Adam’s postdatings
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Postdatings in Adam’s work at present unrecorded in OED: Adam Table 3
Word | Quotation | OED dates | Postdates OED (years) | Other features |
---|---|---|---|---|
hew, v | 'Thou seal'd the Saviour up in hewen Stone' (p. 50) | 1382, 1526 | 208 | This is a clear echo of Luke 23:53: 'And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid' (quoted from the King James Authorized Version). OED1/2 specifically recognizes this Biblical passage as the source of hew sense 2, 'Excavated or hollowed out by hewing', which it evidences with two quotations only: '1382 WYCLIF Luke xxiii. 53 He..puttide him in a graue hewun. 1526 TINDALE Ibid., He..layed it in an heawen toumbe'; it does not quote the AV. Adam's is a further post-dating. |
fantastically | 'hath some charming Rival got my Place; Oh sees my Lord no deeper than a Face! [...] Sure he must be fantastickly diseas'd' (p. 125) | 157 | See comment in Table 1. | |
unseparate, ppl. adj | 'Our GOD is one united Trinity [...] Unseparate, unconfounded ever more' (p. 83) | 1553, 1563, 1591 | 143 | OED1/2 has three 16th-century quotations only for this word, the last also referring to the Trinity. |
deforming | 'Such Guiltless Blood leaves no deforming Stains' (p. 126) | 1870, 1892 | 136 | OED1/2 says simply 'That deforms: see the verb'. |
bundle, n | 'In him the Bundle of my Life lies hid' (p. 72) | 1535, 1611 | 113 | Jacob says of Joseph in Adam's 'Jacob's Lament', 'In him the Bundle of my Life lies hid'. This is an echo of 1 Samuel 25:29: 'Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul: but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the LORD thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling'. 'bundle of life' was a frequently used phrase in late 16th- and early 17th-century English, as can be seen from searching EEBO and ECCO. OED1/2 treats the phrase rather minimally s.v. bundle 3a: 'fig. A collection, "lot" (of things material or immaterial); usually either with contemptuous implication, or with allusion to a figurative "tying together", to be bound in the bundle of life (a Hebraism derived from the Bible): to be foreordained to continued life.' The only example of 'bundle of life' quoted is from the AV, i.e. 1611. |
obliged | 'What is the most effectual Way to bring / Obliged Sinners home to Heaven's King?' (p. 91) | 1596-7, 1650 | 84 | OED3 (draft revision September 2009) treats this sense s.v. 2: 'Bound by law, duty, or any moral tie, esp. one of gratitude; under obligation, beholden, indebted. Freq. in your obliged servant (and variants), as a formula for opening or closing a formal letter, etc. Now arch. and rare'. But almost all the quoted examples illustrate the formulaic use (your obliged servant, etc.), and the two quotations not in this pattern are dated 1596-7 and 1650. Adam's usage is thus a valuable post-dating. |
stock, n | 'Thou [i.e. man] lives upon the Intrest here, / The Stock grows ne're the less' (p. 37) | 1595, a1652, 1665 | 69 | This is the figurative use, i.e. 48b, of stock (noun 1) sense 48a: 'A capital sum to trade with or to invest; capital as distinguished from revenue, or principal as distinguished from interest. Obs.', for which OED1/2 records three quotations only: 1595, a1652 and 1665. Adam's is not an ideal example, since the quotation does not make it clear that the use is figurative, but it is an important post-dating nevertheless. |
drain | 'Whilst Statesmen drain the Schools for Subjects new' (p. 1) | -1667 | 67 | This apparently figurative use not recorded in OED; see discussion here. |
countermand | 'Nor could the Rage of Satan countermand / The firm Decree of Heaven' (p. 75) | ...1615, 1662 | 64 | This must be OED1/2 sense 5: 'To go counter to or oppose the command of (a person or authority). Also fig. Obs.'. Adam's example, surely not unusual and surely still current?, post-dates by 64 years. |
card, n | 'Therein he trusts his all without a Sail [...] Compass or Card, or Mariner had none' (p. 61) | ...1613, 1674, 1674... | [60] | This is an interesting example of OED1/2 card n. 2, sense 3b: 'card of the sea, mariner's card or sea card', recorded three times in the 16th century, twice in the 17th century (1613 and 1674), and thence only in dictionaries: '1678 PHILLIPS, Card, a Sea-Map..Vulgarly so called for Chart. 1721-1800 in BAILEY. [Not in JOHNSON.]'. Adam's usage is particularly valuable, therefore. |
gird | 'Faith, Hope, and Charity, do live / As girded in one Zone' (p. 17) | -1674 | 60 | This is an example of OED1/2 sense 5a: 'To surround as with a belt; to tie firmly or confine'. |
try | 'Saints must be rich with Gold try'd in the Fire' (p. 4) | -1688 | 46 | This is an example of OED1/2 sense 3: 'To separate (metal) from the ore or dross by melting; to refine, purify by fire; also, to remove (the dross or impurity) from metal by fire', for which the last quoted date is 1688; Adam's example post-dates by 46 years. (Her use is no doubt influenced by sense 7a, 'To test the strength, goodness, value, truth, or other quality of; to put to the proof, test, prove', but the metal imagery makes it clear that sense 3 is primary here. For sense 7a, however, there are no OED quotations between 1602 and 1725'). |
homiletical | 'Homelitical Virtues' [title] (p. 111) | 1668, 1687, 1691 | 43 | OED1/2 defines sense 1 as 'Of or pertaining to familiar intercourse or discourse; conversable, sociable'; the three quotations, dated 1668, 1687, and 1691, all collocate the word with 'virtue(s)', as Adam does here. |
map | 'Where can we such a Map of Greatness find?' (p. 67) | ...1620, 1698 | 36 | This word was revised by OED3 in September 2008; the relevant sense is 5b: 'An embodiment or incarnation of a quality, characteristic, etc.; the very picture or image of something. Obs.', for which the last two quotations are dated 1620 and 1698. |
recreate | 'A stately Bower it was, and full of Light, / With a majestick Look it met the Sight. / Forward I went, to recreate my eyes'; 'Long Days and Nights she fondly spent, / Soft Amusements to invent, / To recreat the Eye and charm the Ear' (pp. 119, 187) | 1514, 1578, 1621, 1684, 1693, 1710 | 24 | OED3's draft revision of September 2009 added a later quotation to the OED1/2 treatment of this sense (now 3a, 'To refresh (a sense or sensory organ) by means of an agreeable object or impression'), bringing the last quoted date from 1710 up to 1718 (Pope's translation of the Iliad). But Adam's is a later example still. |
compendize | poem title: 'Religion Compendiz'd'; also, later, p. 34, ''Twas he, to keep the World in aw, / [...] That made the uncorrupted Law, / By Moses compendiz'd' (pp. 14, 34) | 1693, 1722, 1722 | 12 | OED1/2 defines 'To epitomize, abridge'; cf. compend [Table 4a], for which Adam also has useful quotations. |
regrate, v.1 | 'Christ [...] / Regrates to think their Sins gave them the Pain' (p. 4) | -a1712 | 12 | This is an example of the obsolete Scottish word meaning 'To lament, to feel or express grief or sorrow at (some injury, loss, or event)'; the transitive use is last recorded in OED1/2 as 1712 and the intransitive (as here) instanced by one quotation alone, of 1616. |
Last updated on 30 July 2019