▪ I. wart, n.
(wɔːt)
Forms: 1 wearte, 2, 4–6 werte, 4–5 wertte, 3–7 wert, 5–6 warte, 7–8 whart, 4– wart; 4 wrot, 4–5 wret(e, wrett(e, 6 wratte, 7–9 Sc. and dial. wrat, 9 dial. wret, writ.
[OE. wearte wk. fem. = OFris. warte, worte (WFris. wart), OS. warte (MLG. warte, wratte, LG. wratte, wratt), Du. wrat (dial. warte), OHG. warza (MHG., mod.G. warze), ON. varta (Sw. vårta, Norw. vorta, Da. vorte):—OTeut. *wartōn-.
The OHG. werza (MHG. werze, mod.G. dial. wärze) appear to point to a derivative formation (OTeut. type *wartjōn-); but the apparently coincident ME. forms werte, wrette, etc. are regular dialectal representatives of OE. wearte. The existence both in Eng. and continental Teut. of metathetic forms with wr- is somewhat noteworthy.]
1. a. A small, round, dry, tough excrescence on the skin; especially common on the hands of young persons.
| c 725 Corpus Gloss. U 77 Uerruca, wearte. c 1000 Sax. Leechd. I. 100 Wið swylas & wið weartan. a 1300 Cursor M. 27088 Bot wald þai seme to mans sight In þair licam bath fair and slight, Wit-vten any wert or weme. c 1386 Chaucer Prol. 555 Vp on the cope right of his nose he hade A werte [Camb. MS. wrete], and ther on stood a toft of herys. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 533/2 Wrette, or werte yn a mannys skynne, veruca. a 1529 Skelton P. Sparowe 1043 Her beautye to augment, Dame Nature hath her lent A warte vpon her cheke. 1562 W. Bullein Bk. Simples 48 The juce thereof will..make smothe the skinne from wrattes. 1601 Holland Pliny xxxii. x. II. 448 The liver of the fish Glanus, causeth werts to fall off, if they be rubbed withall. 1614 Markham Cheap Husb. i. xxxi. 25 The Wart, Pearle, Pin, or Webbe, which are euils growne in and vpon the Eye [of a horse]. 1629 Z. Boyd Last Battell 1051 In such a case his wrats and his wrinkles must be wroght with the pinsell, that the image may bee like unto himselfe. c 1645 Howell Lett. (1650) I. i. xliii. 76 Our mountains in Wales..are Mole-hills in comparison of these [sc. the Alps], they are..but blisters compar'd to Impostumes, or Pimples to Werts. 1658 A. Fox tr. Wurtz' Surg. ii. xiv. 105 There were..found about the Wound Blisters and Wharts, which were caused by the hot dressings. 1718 Quincy Compl. Disp. 112 Ray says, its Juice will wear out Wharts. 1839 Dickens Nich. Nick. viii, An unhealthy-looking boy, with warts all over his hands. 1878 T. Bryant Pract. Surg. I. 343 Warts are not unfrequently met with about the eyelids. |
b. = condyloma. In full
syphilitic wart.
| 1552 Huloet, Wartes in the priuye partes, mirmeciæ. 1578 Lyte Dodoens vi. lxxiv. 767 The leaues of Sauin..do also cause wartes to fal of, which grow about the yarde and other secrete places of man. 1803 Med. Jrnl. X. 322 Syphilitic warts. 1879 St. George's Hosp. Rep. IX. 621 Syphilitic mucous tubercles (so-called warts) in the external auditory canal. |
c. A normal callosity on the legs of a horse, ass, etc.
| 1523–34 Fitzherb. Husb. §118 If a horse wante wartes behynde, benethe the spauen-place. 1824 J. E. Gray in Zool. Jrnl. I. 243 The Asses and Zebras..have warts only on the arms and none on the hind legs;..the true Horses..are furnished with warts on their arms and legs. |
d. Applied to other small excrescences on animate creatures.
| 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. VII. 109 These [sc. frogs'] eggs are buried deep in the skin..and the spaces between them are full of small warts, resembling pearls. 1861 J. R. Greene Man. Anim. Kingd., Cœlent. 149 The general surface of the body..in some Sea-anemones..exhibits a number of clear warts or vesicles. |
† 2. A nipple.
Obs. rare—1. (So G.
warze.)
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 534/1 Wrette, of a pappe or tete, papilla. |
3. Bot. A rounded protuberance or excrescence on the surface of a plant.
| [1677 Miege Eng.-Fr. Dict. s.v., The wart in the middle of a flower, le bouton d'une fleur.] 1793 [see warted]. 1832 Lindley Introd. Bot. 43 Verrucæ, or warts, are roundish excrescences, formed of cellular tissue filled with opaque matter. 1862 Darwin Orchids vi. 283 In Calanthe we have a cluster of odd little spherical warts on the labellum. 1884 Bower & Scott De Bary's Phaner. 425 Tough prominent warts, as those of Aloe verrucosa. 1895 W. R. Lawrence Kashmir xiii. 353 There was a demand for the huge warts which grow on the walnut stem,..and a Frenchman obtained from the State the right to saw off these warts. |
4. transf. and
fig. (from sense 1). A relatively small, or disfiguring, protuberance. Sometimes with implied reference to next sense.
| 1602 Shakes. Ham. v. i. 306 Let them throw Millions of Akers on vs; till our ground Sindging his pate against the burning Zone, Make Ossa like a wart. 1611 Tourneur Ath. Trag. iii. iii, I've lost a Signorie That was confin'd within a piece of earth, A wart upon the body of the world. 1650 Jer. Taylor Holy Living ii. §4. 111 His faults are but warts, his vertues are mountainous. 1792 Holcroft Road to Ruin i. 12 You will not deny you are..A nuisance, a wart, a blot, a stain upon the face of nature! 1838 Emerson Addr. Cambridge, Mass. Wks. (Bohn) II. 195 That which shows God out of me, makes me a wart and a wen. 1865 Dickens Mut. Fr. i. iii, The low building had the look of having once been a mill. There was a rotten wart of wood upon its forehead that seemed to indicate where the sails had been. 1869 F. Kohn Iron & Steel Manuf. 88 If it be attempted to strengthen the linings by iron ribs,..the iron undergoing puddling immediately attaches itself to these, and forms great warts and scabs difficult of removal. 1934 J. B. Priestley Eng. Journey vi. 187 You can meet them, a trifle subdued perhaps but there to the last wart, in the solid downright fiction of my friend, Phyllis Bentley. 1961 Listener 2 Nov. 738/2 The Catholic revivalists..the author presents as no doubt they would like to be presented... No warts here, perhaps regrettably. 1982 Times 1 Dec. 2/5 It was [the television companies']..job to hold up mirrors, some of which showed the warts in society. |
b. warts and all: without concealment of blemishes or unattractive parts (
esp. applied to a description or likeness.) Also hyphened as
attrib. phr. colloq.| [1763 H. Walpole Anecd. Painting III. i. 15 Oliver [Cromwell]..said to him, ‘Mr Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.’] 1930 W. S. Maugham Cakes & Ale xi. 138 Don't you think it would be more interesting if you went the whole hog and drew him warts and all? 1961 Listener 21 Sept. 437/1 A convincing warts-and-all likeness of Wingate. 1962 Sunday Times 1 Apr. 13/1 The Duke of Edinburgh presents himself warts and all, without blunting the rough edges of efficiency and enthusiasm. 1966 K. Giles Provenance of Death iii. 96 In fact you want a run down on Stanisgate, warts and all. Huh? 1974 Publishers Weekly 18 Feb. 24 An intimate, in-depth, ‘warts-and-all’ portrait of our new Vice President. 1976 H. A. Williams Tensions vii. 111 God..accepts us, accepts all men, unconditionally, warts and all. 1980 Times Lit. Suppl. 12 Sept. 986/3 This book..may disconcert the pious more than it jolts the sceptic, but it has the story, warts, statistics and all. |
5. a. Mil. colloq. A very young subaltern.
| 1894 ‘J. S. Winter’ Red Coats 5 Anything more terrifying for ‘a wart’ than to have to sit for two hours—or three, if the Colonel is long-winded enough—and make talk, one can hardly imagine. 1914 Blackw. Mag. Sept. 309/1 A regimental ‘wart’, reconnoitring along the river bank with a score of men. |
b. colloq. An obnoxious or objectionable person.
| 1896 Ade Artie i. 5 There they was, holdin' to this wart. 1925 Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves vii. 167 Sippy had described them as England's premier warts, and it looked to me as if he might be about right. 1948 C. Day Lewis Otterbury Incident i. 6 Everyone called him the Wart because he had a huge wart on his left cheek... And because he was a wart. 1977 C. McCullough Thorn Birds xvii. 431 Watch your language, you dumb wart! 1984 N.Y. Times Bk. Rev. 1 Apr. 33/1 What!..is the old wart going to go on some more about reading? |
c. Naval slang. A junior midshipman or naval cadet.
| 1916 [see crab n.1 12]. 1921 Blackw. Mag. July 50/2 They all ignored the six ‘warts’. 1962 Granville Dict. Sailors' Slang 129/1 Wart, naval cadet or junior midshipman, the ‘lowest form of Naval life’; an unseemly excrescence. |
6. attrib. and
Comb., as
wart-like,
wart-eating,
† wart-ribbed adjs.;
wart-biter [
= G.
warzenbeisser,
-fresser,
Sw. vårtbitare], a grasshopper (
Gryllus verrucivorus) supposed to destroy warts by biting them;
wart-cress, the genus
Senebiera;
wart disease, a disease of potatoes caused by the fungus
Synchytrium endobioticum and producing dark pustules on the tubers;
† wart-gowry [see
gowrie], a variety of cowrie;
wart-grass,
Euphorbia Helioscopia (Britten and Holland);
wart-herb (see
quot.);
wart-hog, a swine of the African genus
Phacochœrus (see
quot. 1913);
wart-pock,
-pox, a variety of chicken-pox;
wart-shaped a., verruciform (
Treas. Bot. 1866);
† wart-shell, some variety of univalve shell;
wart-snake, a colubriform snake of the family
Acrochordidæ, having wart-like scales;
wart-weed,
Euphorbia Helioscopia,
E. Peplus, and
Chelidonium majus (the juice of these plants being used to cure warts). Also
wartwort.
| 1864–5 Wood Homes without H. viii. (1868) 161 The *Wart-biter. 1880 A. H. Swinton Insect Variety 162 The Great Green Leaf-cricket, or Wart-biter. |
| 1806 J. Galpine Brit. Bot. 298 Coronopus. *Wart-cress. 1866 Treas. Bot. 1048 Senebiera didyma, the Lesser Wartcress. |
| [1903 Jrnl. R. Hort. Soc. XXVIII. p. clxxviii, Warty Disease of Potatoes..was introduced from the Continent, and first appeared in Cheshire.] 1915 *Wart disease [see black scab s.v. black a. 19]. 1948 W. G. Burton Potato v. 103 Potato varieties vary greatly in their susceptibility to attack by wart disease. 1970 H. W. Howard Genetics of Potato vii. 46 Breeding for resistance..to wart disease..has been very successful. |
| 1822–7 Good Study Med. (1829) V. 670 In Sweden they [i.e. warts] are destroyed by the Gryllus verrucivorus, or *wart-eating grasshopper. |
| c 1711 Petiver Gazophyl. x. Tab. 97 Fork-mouth'd *Wart Gowry. |
| 1864 Grisebach Flora W. Ind. Isl. 788 *Wart-herb, Rhynchosia minima. |
| 1840 Cuvier's Anim. Kingd. 131 The *Wart-hogs. 1895 J. G. Millais Breath fr. Veldt (1899) 127 We came across a fine old wart-hog boar. 1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms, Wart hog... The name refers to the fleshy excrescences or warts on its face. |
| 1698 Petiver in Phil. Trans. XX. 329 Small *wart-like Tubercles. 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. IV. 754 Epithelioma usually appears as a wart-like growth. |
| 1873 F. T. Roberts Handbk. Med. 186 Horn-pock or *Wart-pock. |
| c 1711 Petiver Gazophyl. viii. Tab. 80 *Wart-rib'd Barbadoes Limpet. |
| Ibid. vii. Tab. 70 Jamaica *Wart-shell. |
| c 1880 Cassell's Nat. Hist. IV. 324 Family Acrochordidæ.—The *Wart Snakes. |
| 1573 Arte of Limning A ij b, The like sise maye you make..with the milke of spourge, or of *wartwede. a 1825 Forby Voc. E. Anglia, Wret-weed, any wild species of euphorbia. 1857 Anne Pratt Flower. Pl. V. 5 Euphorbia helioscopia (Sun Spurge)... Country people call it..Wart-weed. |
▪ II. wart, v. nonce-wd. [f. wart n.] trans. To form a wart-like excrescence on.
| 1819 H. Busk Vestriad ii. 228 Not one molehill warts the glassy plain. |
▪ III. wart obs. 2
sing. pa. tense of
be;
obs. Sc. pa. tense of
write.