▪ I. ort
(ɔːt)
Usually in pl. orts; also 5 ortys, 7 ortes, 8 oughts.
[First found in 15th c. in pl. ortys, -us, but not usual till end of 16th c.; app. cognate with early mod.Du. oor-aete, oor-ete remains of food (Kilian), LG. ort (Brem. Wbch.), Sw. dial. oräte, uräte refuse fodder; cf. N. Fris. ôrte to leave fragments; f. or-, oor-, privative + etan to eat. There may have been an unrecorded OE. *or-ǽt, cognate with the continental forms, but the absence of OE. and ME. examples is noteworthy.]
Fragments of food left over from a meal; fodder left by cattle; refuse scraps; leavings, broken meat: also fig. to make orts of, to treat with contempt, undervalue.
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 371/2 Ortus, releef of beestys mete. 1483 Cath. Angl. 262/1 Ortys, forrago (A. farrago), ruscus. 1593 Shakes. Lucr. 985 Let him haue time a beggers orts to craue. 1598 T. Bastard Chrestoleros (1880) 93 She hath the orts and parings of our time. 1607 Shakes. Timon iv. iii. 400 It is some poore Fragment, some slender Ort of his remainder. 1675 Crowne Country Wit ii. i. 23 Those poor creatures..swim after men of wit and sense for the scraps and orts of wit that fall from them. 1678 Ray Eng. Prov. (ed. 2) 133 Evening orts are good morning fodder. a 1722 Lisle Husb. (1752) 258 The graziers buy lean oxen to eat up the oughts. 1828 Craven Gloss. (ed. 2), Orts, the refuse of hay left in the stall by cattle. 1861 Geo. Eliot Silas M. iii. 18 Besides, their feasting caused a multiplication of orts, which were the heirlooms of the poor. 1886 F. Harrison Choice Bks. 187 These pots and pans, where the eminent writer flung the orts of his ill-digested meals. 1913 D. H. Lawrence Love Poems 50 Then what art colleyfoglin' for?—I'm not havin' your orts and slarts. 1917 ― Look! We have come Through! 60 To me it seems the seed is just left over From the red rose-flowers' fiery transience; Just orts and slarts. 1922 Blunden Shepherd 44 With hungry hubbub begging crusts and orts. 1940 V. Woolf Writer's Diary 30 May (1953) 334 Scraps, orts and fragments. 1946 K. Tennant Lost Haven (1947) xi. 169 ‘Orts and leavings, that's what pigs eat.’ The idea of a set of pigs fattening on what Bee-Bonnet left from his scanty meal amused the loungers. 1950 R. Moore Candlemas Bay 223 Neal took the orts out to the hens and hurled them, dish and all, over the henyard wall. Ibid. 224 Neal started back to the house, kicking the orts dish along the gravel walk in front of him. 1972 J. Metcalf Going Down Slow iv. 61 When you've eaten every last ort and scrap, would you like dessert? Coffee? Brandy? 1976 ‘M. Innes’ Gay Phoenix iv. 54 A waiter..wheeled up a trolley of elaborately bedized scraps, orts and broken meats. |
▪ II. ort
variant of ord Obs., beginning.