▪ I. achate, n.1 arch.
(ˈækət)
[a. OFr. acate, achate, ad. L. achātes, a. Gr. ἀχάτης. The unchanged L. achates was also in common use. In end of 6 the form agate, agath was adopted from the Fr., and is now the ordinary form.]
An agate, a kind of precious stone. (It was occasionally confounded from similarity of name with the gagates or jet.)
| c 1230 Ancren Riwle 134 Enne deorewurðe ȝimston þet hette achate. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. (1495) xvi. x. 557 Achates is a precyous stone, and is blacke wyth white veynes. 1430 Lydg. Chron. Troy i. vi. Which stone these prudent clerkes call Achates most vertuous of all. 1535 Coverdale Ex. xxviii. 19 A Ligurios, an Achatt and an Ametyst [1590 Genevan achate, 1611 agate]. 1648 Sir E. Bacon in Bury Wills (1850) 216, I give him alsoe my achate with the picture of the butterfly in it. 1750 Leonardus' Mirror of Stones 64 Sicily gave the first Achates, which was found in the River Acheus. 1855 P. J. Bailey Mystic 90 The achate, wealth adductive, and the mind Of the immortals gladdening. |
▪ II. † aˈchate, n.2 Obs.
4–7. Also achat.
[a. OFr. (12th c.) achat purchase:—earlier OFr. and Norm. acat, whence the earlier Eng. form acat, acate, which became achat, achate, under later Fr. influence, and in the original sense of purchase. In the sense of provisions, the prevailing form remained acates, aphetized cates.]
1. The act of purchasing or buying; purchase; contract, bargain.
| c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. 15 Coempcioun þat is to seyn comune achat or bying to-gidere. c 1386 ― Prol. 570 For whethur that he payde, or took by taille, Algate he wayted so in his Acate [later MSS. achaat(e, achate]. c 1460 Bk. Curtasye in Babees Bk. (1868) 317 Of achatis and dispenses þen wrytes he. 1601 Househ. Ord. Ed. II, §43 (1876) 25 He must make the achates in due manner for the kinges best profet. 1691 Blount Law Dict., Achat is used for a Contract or Bargain. |
2. pl. Things purchased; provisions that were not made in the house, by the baker or brewer, but had to be purchased as wanted. In this sense more commonly acates.
| 1469 Ord. Royal Househ. 93 Pieces of beefe, & moton, & all other acates. 1596 Spenser F.Q. ii. ix. 31 The kitchin clerke, that hight Digestion, Did order all th'achates in seemely wise. 1644 Heylin Life of Laud ii. 300 Every Office in the Court had their several diets..with great variety of Achates. |
▪ III. † aˈchate, v. Obs. rare.
[a. OFr. achate-r (12th c.) older acater (11th c.) to purchase:—late L. accaptā-re, f. ac- = ad- to + captā-re to take, seize. Cf. mod.Fr. acheter.]
To purchase, lay in provision of.
| 1601 Househ. Ord. Ed. II, 36 A serjant of the scullery who shal achate & puruey fuel, coale, etc. |