A GLOSSARY
OF
TUDOR AND STUART WORDS
ESPECIALLY FROM THE DRAMATISTS
COLLECTED BY
WALTER W. SKEAT
Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon in
the University of Cambridge, 1878-1912
EDITED WITH ADDITIONS BY
A. L. MAYHEW
M.A., Wadham College, Oxford
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1914
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK
TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY
HUMPHREY MILFORD M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
EDITOR’S PREFACE
In the summer of 1910 I was staying at Llandrindod, and hadthe pleasure of meeting there my old friend Professor Skeat.Of course we had many a long talk about our favourite studies,and about his literary plans. He was always planning someliterary task, for before he had finished one work, he had eitherbegun another, or had another in prospect. I said to him oneday, ‘You’re always working, do you ever find time for recreation?’‘Well,’ he said, ‘when I want to amuse myself, I takeup some old play.’ This story explains the genesis of this book.
Like John Gilpin’s wife, it seems that though on pleasure hewas bent, he had a frugal mind. He did not forget business.When reading Ben Jonson or Beaumont and Fletcher he hadpencil in hand, and whenever he came to a word that mightprove a stumbling-block to the general reader, he