JOHNSON); "Equivalent to-Fortune may smile again" (Staunton).

world to see-It is a, It is a wonder to see, ii. 117; iii. 137 (This expression was in use as early as the time of Skelton, who has in his Bowge of Courte,

"It is a worlde, I saye, to here of some."

Works, vol. i. p. 47, ed. Dyce:

510

WORLD-WITHOUT-END-WORTS.

and it is found even in the Second Volume of Strype's Annals of the Reform., which was first published in 1725, and must have been written only a few years earlier; “But it was a world to consider, what unjust oppressions of the people and the poor this occasioned, by some griping men, that were concerned therein.” p. 209).

world-without-end bargain-A, "An everlasting bargain" (MALONE), ii. 233; the world-without-end hour, "the tedious hour, that seems as if it never would end” (MALONE), viii. 377.

worm, a serpent: the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm, i. 477; a worm, an adder, do so much, ii. 293; The mortal worm, v. 160; eyeless venom'd worm (the blind-worm), vi. 555; the worm, that's fled, vii. 39; the pretty worm of Nilus, vii. 594; all the worms of Nile, vii. 680.

worm, used in the sense of "creature," as a term of commiseration, sometimes of contempt: Poor worm, thou art infected, i. 208; the poor worm doth die for't, viii. 9; to reprove these worms for loving, ii. 201; you froward and unable worms, iii. 179.

wormwood to my dug-Laid, In order to wean the child, vi. 398. worship, honour, dignity: rear'd to worship, iii. 429; the worship

of revenge, iv. 59; the slightest worship of his time, iv. 257; give me worship and quietness, v. 293; As I belong to worship, v. 485 ; Wherein the worship ("dignity, authority," JOHNSON) of the whole world lies, vii. 578; The worships of their name, vii. 270 (see note 36, vii. 353).

worship, to honour, to dignify: worship me their lord, v. 171; Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph, iv. 431 (see waxen epitaph, &c.). worth, substance, wealth: To be of worth and worthy estimation, i. 281; But, were my worth, as is my conscience, firm, iii. 367; They are but beggars that can count their worth, vi. 426; all my outward worth, vii. 320: see note 28, i. 328.

worth of contradiction—His, vi. 195: see note 151, vi. 261. worthied him, rendered him worthy, vii. 281.

Worthies - The Nine, ii. 210 (twice); iv. 347: "The genuine worthies were Joshua, David, Judas Macabeus, Hector, Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bulloigne, or sometimes in his room Guy of Warwick. Why Shakespeare, in the five of them only whom he has introduced by name, has included Hercules and Pompey, remains to be accounted for" (DOUCE). worthy feeding-A, iii. 471: see note 104, iii. 521.

worts, all kinds of pot-herbs, and sometimes, as in the present passage, with a more confined signification,-coleworts, cabbages: Good worts! good cabbage, i. 348 (where Falstaff is ridiculing Sir Hugh's pronunciation of words).