Questions tagged [early-modern-english]
Early Modern English was used from the late 15th century to the mid to late 17th century.
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Meaning of "bring them away" in Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" (Act2, scene1)?
In act II, scene 1, of Measure for Measure, Elbow says:
Elbow. Come, bring them away: if these be good people in a Common-weale, that doe nothing but vse their abuses in common houses, I know no law :...
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Meaning of "Bore many gentlemen" in Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure"? [closed]
In act I, scene 5, of Measure for Measure, Lucio says:
Lucio. This is the point.
The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;
Bore many gentlemen (my selfe being one)
In hand, and hope of action: but ...
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Of what chocolate-house does Swift write in "An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity"?
In An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity it is written:
Another advantage proposed by the abolishing of Christianity is the clear gain of one day in seven, which is now entirely lost, and ...
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What is meant by "to take the offence" in Act I, scene 1 of "Two Noble Kinsmen"?
In act I, scene 1, of The Two Noble Kinsmen, the first queen says:
1. Queen. We are 3. Queenes, whose Soveraignes fel before
The wrath of cruell Creon; who endured
The Beakes of Ravens, Tallents of ...
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What does 'lay'd-on' mean in Camillo's speech (scene 3, act 5 of "The Winter's Tale")?
In act V, scene 3, of The Winter's Tale, Hermione says:
Cam. My Lord, your Sorrow was too sore lay'd-on,
Which sixteene Winters cannot blow away,
So many Summers dry: scarce any Ioy
Did euer so long ...
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Omitting "thou" after "hast" or "art" in questions (as in "Hast seen the White Whale?")
My understanding is that in standard modern English, an explicit grammatical subject is required in all sentences other than imperatives.
However, I've come across across a few examples where the ...
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What is meant by "the crotchet of the law" in chapter VIII of Milton's "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce"?
In book one, chapter VIII, of The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce, it is written:
Upon these principles I answer, that a right beleever ought to divorce an idolatrous heretick unlesse upon ...
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What does 'treasure is tickle' mean in Philotimus?
In Philotimus (1583), the following passage appears on page 38:
Among all forts of conceyted fellowes, I reuerence the Esseni∣ans, as most cōtinent in pleasures, & contented wt nifles, for they ...
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What do 'fain' and 'unfained' mean in this paragraph from Milton's "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce"?
In book one, chapter VI, of The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce, it is written:
Fourthly, Mariage is a cov’nant the very beeing wherof consists, not in a forc’t cohabitation, and counterfet ...
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"in the Hebrew it ..." vs "in Hebrew it ..." - what is the difference of meaning in this paragraph of Milton and in general?
In book one of The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce, it is written:
The cause of divorce mention’d in the Law is translated some uncleannesse, but in the Hebrew it sounds nakednes of ought, or ...
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What does "The by-gone-day proclaym'd" mean in scene ii, act I of The Winter's Tale?
In the second scene of The Winter's Tale, Hermione says:
I had thought (Sir) to haue held my peace, vntill
You had drawne Oathes from him, not to stay: you (Sir)
Charge him too coldly. Tell him, you ...
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What does 'attorney' mean in this passage from The Winter's Tale
In The Winter's Tale, it is written:
Cam. Sicilia cannot shew himselfe ouer-kind to Bohe-
mia: They were trayn'd together in their Child-hoods;
and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection,
...
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What was more frequent in Early Modern English: "How many a man who was ..." or "How many men who were ..."?
In A Plea for Captain John Brown, Thoreau writes:
How many a man who was lately contemplating suicide has now something to live for!
Phrases ... many countable-noun-in-plural ..., e.g. How many men ...
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What are 'herbycall verses'?
This line in Philotimus, specifically the word ‘herbycall’, has been perplexing me:
Herewithall she yelded breath. Great mourninges were ex∣cited in euery corner, and wofull Philotimus swounding ...
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What does this sentence from Philotimus mean?
I found the following passage from a work called Philotimus, which dates back to 1583. Though most of the language in the book is relatively understandable after a bit of squinting and rereading, this ...
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Avoidance of double negation in early modern English? (Spenser's The Faerie Queene)
There's this very famous line in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (Book V, Canto II, Stanza 39) that reads
For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.
I know that the interpretation ...
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Excerpts from a poem: need help understanding poetic English
This is John Keats’s classic Petrarchan sonnet “To the Nile”, which was written two hundred years ago in a style more ancient still:
Son of the old Moon-mountains African!
Chief of the Pyramid and ...
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Pronunciation of (King) Leir in Early Modern English
Shakespeare's King Lear may have used the anonymous play King Leir as a source. Lear is pronounced /lɪər/ in present-day English and I assume that Early Modern English used essentially the same ...
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What's difference between oed.com and oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com [migrated]
Could you help me to compare oed.com vs Oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com
Are they both from Oxford University? Where can I find a list of Oxford official website?
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When is the old english letter Æ/æ modernised to A, E and AE?
The old english letter Æ/æ in various words have been modernised to either A (Æthelstan to Athelstan); E (Ælf to Elf, Æthelræd to Ethelred) and sometimes both A and E in the same word (Ælfræd to ...
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What did Gideon Harvey (late XVII century) mean by "juice of porcelain"?
In Morbus anglicus by Gideon Harvey (1666), one can find references to "juice of porcelain":
among Herbs, Lettice, Endive, Succory, Sorrel, Porcelain, Chervil, &c. but note that they ...
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Can the possessive “my” be dropped before father/mother? [closed]
Imagine you are reading and/or watching some hoity-toity broad speak from the ye olde era. Would it be wrong for them to say:
“Father would never allow for it!”
Or:
“What plagues mother now?”
In ...
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Is the use of "an" to mean "if" an invention of fantasy writers?
I've just read Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede, and the author has her characters speak in a vaguely Shakespearean manner, presumably to add atmosphere. In particular, her characters use ...
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The history of “to see say” better known as “voir dire”
Fans of the American TV show, Law & Order, may be familiar with the procedure called voir dire, whereby lawyers interrogate would-be-members of the jury in order to select jurors who will be ...
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In Early Modern English, are there examples of the "a- + gerund" progressive construction where the gerund begins with a vowel?
In Early Modern English, a progressive tense was sometimes constructed as in the example "I was a-hunting". But what happens if the verb begins with a vowel rather than a consonant? Would ...
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What's the archaic past tense for "say"?
And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and ...
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Etymology of the word "erre" in English
I'm currently working on Bible translations and have stumbled accross the word "erre" in James (1: 2-18) of the King James Bible.
To be more specific in verse 16:
Doe not erre, my beloued ...
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What is the "-sie" suffix meaning?
While playing Thief: The Dark Project, I noticed the use of the suffix "-sie" in some words, for example: woodsie, goodsie, treesie, etc. I struggled to find an explanation for this and ...
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History of "literally": Who changed the definition of "literally" to no longer mean "figuratively" in the first place? [duplicate]
According to my research, "literally" used to mean "figuratively", or at least it was used by many people to mean "figuratively" several centuries ago. Yet, although ...
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Aren't English' "shoe" and French' "chaussure" related?
I was absolutely certain that shoe (en) and chaussure (fr) were cognates due to the obvious similarity between their first syllable, especially the pronunciation - that was until I looked them up on ...
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Understanding Nehemiah 13:24 in the King James Bible
The King James Bible reads in Nehemiah 13:24:
And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people.
...
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Can you correct this “old English” quote?
There’s an “influencer” that came across my page who posted a quote (attributed to themselves) and I know it’s wrong but I’m not informed enough to know how wrong it is. I’m not going to do anything ...
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How authentic is the EModE in T. Nesbit's novel Beheld? [closed]
I checked out TaraShea Nesbit’s historical novel Beheld (Bloomsbury 2020) from my local library, after hearing an author interview about it on public radio. It is set in the New Plymouth colony in ...
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What's an early modern English excalmation roughly meaning "raise the roof!"?
I am a translator of Russian historical fiction set in the early modern period (mid-late 16th century) and I am looking for some good period-specific English equivalents of the phrase "жги-говори!...
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Meaning of “an” in Matthew (King James Version)
I'm having a little trouble parsing an in this context:
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee ...
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How and why were different inflections applied to third-person singular verbs in the Early Modern period?
I can't get my head around why and how inflections were used in Early Modern English. I know that they were used to mark person, number and tense and so on but how and why exactly?
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Why is "from" used in "from henceforth"?
The dictionaries unanimously include the word from in their definitions of henceforth:
e.g.
M-W: from this point on
Henceforth, supervisors will report directly to the manager.
Cambridge: starting ...
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Is "-eth" (as in the verb "buildeth") always the singular? Is this inscription at Hoover Dam a mistake?
I was kind of surprised to find that one of the inscriptions on one of the towers at the Hoover Dam has what I thought was a typo, but I want to know if I'm in the wrong because I can't find anything ...
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Is there any difference between "thou wast" and "thou wert"?
Today I realised for the first time that in the KJV Bible both thou wast and thou wert are used, and I was intrigued by the need to have two forms for the same person and number of the past tense ...
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"lift/raise all up to" or "lift/raise up all to"
I know the rule with phrasal verbs and pronouns is that
If the object is a personal pronoun (me, you, him, us, etc.), we always put the pronoun before the particle:
Oh, I can’t lift you up any more. ...
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Why "thine heart" but "thy whole heart"?
I have somehow picked up the use of the two different forms "thy/thine" from the KJV Bible, and I thought I knew the rule. Use thy before consonants and thine before vowels or before words ...
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Again = 'back, opposite direction'
In the OED, archaic again, under def. 1a, is 'In the opposite direction; back.' The last example given there is from John Bunyan, with "turn again": "Come then, Neighbour Pliable, let ...
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How Was "Feast" Pronounced in Early Modern English?
In Romeo and Juliet, Capulet delivers a speech to Paris about his consent for him to court Juliet. With the exception of the first three lines, his speech would follow a coupled rhyme scheme...
16 ...
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How was ‘only’ (‘onely’) pronounced in early modern English?
I have noticed in some older English literature, that ‘only’ is written ‘onely’. Was this merely an example of historical spelling, or does it reveal an earlier pronunciation not as modern /ˈəʊnlɪ/, ...
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Is there any situation where an article could be used in front of a pronoun?
I was reading an online copy of the King James Bible and (in John 18:1) found this:
When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into ...
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When did the word "demon" (for evil spirit) come into popular usage in the English language?
The English word "demon" has been found throughout the New Testament in modern bible translations since the 19th century. However, in the 16th and 17th century and earlier (Tyndale Bible, ...
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What word was used with the meaning of "suicide" pre-1650s?
Online Etymology Dictionary puts the origin as such:
"deliberate killing of oneself," 1650s, from Modern Latin suicidium
Wiktiobary here puts:
Suicide, 1651, New Latin coinage (probably ...
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What does "carry't" mean?
What does "carry't" mean? I can't find a definition for it on the web.
Here's an example of its use from Shakespeare's Othello, the Moor of Venice:
What a full fortune does the thick-lips ...
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What does "tenable" mean to Shakespeare?
Hamlet:
If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still,
And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue:
Tenable seems a strange ...
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Merger of Early Modern English 'ir' with 'ur' and 'er'+'ear'
Before /r/, /ɪ/ merged with either /ʊ/ or /ɛ/, depending on context. After labials (plus clusters of labials and /l/) and alveolar stops (like in bird and dirt), the result was /ʊ/ (shown, among other ...
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