Artificial intelligent assistant

word

▪ I. word, n.
    (wɜːd)
    Forms: 1– word, 1–6 wurd, (3 wored, woerd, weord, wuord, wort), 3–6 werd, 3 (4–6 Sc.) wourd, (4 wrd, 4–6 worde, wurde, Sc. vord(e, vourd, 5 worþ (?)), 4–7 woord (6–7 -e), 5–6 Sc. wird(e.
    [OE. word str. n. = OFris., OS. word, MDu. wort (Du. woord), OHG., MHG., G. wort, ON. orð (Sw., Da. ord), Goth. waurd:—OTeut. *wurdom:—pre-Teut. *wrdho-; cf. Lith. va{rtilde}das name, Lett. wàrds word, forename, OPruss. wirds word, OIr. fordat ‘inquiunt’.
    Indo-Eur. werdh- is generally taken to be a deriv. of wer-, werē-, which appears in Gr. ϝερέω I shall say, ϝρήτωρ speaker, L. verbum word, Skr. vratám command, law, etc.]
    I. Speech, utterance, verbal expression.
    1. collect. pl. Things said, or something said; speech, talk, discourse, utterance; esp. with possessive, what the person mentioned says or said; (one's) form of expression or language. Often in such phrases as in these, other, etc. words, in (such-and-such) language; many words, few words (see also 22, 26); to give words to, to put into words, to express by means of language; beyond words, incapable of being expressed in language, unutterable, unspeakable.

a 900 Cynewulf Juliana 83 Ᵹif þas word sind soþ. a 1000 Cædmon's Gen. 2389 Ne wile Sarran..ᵹelyfan wordum minum. c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 27 Ne mai no man þese word seggen..ȝief he haueð on his heorte onde. Ibid. 43 Vnderstonde we on ure heorte his holie wordes. Ibid. 217 On þesse fewe litele wored lotieð fele gode wored, ȝif hie weren wel ioponed. c 1205 Lay. 3606 Þe alde king..þas wuord seide. Ibid. 8835 Nu beoð his word [c 1275 wordes] gode. a 1300 Cursor M. 890 Til þat worm þan drightin spak Wordes bath o wrath and wrak. 1375 Barbour Bruce ix. 752 Sen thou spekis so ryaly, It is gret skill at men chasty Thi prowd vourdis. 1450–1530 Myrr. Our Ladye i. i. 11 These ar the wordes of the prophete Dauid. Ibid. ii. 66 Youre holy rewle forbydeth you all vayne and ydel wordes. 1526 Tindale John vi. 63 The wordes that I speake vnto you are sprete and lyfe. 1533 Gau Richt Vay (S.T.S.) 5 Ane prayer is noth the mair plesand to god for causz we wsz mony vordis in it. 1605 Shakes. Macb. iv. iii. 209 Giue sorrow words; the griefe that do's not speake, Whispers the o're-fraught heart, and bids it breake. Ibid. v. viii. 6, I haue no words, My voice is in my Sword. 1638 Junius Paint. Ancients 89 Seeing they cleare such a great point in a few words. 1667 Milton P.L. x. 865 Soft words to his fierce passion she assay'd. 1709, 1795 words of course [see course n. 37 a]. 1749 Copy Let. Fr. Lady at Paris 17 Not yet, answered Mr. de Vaudreuil, at which Words, the Prince darted a menancing Look at him. 1813 Lady Burghersh Lett. (1893) 61 Words can't describe the figures the women dress here. 1817 Shelley Sonn., Ozymandias 9 And on the pedestal these words appear. 1825 Scott Betrothed xvii, Forbear these wild and dangerous words!.. There may be here those who will pretend to track mischief from light words. 1847 Helps Friends in C. i. viii. 124 All this is what I have often heard you say yourself in other words. 1848 Thackeray Van. Fair xx, When he had a duty to perform, Captain Dobbin was accustomed to go through it without many words or much hesitation. 1850 Tennyson In Mem. v. i, I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel. 1878 Besant & Rice Celia's Arb. xvii, I have no words..to express the very great thanks which I..owe you. 1882 Besant All Sorts viii, At a loss to give indignation words. 1885 ‘H. Conway’ Family Affair xxvii, To use his own words, he was in a cleft stick. 1892 Temple Bar Dec. 541 She could not put her fear into words. 1905 E. Glyn Viciss. Evang. 277 Her tact is beyond words.

    b. In various obsolete or casual use (sometimes spec. speech as distinguished from writing).

Beowulf 612 Ðær wæs hæleþa hleahtor, hlyn swynsode, word wæron wynsume. a 940 in Kemble Cod. Dipl. V. 248 Ic æðelstan..on ðisum ᵹewrite mid wordum afæstniᵹe, ðæt ic wille [etc.]. c 1000 ælfric Hom. (Th.) I. 24 Þa com se engel to hire and hi ᵹegrette mid Godes wordum. c 1205 Lay. 51 Feþeren he nom mid fingren..& þa soþere word sette togadere & þa þre boc þrumde to are. Ibid. 6675 Mid wurden and mid writen he dude heom wel to witen þat [etc.]. a 1300 Cursor M. 12226 Fle for-soth fra him wil i, His wordes i mai noght vnderli. c 1386 Chaucer Prol. 313 Discreet he was and of greet reuerence; He semed swich his wordes weren so wise. a 1450 Knt. de la Tour 18 We felle in wordes of prisoners. Ibid. 25 The wiff aught to..lete the husbonde haue the wordes, and to be maister. 1471 Caxton Recuyell (Sommer) 542 Stameryng in his wordes. c 1489 ― Blanchardyn vii. 28 Wythout moo wordes the knyght mounted..on horsbake. 1500–20 Dunbar Poems xlii. 47 Sayand till hir with wirdis still, Haif pety of ȝour presoneir. 1560 J. Daus tr. Sleidane's Comm. 1 [They] affirmed their doynges to be good, bothe in wordes and writyng. 1563 Foxe A. & M. 1225/1 We had more woordes of thys matter. 1602 Shakes. Ham. i. iii. 134, I would not..Haue you..giue words or talke with the Lord Hamlet. 1677–8 in Jrnl. Friends Hist. Soc. XIX. 61 Shee..was much runn into words. 1697 Dryden æneis vi. 723 They..in Words and Tears had spent The little time of stay.

    c. spec. The text of a song or other vocal composition, as distinguished from the music; also, the text of an actor's part.
    In first quot. also sing.

1450–1530 Myrr. Our Ladye i. xxi. 56 Whyle there ys thre thynges in goddes seruyce..The sentence, the worde, and the songe, the notes and songe serue to the wordes, and the wordes serue to the inwarde sentence. 1605 Shakes. Macb. i. iii. 88 To th' selfe-same tune and words. 1611 ― Cymb. iv. ii. 238. 1761 Victor Theatres Lond. & Dublin II. 5 The Rehearsals..begin to be of Use to the Actor: When he is quite perfect in the Words and Cues. 1774 [see set v.1 73]. 1847 Tennyson Princess vii. 270 Till at the last she set herself to man, Like perfect music unto noble words. 1890 Baring-Gould Old Country Life 279 A marvellous store of old words and tunes in her head.

    d. too ― for words: ― to an extent that cannot adequately be described. colloq.

1913 Vanity Fair Nov. 65 New York is beginning to look too smart and clean for words. 1928 E. O'Neill Strange Interlude viii. 289 But for Gordon to..propose marriage—it's too idiotic for words! 1937 J. Mercer Too Marvellous for Words (song), You're just too marvellous, too marvellous for words.

    2. a. sing. Something said (= sense 1); a speech or utterance; esp. defined by a possessive or demonstrative. arch.

c 1000 Ags. Gosp. Matt. iv. 4 Ne leofað se man be hlafe anum ac be ælcon worde þe of godes muðe gæð. a 1175 Cott. Hom. 235 He cweð a wunder word to þar sawle bi þa witie ysaiam. c 1200 Ormin Ded. 45 Min word..Maȝȝ hellpenn þa þatt redenn itt to sen & tunnderrstanndenn. Ibid. 282 Swa wass filledd opennliȝ þatt word tatt ær wass cwiddedd. a 1300 Cursor M. 1600 Þis word out of his hert sprang..‘Me reus þat euer made i man.’ 1375 Barbour Bruce xv. 145 With that vorde assemblit thai. c 1400 Anturs of Arth. xvi, Ways me for thi wirde! c 1470 Henry Wallace vi. 538 Wallace was blyth fra he had hard thair wourd. 1500–20 Dunbar Poems xxxvii. 15 The wird of Jesew is fulfillit rycht, Surrexit sicut dixit. 1534 Fewterer Myrrour Christes Passion 124 A contemplation of this seconde worde spoken by Christe vpon the crosse. Ibid., This moste comfortable worde of our most swete sauyour Iesu spoken vnto the thefe. 1563 Foxe A. & M. 1258/1 At this worde which he coupled with an othe, came I in. 1781 Cowper Conversat. 533 He bless'd the bread, but vanish'd at the word. 1801 Scott Eve St. John xxviii, Yet hear but my word. 1831 James Phil. Augustus xxviii, We have striven..to draw some word from her; but she..sobs, and answers nothing. 1867 Morris Jason i. 217 So at this word the king along the shore Built many a tower. 1871 B. Taylor Faust (1875) I. iv. 69 The word, alas! dies even in the pen.

    b. with negative expressed or implied, or with every: Any or the least utterance, statement, or fragment of speech; anything at all (said or written).

a 1000 Riddles xix. 1 Ic..ne mæᵹ word sprecan. c 1200 Ormin Ded. 70 Þatt upponn all þiss boc ne be Nan word ȝæn Cristess lare. a 1300 K. Horn 260 (Harl.) Þah hue ne dorste at bord Mid him speke ner a word [v.r. no worde]. c 1470 Gol. & Gaw. 1166 Thair wes na word muuand, Sa war thai all stil. a 1508 Dunbar Tua Mariit Wemen 157, I sall say furth the south, dissymyland no word. 1581 J. Hamilton Cath. Traictise V iv b, He sal not haif ane vourd to ansueir. 1611 Bible 2 Sam. xix. 10 Why speake ye not a word of bringing the king backe? 1667 Earl of Orrery St. Lett. (1742) 305 He..got an order..without so much as telling me one word of it. 1676 Earl of Essex in Essex Papers (Camden) II. 83, I was above four months before I could gett one word of answer from him. 1720 De Foe Capt. Singleton xi. (1840) 198 They never heard a word of English. 1753–4 Richardson Grandison I. xlviii. 342 You undo me, if one word of this matter escape you. 1758 C. Lennox Henrietta ii. ii. (1761) I. 105 That..her every word and action [might] be under his direction. 1797 Jane Austen Sense & Sens. xxx, I would not mention a word about it to her. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xi. III. 10 No word indicating that he took blame to himself. 1863 W. C. Baldwin Afr. Hunting vii. 294 It is now eighteen months since I heard a word..from my friends. 1879 M{supc}Carthy Donna Q. I. iii, Before she had time to put in a word. 1882 Besant All Sorts xxi, Her ladyship held out her hands, without a word.

    c. a word: a (short or slight) utterance or statement; a brief speech or conversation; similarly a word or two, † a couple of words; a word in your ear (colloq.): a brief message for you in confidence.

c 1485 Digby Myst. (1896) iii. 1423 Master of þe shepe, a word with þe. 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 142 Than yf we be touched with a sharpe worde, we shal yelde a..gentyll answere. 1581 T. Wilcox Glass Gamesters vi. c v b, Nowe a worde or two, out of the fathers,..for the ouerthrowyng of Dise and Cardes. 1589 Puttenham Engl. Poesie iii. xxv. (Arb.) 307 So occupied..in the Princes affaires, as it is a great matter to haue a couple of wordes with them. 1599 Shakes. Much Ado iv. ii. 27 Come you hither, sirrah; a word in your ear, sir. 1611 Bible Isa. l. 4 To speake a worde in season [Geneva a worde in time] to him that is wearie. 1639 [see wise a. 6 c]. 1726 Swift Gulliver ii. iii, I entreated to be heard a Word or two. 1810 Crabbe Borough xxii. 5 Peter..had of all a civil word and wish. 1836 Dickens Sk. Boz, Visit to Newgate, Some ordinary word of recognition passed between her and her mother. 1837 ― Pickw. xxxiv, And now, gentlemen, but one word more. 1838 Dickens Let. 25 Jan. (1965) I. 360 A word in your ear. Macready objected to Talfourd's play. 1842 Tennyson Dora 42 If you speak with him..Or change a word with her. 1855 Browning Men & Women, (title) One Word More. 1893 M. Pemberton Iron Pirate iii, I leave in ten minutes and write you here my last word. 1980 Daily Tel. 9 May 18 Salome and Kumba [sc. two gorillas] would like a word in your ear.

    d. spec. Something said on behalf of another; esp. in such phrases as to speak a (good) word for: see also 23. † In quot. 1625, pl. votes.

1540, etc. [see 23]. 1617 Moryson Itin. i. 197 A Gentleman..understood that I had been robbed in France, where⁓upon hee gave his word for me unto the Maior. 1625 in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. App. v. 472 Whoesoever..shall labour or practise to gaine woordes for to make a Mayor, Sheriffe, or any other officer. 1831 Carlyle Misc. Ess., Early Ger. Lit. (1872) III. 196 The venerable man deserves a word from us. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. iii. I. 301 Any dissolute courtier for whom one of the king's mistresses would speak a word.

    e. spec. A watchword or password.
    to give the word: (a) to utter the password in answer to a sentinel's challenge; (b) to inform officers or men of the password to be used.

[c 1400–: see watchword.]



a 1533 Ld. Berners Huon lxvii. 230 When he sawe his tyme, he cryed his worde & token. 1605 Shakes. Lear iv. vi. 93 Lear. Giue the word. Edg. Sweet Mariorum. Lear. Passe. 1667 Duchess of Newcastle Life Dk. N. (1886) ii. 92 He offered my Lord the keys of the city, and desired him to give the word that night. 1847 Marryat Childr. New Forest v, He gave the word, and the gate was opened. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. v. I. 608 The word by which the insurgents were to recognise one another in the darkness was Soho. 1855 Ibid. xvi. III. 679 The first morning on which Marlborough had the command, he gave the word ‘Wirtemberg.’ 1868 Queen's Reg. & Orders Army ¶42 The Governor..will give the Word or parole in all places within his government.

    † 3. abstr. or collect. sing. (without a or pl.) Speech, speaking: often as distinguished from writing, esp. in phr. by word, now by word of mouth (see 19); also, the faculty of speech; occas. language, tongue. Obs. exc. as in 19.

a 1000 Gloria Patri 56 Þu..him..sealdest word and ᵹewitt. c 1200 Ormin 3043 Þatt Godess enngell seȝȝde þær Till Josæp þuss wiþþ worde. a 1300 Cursor M. 24074 Es na tung mai speke wit word, Ne writer write wit pens ord. 1390 Gower Conf. I. 206 Couste in Saxoun is to sein Constance upon the word Romein. Ibid. III. 135 Above alle erthli creatures The hihe makere of natures The word to man hath yove alone. c 1400 Rule St. Benet (prose) 44 Sho sal be repreuid foure siþe with worde. c 1475 Rauf Coilȝear 100 The Carll was wantoun of word. 1491 Acta Dom. Conc. (1839) 185/2 Duncane laid in wedset a land and tenement in Linlithqw to Thomas Gudelad be word and but charter or possessioune. a 1553 Udall Royster D. ii. iii. (Arb.) 36 No man for despite, By worde or by write His felowe to twite. 1580 Hay in Cath. Tractates (S.T.S.) 39 The traditions quhilk ye have learned ather be wourd, or be our epistle. 1628 A. Leighton Appeal to Parlt. 74 The Anti-episcopall government..which by word and writ he had maintained. 1728 P. Walker Life Peden To Rdr. (1827) p. xiii, It is..maliciously spread, both by Word and Writ.

    4. sing. and pl. Speech, verbal expression, in contrast with action or thought.

Beowulf 289 Ᵹescad witan worda and worca. 971 Blickl. Hom. 35 We..agyltaþ..þurh ᵹeþoht, & þurh word, & þurh weorc, & þurh willan. c 1175 12th Cent. Hom. 118 Mid worde, mid dæda, & mid alle heortæ. c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 65 Ȝif man haueð wið us agilt, woerdes oðer wurkes. a 1300 Cursor M. 15263 For þat i sai yow here wit word, Þar sal yee find in dede. 1338 R. Brunne Chron. (1725) 94 Ouþer in word or dede has þou greued him. 1390 Gower Conf. I. 7 The word was lich to the conceite Withoute semblant of deceite. c 1400 in 26 Pol. Poems xiii. 127 Wiþ word of wynd, mad neuere werre ende. 1471 Caxton Recuyell (Sommer) 19 He was iust & trewe in dede & in word. 1500–20 Dunbar Poems ix. 6 Baith in werk, in word, and eik intent. c 1560 A. Scott Poems (S.T.S.) i. 109 Wordis w{supt}out werkis availȝeis nocht a cute. 1601 B. Jonson Poetaster iii. v, Great Caesars warres cannot be fought with worde. 1602 Shakes. Ham. iii. iii. 97, 98 My words flye vp, my thoughts remain below, Words without thoughts, neuer to Heauen go. 1605 ― Macb. ii. i. 61 Words, to the heat of deedes, too cold breath giues. 1605 Bodley Let. to James 1 May, Wordes are women, and deedes are men. 1667 Sprat Hist. R. Soc. 434 A Society that prefers Works before Words. 1671 Milton P.R. iii. 9 Thy actions to thy words accord. 1800 Coleridge Piccol. i. iii. 61 Men's words are ever bolder than their deeds. 1862 [see deed n. 5 b]. 1875 [see deed n. 1].


    5. pl. orig. in various phr. denoting verbal contention or altercation, e.g. † to be or fall at words (into words), † to have some or many words, † (some) words are between{ddd}, etc., now chiefly to have words or a word (with); hence simply words = contentious or violent talk between persons, altercation; also with epithet, as hard, high, sharp.
    † occas. Defamatory or libellous statement.

1462 Paston Lett. II. 105 Your brother and Debenham were at words. c 1489 Caxton Sonnes of Aymon iii. 88 Whan we playd togyder, we hade some wordes. 1526 Hundred Mery Talys (1887) 8 The other agayn said he shuld not, & he agayn said he wold bryng them ouer spyte of his teth & so fell at wordys. a 1533 Ld. Berners Huon lxv. 222 Whan I se that wordes [be] betwen you, I shall Issu out. 1565 Cooper Thesaurus s.v. Altercor, Cum patre altercasti dudum, thou wast at words. 1590 Tarlton's News Purgat. (1844) 82 Whereupon they grewe to woords, and from woords to blowes. 1591 Shakes. 1 Hen. VI, ii. v. 46 In argument vpon a Case, Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me. 1663 Butler Hud. i. i. 3 When hard Words, Jealousies, and Fears Set Folks together by the Ears. 1684 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) I. 307 His royall highnesse has brought his action of scandalum magnatum against Dr. Titus Oates for words. 1753–4 Richardson Grandison II. xii. 86 High words passed between them. They parted in passion. 1777 W. Mawhood Diary 24 Aug. in Publ. Cath. Rec. Soc. (1956) L. 117 Came to Town to breakfast had words with Mrs. Mawhood. 1815 Sixteen & Sixty ii. iii, Propriety and myself have been at high words on your account. 1839 Dickens Nich. Nick. xlviii. 480 ‘We were a very happy little company, Johnson,’ said poor Crummles. ‘You and I never had a word.’ 1842 Tennyson Dora 16 He and I Had once hard words, and parted. 1848 Dickens Dombey xxxi, Words have arisen between the housemaid and Mr. Towlinson. 1862 Mrs. Carlyle Lett. III. 103 We had got into words about an invitation. 1901 ‘Zack’ White Cottage 37 Have you and Mark had wuds? 1910 King George V in H. Nicolson George V (1952) vii. 105, I have lost my best friend & the best of fathers. I never had a word with him in his life. 1913 M. Roberts Salt of the Sea vii. 182 My old man said he was a blood⁓sucker, and that led to words. 1935 Z. N. Hurston Mules & Men ii. vi. 287 Celestine is not mad any more about the word we had last week.

    6. a. Report, tidings, news, information. (Always in sing. without article, in such phrases as to bring word, send word, write word; to have word; word came, etc.)

971 Blickl. Hom. 173 Sona swa þæt word becom to Nerone. a 1122 O.E. Chron. an. 1046 Þam cynge com word þæt unnfriðscipa læᵹen be westan and herᵹodon. c 1205 Lay. 3732 And Cordoille com þat wourd Þat heo was iworðen widewe. c 1205 [see send v.1 6 b]. 1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 826 He sende þe quene is doȝter word wuch is aunters were. a 1300 Cursor M. 11454 Word cum til herod þe kyng Þat þar was suilk kynges cummun. c 1400 Mandeville (Roxb.) xxv. 119 He schall hafe worde within a day and a nyght. 1415 Sir T. Grey in 43rd Rep. Dep. Kpr. Rec. 583 He sende me no more worde of yat mater til I cam to Yorke. c 1440 Alphabet of Tales 102 Hur husband..hard no tithandis nor wurd of his wyfe nor of his childer. a 1533 Ld. Berners Huon lxv. 221 My brother Huon..is now..in the abbay of seint Mauryse, the abbot there hath sent me worde therof. 1598 Shakes. Merry W. iii. v. 48, I must carry her word quickely. 1606 ― Ant. & Cl. ii. v. 118 Bid you Alexas Bring me word, how tall she is. 1662 Stillingfl. Orig. Sacræ i. iv. §11 Alexander..writ word to his Mother he had found out the head of Nilus in the East Indies. 1712 Steele Spect. No. 284 ¶5 Send me Word..whether he has so great an Estate. 1848 Dickens Dombey xlvi, We had word this morning..that Mr. Dombey was doing well. 1850 Thackeray Pendennis lxx, A servant brought word that Major Pendennis had returned. 1853 Lytton My Novel iv. xxiii, The Parson writes word that the lad will come to-day. 1948 ‘H. Green’ Concluding 205 Word had gone round that at last they were engaged. 1958 M. L. King Stride toward Freedom iii. 45 The arrest..was becoming public knowledge. Word of it spread around the community like uncontrolled fire. 1983 Times 16 Sept. 16/2 Word is the Government is offering a fixed price for small investors. 1984 Times 14 June 22/2 Word in the market suggests Mr Holmes a'Court may be prepared to sell on his stake.

    b. Common report or statement, rumour. (Usually with the, this, etc.) Now usu. in phr. the word is that (..) (chiefly U.S.).

c 1000 Ags. Gosp. Matt. xxviii. 15 Þis wurd wæs ᵹewidmærsod mid iudeum. c 1205 Lay. 160 Þa com þat word to him, þat was widene cuð, þat þe king Latin ȝef Lauine his douter Eneam to are brude. a 1300 K. Horn 1017 (Camb.) Þe word bigan to springe Of Rymenhilde weddinge. 1375 Barbour Bruce ii. 78 Our all the land the word gan spryng, That the Bruce the Cumyn had slayn. a 1578 [see spring v.1 2]. 1718 Ramsay Christ's Kirk Gr. iii. 38 Word gae'd me was nae canny. 1819 Shelley Cenci i. iii. 6 An evil word is gone abroad of me. 1819 Scott Noble Moringer xxi, Her husband died in distant land, such is the constant word. 1963 R. Jessup Cincinnati Kid iv. 55 Money is beginning to show for you against The Man, Kid... The word is..that you're good enough to take Lancey, if anybody can. 1965 P. O'Donnell Modesty Blaise vii. 82, I know of him. The word is that he's good. 1982 P. Lovesey False Inspector Dew iv. 153 The word is that the captain will be speaking to us.

    † c. Common report in praise or celebration of a person or his actions; fame, renown, high repute.

c 1000 ælfric Saints' Lives vii. 388 Þa asprang his word wide ᵹ eond land. c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 127 Ðo sprong þe word of his holi liflode wide into þe londe. c 1205 Lay. 6302 Of hire wisdome sprong þat word wide. a 1225 Ancr. R. 88 Wo is me þet he, oðer heo, habbeð swuch word ikeiht. 13.. Gaw. & Gr. Knt. 1521 Your worde & your worchip walkez ay quere. c 1400 Destr. Troy 295 The worde of his werkes thurghe þe worlde sprange. c 1470 Henry Wallace iii. 252 The worde of him walkit baith fer and ner.

    d. Reputation, character (of being or having what is stated). Sc.

1722 Ramsay Three Bonnets i. 89 Rosie had word o' meikle siller, Whilk brought a hantle o' wooers till her. 1825 Jamieson s.v., ‘She gets the word o' being a licht-headit queyn’, i.e. it is generally said of her.

    7. a. A command, order, bidding; a request. (See also 17.) Usually qualified by possessive or the.
    to say the word: to give the order, say ‘go’ or the like. In phr. to send word sometimes combining senses 6 and 7.

873–89 K. ælfred's Will, Þa word ᵹelæstan þe on mines fæder yrfewrite standað. a 900 Cynewulf Crist 1630 Hy bræcon cyninges word. c 1220 Bestiary 51 Silden he us wille, If we heren to his word. c 1250 Gen. & Ex. 736 God seide wurd to abram: ‘Abram, ðu fare ut of lond and kin.’ c 1275 Passion our Lord 363 in O.E. Misc. 47 Alle þat beoþ in soþe i-hereþ myne word. a 1300 Cursor M. 18053 Quen i word herd þat he badd I quok for him. 1486 Bk. St. Albans e v b, The first worde to the houndis that the hunt shall owt pit. 1496 in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. i. I. 29 Please your Graice to send me wourd quhat serves..I sall do. 1526 Tindale Luke v. 5 Yet nowe at thy worde I wil loose forthe the net. a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VI, 164 His worde only ruled, & his voyce was only hearde. 1560 Googe tr. Palingenius' Zodiac iii. (1561) E viij, If thou sayst the woord, we goe. 1594 Shakes. Hen. V, iv. vi. 38 Then euery souldiour kill his Prisoners, Giue the word through. 1601 ― Jul. C. i. ii. 104 Vpon the word, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in. 1631 Heywood 1st Pt. Fair Maid West iv. i. 44 Shall I strike that Captaine? say the word, Ile have him by the eares. 1667 Milton P.L. iii. 708 When at his Word the formless Mass..came to a heap: Confusion heard his voice, and wilde uproar Stool rul'd. 1753–4 Richardson Grandison I. xxxvii. 270, I rang..to beg my cousins' company. They wanted but the word: In they came. 1803 Wordsw. Sonn. Pass Killicranky 12 O for a single hour of that Dundee, Who on that day the word of onset gave! 1806 [see speak v. 21]. 1842 Tennyson Dora 25 In my time a father's word was law. 1856 Dickens Christmas Stories (1874) 50, I gave Rames the word to lower the Longboat and the Surf-boat.

    b. Ten Words: the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue. Obs. or arch.

1382 Wyclif Deut. iv. 13 The ten wordis, that he wroot in the two stonen tablis. 1650 Trapp Comm. Exod. xx. 17 These ten words written by God himself. 1884 S. Cox Miracles 18 The fundamental moralities of the ‘Ten Words’.

    8. A promise, undertaking. Almost always with possessive, as in to give (pass, pledge) one's word, to keep (hold arch.) one's word, to break one's word; to be as good as one's word, to keep one's promise (so to be worse than one's word, to break one's promise); a man of († master of, etc.) his word, one who keeps his promises; also on († in, under) the word of (a prince, etc.). See also 15, 18, 28 b.
    See also bond n.1 8, break v. 15 c, pledge v. 2 b, plight v.1 2, etc.

[971 Blickl. Hom. 243 Hwær syndon þine word, Drihten... ‘Ᵹif ᵹe me ᵹehyrað and ᵹe me beoð fylᵹende, ne an loc of eowrum heafde forwyrð?’ a 1122 O.E. Chron. an. 1014 (Laud MS.) Man..freondscipe ᵹefæstnode mid worde & mid wædde.] 1390 Gower Conf. I. 67 It sit wel every wiht To kepe his word in trowthe upryht. 1474 Caxton Cheese ii. i. (1883) 22 That the symple parole or worde of a prynce ought to be more stable than the oth of a marchaunt. 1496 Rolls of Parlt. VI. 513/2 The said Kyng..bound hym by his writyng,..and also in the worde of a Kyng promysed to kepe the same. 1526 Reg. Privy Seal Scot. I. 527/2 Our soverane lord promittis fathfullye and on the word of ane kyng, that [etc.]. 1542 Udall Erasm. Apoph. 304 Neither proued Marcus Tullius a false manne of his woorde. a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VI, 98 b, My Lorde of Winchester..hath subscribed..vnder the worde of priestehod, to stande at the aduise..of the persones abouesaied. 1555 Instit. Gentl. E iij b, The seconde..poynte in a Gentleman..is promes kepyng, as to bee Mayster to hys woorde. 1580 T. Forrest Perf. Looking Gl. 5 b, Haue..greater care in geuing thy worde, then in lending thy money. 1584 Lodge Alarum (Shaks. Soc.) 60 Promising..(so his creditour woulde be his wordes master) to doo his indeavour to perfourme his will. 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. i. i. 222 Keepe word Lysander. Ibid. iii. ii. 266–8, Lys. I will keepe my word with thee. Dem. I would I had your bond:..Ile not trust your word. 1593 Nashe Christ's T. To Rdr. *4 b, The deuill & he be no men of their words. 1598 Shakes. Merry W. v. v. 258 To Master Broome, you yet shall hold your word. 1601 ― Twel. N. iii. iv. 357 For that I promis'd you Ile be as good as my word. 1633 Bp. Hall Occas. Medit. (ed. 3) 256 An honest mans word must be his maister. 1672 Wycherley Love in Wood v. v, Will you be worse then your word? 1744 M. Bishop Life 130 They..did not fly from their Words but stood firmly to what they first proposed. 1813 Scott Trierm. iii. xxii, I swore upon the rood, Neither to stop, nor turn, nor rest,..In life or death I hold my word! 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. v. I. 535 Having solemnly pledged his word..not to attempt anything against the government. 1861 Reade Cloister & H. lv, Give me your words to show her no countenance. 1886 Rider Haggard Jess iii, No English government goes back on its word.

    9. With possessive: Assertion, affirmation, declaration, assurance; esp. as involving the veracity or good faith of the person who makes it. See also 15, 18, 28 b.

1601 Shakes. Twel. N. i. v. 87 Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no Fox, but he wil not passe his word for two pence that you are no Foole. 1610 ― Temp. ii. i. 86 His word is more then the miraculous Harpe. 1730 Lett. to Sir W. Strickland rel. to Coal Trade 30 The Buyer..must take his Goods unseen on the Seller's Word. 1736 Ainsworth Engl. Lat. Dict., To call back one's word, recanto, retracto, denego. 1744 M. Bishop Life 211, I just saved my Word. 1850 Thackeray Pendennis xi, I give you my word that my brother did not leave a shilling to his son. 1859 H. Kingsley G. Hamlyn vi, What surety had he that Lee would leave him in peace..? none but his word—the word of a villain like that. 1869 Spurgeon Treas. David Ps. vii. 3–6 If we cannot be believed on our word, we are surely not to be trusted on our oath.

    10. a. An utterance or declaration in the form of a phrase or sentence. arch. (Cf. 25.)

c 1000 ælfric Hom. (Th.) II. 236 Ðæt word belimpð synderlice to Gode anum, Ic eom. 1593 Shakes. Rich. II, i. iii. 152 The hopelesse word, of Neuer to returne, Breath I against thee. 1780 Cowper Boadicea 13 Rome shall perish—write that word In the blood that she has spilt. 1903 J. Keatinge Priest iii. 46 We should put down the three words ‘Peace’, ‘Perseverance’, ‘A worthy Communion to-day.’

    b. A pithy or sententious utterance; a saying; a maxim; a proverb. Now rare or merged in 2, exc. in byword 1, nayword1 2 (dial.), household word (see household 8); † in first quot., a ‘dark’ saying, riddle.

c 1375 Sc. Leg. Saints iii. (Andreas) 1079 Gywe [= if] he cane vndo þat worde. a 1400 Relig. Pieces fr. Thornton MS. 49 Ife þou will be lufely, resayfe these thre wordes with-owtten forgetynge. 1599–1888 [see household 8]. 1645 Bp. Hall Rem. Discontents 130 It is a true word of Saint Augustine, that every soul is either Christs Spouse, or the Devils Harlot. 1833 De Quincey Revol. Greece Wks. (ed. Masson) VII. 317 It seemed likely..that..Shakspere's deep word would be realized, and ‘darkness be the burier of the dead’. 1853 Trench Prov. 26 That well-known word which forbids the too accurate scanning of a present, ‘One must not look a gift horse in the mouth’.

    † c. A significant phrase or short sentence inscribed upon something; = mot1 1, motto 1. Obs.

1431 E.E. Wills (1882) 88 My creste, myn armes,..and my word ‘mercy and ioie’. a 1500 Assemb. Ladies 87 On her purfyl her word..Bien et loyalment. 1562 Legh Armorie (1568) 42 b, The armes of euerye gentleman..with the supporters helme, wreathe, and creast, with mantelles, and the woorde. 1589 Pasquil's Ret. D iij, The Painter..hath drawne him his word with a Text-pen. Zelus domus tuæ comedit me. 1590 Spenser F.Q. ii. iv. 38 And round about the wreath this word was writ, Burnt I do burne. c 1630 Risdon Surv. Devon §144 (1810) 159 His word was quid non.

    11. Religious and theological uses (in sing., mostly with possessive or def. article); often in full, the word of God (God's word), the word of the Lord, etc. a. A divine communication, command, or proclamation, as one made to or through a prophet or inspired person; esp. the message of the gospel (also the word of Christ, word of grace, word of life, etc.).

971 Blickl. Hom. 141 On þa ilcan stowe on þære þe we wæron ᵹesamnode þær we ᵹeherdan Godes word. c 1000 Ags. Gosp. Matt. xiii. 19 ælc þæra þe godes wurd ᵹehyrð. Ibid. Mark iv. 14. c 1175 Lamb. Hom. 81 Þis monne me mei sermonen mid godes worde, for hwat he scal his sunne uorsaken. a 1300 Cursor M. 19214 Vte o þair hali hertes hord Spedli þai speld godds word. a 1340 Hampole Psalter cxviii[i]. 172 My tunge sall shew forth þi worde. 1382 Wyclif 2 Sam. vii. 4 And loo! the word of the Lord to Nathan, seiynge, Go, and spek to my seruaunt Dauid, Thes thingis seith the Lord. ― Col. iii. 16 The word of Crist dwelle in ȝou plenteuously. 1450–1530 Myrr. our Ladye ii. 145 As my sowlle suffereth pacyently wronges..in obedyence of his worde. So I hope to be rewarded after the trouthe of his worde. 1526 Tindale Mark iv. 17 As sone as eny trouble or persecucion ariseth for the wordes sake, anon they fall. 1526 ― Acts iv. 31 They spake the worde of god boldely. Ibid. xx. 32, I commende you to god and to the worde of his grace. 1564 J. Martiall Treat. Crosse 83 The lawes of the church (which lawes are the worde off god). 1601 Bp. W. Barlow Defence 181 The ministerie of the word is a coadiutor with the Spirite. 1648 T. Shepard Clear Sunshine of Gosp. 12 This old man hath much affection stirred up by the Word. 1758 Wesley Hymn, ‘See how great a flame aspires’ iii, Sons of God, your Saviour praise!..He hath given the word of grace. 1859 Geo. Eliot A. Bede xlix, Where I used to be blessed in carrying the word of life to the sinful and desolate. 1921 Act 11 & 12 Geo. V, c. 29 Sched. vii, To..promote union with other Churches in which it finds the Word to be purely preached. 1927 Abp. Davidson Addr. Convoc. 29 Mar. in Church Times 1 Apr. 392/1 Right Reverend and Reverend Brothers in the Sacred Ministry of Word and Sacrament.

    b. The Bible, Scripture, or some part or passage of it, as embodying a divine communication.

1553 Proclam. 18 Aug. 1 Some euell disposed persons, whiche take vpon them..to interprete the worde of God, after theyr owne brayne. 1570 Foxe A. & M. (ed. 2) 2187/1 Gage. The worde sayth it is his body before it is eaten. Wood. Those words would I faine heare: but I am sure they be not in the Bible. 1567 Allen Def. Priesthood Pref., They remember well (such is theyr exercise in y⊇ woord) how y⊇ disdayne of Moyses & Aarons prelacy ouer y⊇ people [etc.]. 1598 Shakes. Merry W. iii. i. 44 What? the Sword, and the Word? Doe you study them both, Mr. Parson? 1781 Cowper Hope 659 Mighty to parry and push by God's word With senseless noise. 1859 H. Kingsley G. Hamlyn xl, Read us a chapter out of the Bible. I am very low in my mind, and at such times I like to hear the Word. 1875 Manning Mission Holy Ghost i. 7 The word of God declares, first of all, that the Son of God is ‘The true Light’.

    c. the Word (of God, of the Father), the Eternal Word, etc., as a title of Christ: = Logos, q.v.

c 950 Lindisf. Gosp. John i. 1 In principio erat uerbum, in fruma uæs uord. 1340–70 Alex. & Dind. 615 Godus worþliche word as we wel trowen, Is sone soþliche of man. c 1400 Sowdone Bab. 3 God..That al thinge made in sapience By vertue of woorde and holy goost. 1450–1530 Myrr. our Ladye ii. 103 The endelesse worde of the father that is oure lorde Iesu cryste. 1567 Allen Def. Priesthood 19 The seruile fourme of our owne nature, ioyned merueilously in one person, to the woorde and eternall Sonne of God the Father. 1667 Milton P.L. vii. 163 And thou my Word, begotten Son, by thee This I perform. 1784 Cowper Task v. 897 Thou art the source and centre of all minds..eternal Word! 1805–6 Cary Dante, Parad. vii. 29 Until it pleas'd the Word of God to come Amongst them down. 1850 Tennyson In Mem. xxxvi, And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds. 1875 Lightfoot Colossians 221/2 The Eternal Word is the goal of the Universe, as He was the starting-point.

    II. An element of speech.
    12. a. A combination of vocal sounds, or one such sound, used in a language to express an idea (e.g. to denote a thing, attribute, or relation), and constituting an ultimate minimal element of speech having a meaning as such; a vocable. Also four-letter word: see four-letter adj. s.v. four C. 2.
    Sometimes with reference to the writing of a word as an indivisible unity, e.g. as one or a single word, as two words.

c 1000 ælfric Gram. ii. (Z.) 5 Butan ðam stafum ne mæᵹ nan word beon awriten. ? a 1400 Wyclif's Bible Prol. 57 This word autem, either vero, mai stonde for forsothe, either for but. 1450–1530 Myrr. Our Ladye i. ii. 7 There ys many wordes in Latyn that we haue no propre englyssh accordynge therto. Ibid. ii. 77 Thys worde Amen ys a worde of hebrew. 1581 Mulcaster Positions xli. (1888) 244 Wordes be names of thinges applyed and giuen according to their properties. 1598 Shakes. Merry W. iv. i. 68 You doe ill to teach the childe such words. 1651 Hobbes Leviath. ii. xxxi. 192 Words..have their signification by agreement, and constitution of men. 1677 [see witticism]. 1694 Locke Hum. Und. iii. ii. §1 (ed. 2) 223 marg., Words are sensible Signs necessary for Communication. 1746 Francis tr. Hor., Epist. ii. ii. 170 Long darken'd Words he shall with Art refine. 1802 Wordsw. Resolution & Indep. xiv, Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach Of ordinary men. 1819 Shelley Cenci v. iv. 14 These three words..‘They must die’. 1853 Trench Prov. 31 So long as a language is living, it will be appropriating foreign words, putting forth new words of its own. 1875 Jevons Money (1878) 250 We use a great many words with a total disregard of logical precision. 1884 J. A. H. Murray N.E.D. I. Gen. Explan. p. xxiii, There are necessarily many compounds as to which usage has not yet determined whether they are to be written with the hyphen or as single words.

    b. † (a) As designating a thing or person: A name, title, appellation. Obs. (b) As expressing an idea: A term, expression.

c 900 tr. Bæda's Hist. v. xi, On his mæran ceastre, seo ealde worde þare þeoda is nemned Wiltaburhᵹ. 971 Blickl. Hom. 135, ‘Ic eow sende frofre Gast.’ Þæs wordes andᵹit is swa mon cweþe þingere oþ þe frefrend. 1533 Bellenden Livy v. xv. (S.T.S.) 200 Sa þir gaulis, following the werde of þe said place (quhare þai war cumin to), biggit ane toun namit millane. 1571 Ld. Burghley in E. Nares Mem. (1830) II. 544 note, Your assured loving friend, William Cecill. I forgot my new word, William Burleigh. 1596 Edw. III, ii. i. 85 Deuise for faire a fairer word then faire. 1596 Harington Metam. Ajax H 4, I doe before hand gyue the worde of disgrace to any that shal so say. 1626 Bacon Sylva §354 Sulphureous and Mercuriall, which are the Chymists Words. 1668 Moxon Dyalling 48 An Explanation of some Words of Art used in this Book. 1848 Clough Amours de Voy. i. 10 Rubbishy seems the word that most exactly would suit it.

    c. A written (engraved, printed, etc.) character or set of characters representing this.

a 1000 Riddles xlvii[i], Moððe word fræt. 1521 [see write v. B. 2]. 1612, 1888 [see spell v.2 3]. 1725 Watts Logic i. iv. §1 We convey [our Ideas] to each other by the Means of certain Sounds, or written Marks, which we call Words. 1845 Maurice Mor. Philos. in Encycl. Metrop. II. 556/1 Betokening, as the words inscribed upon their foreheads implied, that they were a dedicated race. 1904 Budge 3rd & 4th Egypt. Rooms Brit. Mus. 210 The common name for words of power of all kinds is ‘heku’, and whether they were inscribed upon amulets, or merely recited over them, the effect was the same.

    d. In contrast with the thing or idea signified.

c 1450 Bk. Curtesy (Oriel MS.) 343 His [sc. Chaucer's] longage was so feyre and pertinent, That semed vnto mennys heryng, Not only the worde, but verrely the thing. 1699 Bentley Phal. vii. 189 Wise men take Words for the shadow of Things. 1722 Wollaston Relig. Nat. v. 87 This word [sc. nature]..frequently..is used merely as a word.., they who use it not knowing themselves, what they mean by it. 1754 Gray Poesy 110 Thoughts that breath, and words that burn. 1782 Priestley Corrupt. Chr. I. i. 114 A business of words only, and ideas not concerned in it. 1822 Examiner 723/2 Men are apt to be led away by words. 1827–1876 [see thing n.1 8 a]. 1867 Duke of Argyll Reign of Law ii. (ed. 4) 63 Words, which should be the servants of Thought, are too often its masters. 1898 ‘H. S. Merriman’ Roden's Corner x. 106 ‘You don't take any interest in the Malgamite scheme?’ ‘No,..And I am weary of the very word.’ 1912 Times 5 Aug. 7/3 A question of words.

    e. the word (as predicate): the right word for the thing, the proper expression; hence contextually denoting or indicating the thing spoken of, esp. the business in hand or to be done. colloq.

1596 Shakes. Merch. V. iii. v. 58 Bid them prepare dinner. Clow. That is done to sir, onely couer is the word. 1611 ― Cymb. v. iv. 155 Come Sir, are you ready for death?.. Hanging is the word, Sir. Ibid. v. 422 Pardon's the word to all. 1700 Congreve Way of World i. ix, If Throats are to be cut, let Swords clash; Snug's the Word, I shrug and am silent. a 1704, 1852 [see mum n.1 B]. 1712 Addison Spect. No. 403 ¶5 Sharp's the Word. 1775 Sheridan Duenna ii. ii, Trust me when tricking is the word. 1848 Dickens Dombey xlviii, Steady's the word, and steady it is. Keep her so! 1885 Howells Ind. Summer ii. 16 Lady-like was the word for Mrs. Bowen. 1885 W. S. Gilbert Princess Ida ii, Contempt? Why, damsel, when I think of man, Contempt is not the word.

    f. Telegr. Any of the sequences of a prescribed fixed number of characters (including a space) in a telegraphic message that has been coded or redivided for transmission.

1897 J. Nicolson Telegraphic Signals ii. 20 Artificial letter-grouping, mathematically called ‘words’, or permutations,..is referred to in a pamphlet by the French cryptographist, M. le Marquis de Viaris..as a substitute for telegraphic codes composed of dictionary words. 1911 Encycl. Brit. XXVI. 521/2 An experimental printer constructed about 1908 by the British Post Office, operated..at the rate of 210 words (1260 letters) per minute. 1976 R. N. Renton Telegraphy i. 14/2 The ‘telegraph word’ is taken as an arbitrary 5-letter word with one letter-space, making six characters in all.

    g. Math. An ordered sequence of generators of a group.

1952 S. C. Kleene Introd. Metamath. xiii. 382 A finite sequence of zero or more (occurrences of) the letters, we call a word. 1971 G. Higman in Powell & Higman Finite Simple Groups vi. 212 Any word in the ni and their inverses determines a partial map of the set of equivalence classes into itself. 1972 M. Kline Math. Thought xlix. 1141 There may be relations among the generators, and these would be of the form Fi (Ai) = 1; that is, a word or combination of words equals the identity element of the group. 1981 Sci. Amer. Mar. 26/1 A lovely ‘pretty pattern’ called the 6-U state..can be reached from the start position by way of the word L{p} R2 F{p} L{p} B{p} U B L F R U{p} R L Rs Fs Us Rs.

    h. Computers. A consecutive string of bits that can be transferred and stored as a unit (see quot. 1969); machine word, a word of the length appropriate for a particular fixed word-length computer.

1946 [see write v. 3 h]. 1948 Proc. R. Soc. A. CXCV. 272 Certain of these numbers or ‘words’ are read, one after another, as orders. 1954 Computers & Automation Dec. 16/1 Machine word, a unit of information of a standard number of characters, which a machine regularly handles in each register. 1964 F. L. Westwater Electronic Computers ix. 140 The basic unit of internal storage is called a ‘word’, which may contain either instructions or data. 1969 P. B. Jordain Condensed Computer Encycl. 566 Computers with words less than 9 bits long call the words bytes, characters, or digits (decimal). 1970 A. Cameron et al. Computers & O.E. Concordances 58 It is heavily dependent upon fitting x number of characters into each machine word, a problem we cannot get around easily. 1980 C. S. French Computer Sci. vi. 24 The number of bits in each location (word), known as the word length will depend on the make and model of computer.

    III. Phrases. (See also above senses.)
    * with preposition.
    13. a. at a or one word: (a) upon the utterance of a single word; as soon as a word is spoken; without further parley; without more ado; at once, forthwith; so † at the first word; (b) in short, briefly, in a word; so † at wordes thre, † at fewe wordes, † at wordes short, etc. to be at a or one word: to be brief. Obs. exc. arch. or dial.

a 1300 K. Horn 118 (Harl.) Þe children ede to þe stronde..Ant in to shipes borde At þe furste worde. 13.. Gregorius 618 in Herrig Arch. Neu. Spr. LV. 435 A Cardinal þer spac a mong, schortliche he seide at wordes þreo. 13.. Coer de L. 101 Seuene score, and moo j wene, Welcomyd hem alle at on wurd. Ibid. 2813 The Sarezynes..comen afftyr ffaste fflyngyng, At schorte wurdes a gret route. c 1375 Cursor M. 7770 (Fairf.) Þen drogh saule his awen squorde And slogh him-self atte a worde. c 1386 Chaucer Melib. Prol. 11 Pleynly at a word, Thy drasty rymyng is nat worth a toord. 14.. Seege of Troy 1724 Alisaunder dyed at worddis short. a 1400–50 Bk. Curtasye 764 in Babees Bk., When þe sewer comys vnto þe borde, Alle þe mete he sayes at on bare worde. c 1400 Rom. Rose 2129 Thou shalt be holpen at wordis fewe. c 1420 Liber Cocorum (1862) 17 Hakke hom on a borde, As smalle as þou may, at a worde. c 1430 Syr Gener. (Roxb.) 363 Thes vii sages..bad here lodesman at a word Shuld cast hem ouer the ship bord. 1483 Vulgaria quedam abs Terentio 2 b, Tell me att oon word [vno verbo] what thou woldist wyth me. 1597 Morley Introd. Mus. 123 At a word I would haue flung it awaie. 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, iii. ii. 319 Go-too: I haue spoke at a word. Fare you well. 1598 ― Merry W. i. i. 109 He hath wrong'd me, indeed he hath, at a word he hath. Ibid. iii. 15, I am at a word: follow. 1599 ― Much Ado ii. i. 118 Vrsula. I know you well enough, you are Signior Anthonio. Anth. At a word, I am not. 1601 ― Jul. C. i. ii. 270 If I would not haue taken him at a word, I would I might goe to Hell. 1605 Camden Rem., Surnames 104 At a word, all [names] which in English had Of set before them,..and all which in Latine..have had De præfixed,..were borrowed from places. 1609 Holland Amm. Marcell. 231 That I may speake fully at a word, it is the most plentifull habitation and seat of Kings. 1694 Penn Rise & Progr. Quakers ii. 45 They were at a Word in Dealing: Nor could their customers many Words tempt them from it. 1777 S. J. Pratt Emma Corbett i. 1 To be at a word, will you render it possible for me to call you my son? 1831 Scott Ct. Rob. xxvi, So you may at a word count upon remaining prisoner here until [etc.]. a 1845 B'ness Nairne Song, Caller Herrin' vii, At ae word be in ye're dealin'.

    † b. at one word: of one mind. Obs.

1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 6812 Boþe hii were at one worde to libbe in clene liue, So þat hii were wiþoute eir.

    c. to take a person at his word: to assent to his statement, or agree to his proposal; to accept what he says and act accordingly.

1535 Coverdale 1 Kings xx. 33 He sayde: yf he be yet alyue, he is my brother. And the men toke him shortly at his worde,..and sayde: Yee Benadab is thy brother. 1590 Shakes. Com. Err. i. ii. 17 Ant. Get thee away. Dro. Many a man would take you at your word And goe indeede. 1670 Dryden Conq. Granada ii. i, Old as I am I take thee at thy word, And will tomorrow thank thee with my sword. 1742 Fielding J. Andrews iii. xii, One of the servants whispered Joseph to take him at his word, and suffer the old put to walk if he would. 1800 Wordsw. Idle Shepherd-Boys v, ‘Come on, and tread where I shall tread.’ The other took him at his word, And followed as he led. 1884 Manch. Exam. 12 May 4/7 Our contemporaries must not be offended if we decline to take them quite at their word.

    14. a. in a word: in a simple or short (esp. comprehensive) statement or phrase; briefly, in short. Now only introductory or parenthetical. Occas. in one word; also † with a word.

1591 Shakes. Two Gent. ii. iv. 71 His yeares but yong, but his experience old; His head vn-mellowed, but his Iudgement ripe; And in a word..He is compleat in feature, and in minde. 1596 ― 1 Hen. IV, ii. iv. 283 Then did we two, set on you foure, and with a word, outfac'd you from your prize. 1598 R. Bernard tr. Terence, Andria i. i, Tell me in a word what ist you would with me? 1665 Boyle Occas. Refl. ii. xiv. 235 To return to my former Studies, and Recreations, and Dyet; and in a word, to my wonted course of Life. 1704 Norris Ideal World ii. xii. 496 If you will have in one word a just distribution of each, it is this, that the Idea we see in God, but the sentiment we feel in ourselves. 1710 Berkeley Princ. Hum. Knowl. i. §4 Houses, Mountains, Rivers, and in a word all sensible Objects. 1855 Orr's Circ. Sci., Inorg. Nat. 236 Some natural exposure on a cliff, in a valley, by a stream, or wherever—in a word—the surface coating of soil being absent, the underlying rock can be seen. 1892 Westcott Gospel of Life 13 Man in a word is dependant on that which lies outside himself.

    b. in so many words (tr. L. totidem verbis, cf. So 37 d): lit. in precisely that number of words; in those very words; also, † word for word.

1670 W. Walker Idiomat. Anglo-Lat. 23, I rendred it even almost in so many words..totidem fere verbis interpretatus sum. 1720 De Foe Capt. Singleton xv. (1840) 253 William told us in so many words, that it was impossible. 1836 Dickens Sk. Boz, Scotland-Yard, That the Lord Mayor had threatened in so many words to pull down the old London Bridge, and build up a new one. 1881 W. Collins Black Robe I. 194 That the object was to bring Romayne and Stella together..was as plain to him as if he had heard it confessed in so many words.

    15. a. on or upon one's word: (a) in const. with a verb, in sense 8 or 9: On the security of, or as bound by, one's promise or affirmation; hence (b) as an asseveration, on or upon († of, † a) my word: Assuredly, certainly, truly, indeed.

(a) 1598 R. Bernard tr. Terence, Andria v. i, The good turne that..you promised me on your word. 1600 E. Blount tr. Conestaggio 206 If he woulde assure him vpon his word, he would go to the campe. 1607 Dekker & Webster Northw. Hoe ii. i, Doll... Tis but poore fifty pound. Alla. If that bee all, you shall vpon your worde take vp so much with me.


(b) 1588 Shakes. Tit. A. iv. iii. 59 Of my word, I haue written to effect. 1592 ― Rom. & Jul. i. i. 1 A my word wee'l not carry coales. 1598 ― Merry W. iv. ii. 61 He will seeke there on my word. 1643 Decl. Commons Rebell. Irel. 52 Upon my word your Lordship is little beholding to him. 1646 in Buccleuch MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.) I. 308 But of my word she will not meet with the like proffer again. 1766 Goldsm. Vic. W. xvii, A very good boy, Bill, upon my word. 1848 Dickens Dombey xxxix, Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills, it would be a charity to give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. 1871 Geo. Eliot Middlem. xxxviii. II. 295 Upon my word, I think the truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with.

    b. (with ellipsis of prep.) my word! as an ejaculation of surprise. colloq. († vulgar).

1841 Mrs. Gaskell Lett. (1966) 44 My word! authorship brings them in a pretty penny. 1857 F. Locker Lond. Lyrics 72 Half London was there, and, my word, there were few..But envied Lord Nigel's felicity. 1890 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Col. Reformer xix, My word!..that's something like a mob!

    ** with another n.
    16. a word and a blow: a brief utterance of anger or defiance, followed immediately by the delivery of a blow, as the beginning of a fight; hence in reference to prompt or sudden action of any kind; sometimes used predicatively of a person. Also (with hyphens) attrib.

1592 Shakes. Rom. & Jul. iii. i. 43 Tyb... Gentlemen, Good den, a word with one of you. Mer. And but one word with one of vs? couple it with something, make it a word and a blow. 1639 J. Clarke Parœm. 178 He's but a word and a blowe. 1753 Richardson Grandison (1811) IV. xxvi. 207 My cousins are grieved [at my going so soon]: they did not expect that I would be a word and a blow, as they phrase it. 1820 Byron Juan iii. xlviii, With him it never was a word and blow, His angry word once o'er, he shed no blood. 1840 Mrs. Trollope M. Armstrong iv, Mr. Joseph Parsons had a Napoleon-like promptitude of action, which the unlearned operatives described by calling him ‘a word-and-a-blow man’. 1847 G. F. Ruxton Adv. Mexico xxvii. 242 Firm friends and bitter enemies, with them it is ‘a word and a blow’.

    17. word of command: a word or short phrase uttered by an officer to a body of soldiers as an order for some particular movement or evolution; also by a carter to a horse, etc.

1639 R. Ward Animadv. Warre i. 230 You are to use these words of Command following. 1684 R. H. School Recr. 45 Keep..your Musket hard against your Shoulder after you have fired, till the next Word of Command. 1726 Swift Gulliver ii. vii, I have seen this whole Body of Horse upon a Word of Command draw their Swords at once. 1837 Dickens Pickw. iv, The hoarse shout of the word of command ran along [the line]. 1853 [see command n. 1 b]. 1898 [see gee int.1, def.].


    18. word of honour: an affirmation or promise by which one pledges one's honour or good faith.

1814 D. H. O'Brien Captiv. & Escape 65 They suspected we were deserters..We assured them upon our word of honour, they were very much mistaken. 1896 Edith Thompson in Monthly Packet Christmas No. 97 He had passed his word of honour..that he would report himself at the fort.

    19. a. by word of mouth: by speaking, as distinguished from writing or other method of expression; orally. Also word of mouth n. phr., oral communication, oral publicity; so word-of-mouth attrib., executed, done, given, etc. by speaking; oral.

a 1553 Udall Royster D. iii. ii. (Arb.) 40 A little message vnto hir by worde of mouth. 1598 R. Bernard tr. Terence, Hecyra i. ii, It cannot be told by word of mouth, howe desirous I was to returne hither againe. 1601–1849 [see mouth n. 3 c]. 1638 Featly Strict. Lyndom. ii. 121 Pretending I know not what nuncupatory will by word of mouth. 1639 J. Taylor (Water P.) Pt. Summers Trav. 44 They can flatter..with Pen, Picture, and by word of mouth. 1752 Berkeley Th. Tar-water Wks. 1871 III. 498 Of this I have been informed by letters, and by word of mouth. 1883 D. C. Murray Hearts xxxiv. (1885) 288 He would rather tell him of this by word of mouth than by letter. 1934 in Webster. 1951 B. Schulberg Disenchanted vi. 67 He tells everyone..that you're one of his favorite American authors and..that kind of word of mouth ain't bad. 1967 B. Whitaker Of Mice & Murder xiii. 147, ‘I wonder how he heard it was for sale.’ ‘Word of mouth, I suppose.’ 1980 ‘D. Kavanagh’ Duffy iii. 43 The only way to get successful..was to work at being really efficient and then hope for word-of-mouth to back you up. 1984 A. Brookner Hotel du Lac i. 14 The only publicity from which the hotel could not distance itself was the word of mouth recommendations of patrons of long standing.


1802–12 Bentham Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827) II. 562 Word-of-mouth wills are, in certain cases, allowed by the Statute of Frauds. 1829 ― Justice & Cod. Petit., Abr. Petit. Justice 6 The language..employed in word-of-mouth discussion. 1894 K. Hewat Little Scott. World Pref. p. xii, The author has to acknowledge his indebtedness..for much word-of-mouth information.

    b. humorously in reference to drinking.

1738 Swift Pol. Conversat. ii. 164 Come, Sir John, take it by Word of Mouth, and then give it the Colonel. (Sir John drinks.)

    20. a. word for word: in the exact, or (in reference to translation) precisely corresponding, words: = verbatim A. 1 a, b. Also (with hyphens) attrib. = verbatim B. 1.

c 1385 Chaucer L.G.W. 1002 Dido, I coude folwe word for word Virgile. 1474 Caxton Chesse ii. v. (1883) 61 He..dyde do saye to hym word for worde lyke as the physicien had sayd. 1538 Coverdale N.T. Ded. + ij b, We do not followe thys olde Latyn texte word for word. 1601 Shakes. Twel. N. i. iii. 28 He..speaks three or four languages word for word without booke. 1656 Cowley Pindar. Odes Pref., If a man should undertake to translate Pindar word for word. 1686 A. Horneck Crucif. Jesus xxii. 741 Some..have been able to rehearse the whole New Testament word for word. 1746 Francis tr. Horace, Art of Poetry 191 Dwell not on Incidents already known; Nor Word for Word translate with painful Care. 1862 Mrs. H. Wood Mrs. Hallib. i. viii, ‘I will faithfully repeat it to you’,..‘Faithfully?—word for word?’ 1878 W. T. Thornton (title) Word for Word from Horace. 1891 Law Times XCII. 107/1 The 8th section of the Act of 1874 is word for word the same as the 40th section of the Act of 1833.


c 1611 Chapman Iliad To Rdr. A 4 b, Those Translators..that affect Their word-for-word traductions. 1858–9 G. P. Marsh Engl. Lang. xvii. (1860) 361 More closely literal, more exactly word-for-word translations.

    b. So † word after word (occas. † after the word), † word in word, † fro word unto word. word by word (also attrib.); also spec., in alphabetization; opp. letter by letter (see letter n. 1 c).

[a 1000 ælfred's Boeth. Proem, Hwilum he sette word be worde, hwilum andᵹit of andᵹite.] c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 17 Ich wille..segge ou þe erede word after word. 1379 Glouc. Cath. MS. 19 No. I. i. iii. lf. 7 All that I have sayde yn this chapitre Isaac techith word by word. ? a 1400 Wyclif's Bible Prol. xv. 57 This wole..make the sentence open, where to Englisshe it aftir the word, wolde be derk and douteful. c 1449 Pecock Repr. ii. ii. 144 The..late named psalmes..ben ouer long to be rehercid word bi word here. c 1475 Partenay 3187 Geffray the letters After breke and rayd, Fro wurde unto wurd. 1493 Acta Dom. Conc. (1839) 308/2 Þe bill of Complaint..of þe quhilk þe tenour folowis word in word. a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. IV 2 b, Then turnyng hymself to his accuser, [he] declared worde by worde what he had said. 1575 (title) A Commentarie of M. Doctor Martin Luther upon the Epistle of S. Paul to the Galathians first collected and gathered word by word out of his preaching. 1613 R. C. Table Alph. (ed. 3), Verbatim, word by word. 1865 Ruskin Sesame i. §25 The kind of word-by-word examination of your author which is rightly called ‘reading’. 1927 H. W. Fowler S.P.E. Tract No. XXVI 193 And let me here accept my title word by word: I am a moralizer because I wish morals to be drawn [etc.]. 1938 L. M. Harrod Librarians' Gloss. 12 There are two methods [of alphabetization] in use: 1, ‘letter by letter’; 2, ‘word by word’, or ‘nothing before something’. In the former method ‘Newton’ precedes, in the latter it follows, ‘New York’. 1951 British Standard Alphabetical Arrangement (B.S.I.) 6 Items having the same first word shall be arranged in the alphabetical order of the second word, those with no second word standing first. Similarly those having two words in common are arranged in the alphabetical order of their third word and so on. The whole group thus arranged shall precede any word alphabetically qualified to follow the first word of the group. (This is known as the ‘word-by-word’ or ‘nothing-before-something’ principle.) 1979 Amer. Speech 1976 LI. 149 This dictionary uses word-by-word rather than letter-by-letter alphabetizing.

    *** with qualifying adj.
    21. fair words (fair a. 5): pleasant or attractive speech (usually implying deceitfulness or insincerity).

a 1000 Cædmon's Gen. 899 Me nædre..to forsceape scyhte & to scyldfrece fah wyrm þurh fæᵹir word. c 1200 Vices & Virtues (1888) 11 Ic habbe beswiken min emcristen mid faire wordes. 1538 Starkey England ii. ii. (1878) 191 By hys dyssymulatyon and fare wordys. 1546 J. Heywood Prov. i. ix. (1867) 18 It hurteth not the tounge to geue fayre wurdis. 1639 [see parsnip 1 b]. 1676 Wycherley Plain Dealer v, Fair words butter no cabbage. 1697 W. Dampier Voy. I. 282 The men began to murmur against Captain Swan..but he gave them fair words. 1897 Pall Mall Mag. Nov. 340 ‘Ho, ho! my masters’, cried he; ‘fair words break no bones’.

    22. of few words: not given to much or lengthy speaking; taciturn; laconic.

c 1450 Holland Howlat 175 Off fewe wordis, full wyss and worthy thai war. 1561 Hoby tr. Castiglione's Courtyer i. E iij, Of few wordes, and no bragger. 1599 Shakes. Hen. V, iii. ii. 38 That men of few Words are the best men. 1697 Lond. Gaz. No. 3260/4 Well set and middle sized, and of few Words. 1759 Dilworth Pope 120 [Gay] had always been a man of but few words. 1837 Dickens Pickw. xxiv, Mr. Dubbley, who was a man of few words, nodded assent.

    23. good word: a friendly, favourable, or laudatory utterance; something said on behalf of or in commendation of a person or thing. to give (one) a good word, to speak well of. to say or speak a good word for, (spec.) to recommend to the favour of another. † In pl. also (a) used ellipt. in deprecation of angry or violent speech (see good a. 7 b, quot. c 1592); (b) in bad sense = fair words (21).

c 1205 Lay. 665 Heo hine gretten mid godene heore worden. [a 1300 Cursor M. 20095 Þan spak ihesus words gode, Als he hang þar on þe rode.] 1540 Palsgr. Acolastus iii. i. N iv, [Thou] dyddest speke a good word for me, and dydst tourne away..the.. strokes from me. 1548, a 1632 [see good a. 7 b]. 1562 J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. ii. ix. (1867) 77 Good woordes bryng not euer of good deedes good hope. 1573 Baret Alv. W 352 That helpeth one with his good worde at a time, suffragatorius. 1607 Shakes. Timon i. ii. 217 You gaue good words the other day of a Bay Courser I rod on. 1622 J. Taylor (Water P.) Farew. Tower-bottles A 7, False hearts can put on good wordes and lookes. 1698 Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 222 Only giving us good words instead of Payment. 1699 Bentley Phal. Pref. p. xlviii, The Good Word, that Mr. Grævius has been pleas'd publicly to give me. 1731–8 Swift Pol. Conversat. i. 71, I know I shall always have your good Word. 1852 C. B. Mansfield Paraguay etc. (1856) 364 My friend M. Cerruti..has diplomatic business here; and with his good words..I hope to be in clover. a 1859 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xxiii. V. 78 It was..not in the character of tenant that the Czar was likely to gain the good word of civilised men. 1892 [see good a. 7 b].


    24. half a word (half a. 1 b): a very short utterance, a slight fragment of speech or conversation.

1700 T. Brown tr. Fresny's Amusem. 19 Taking it for granted, that we two understand one another by half a Word. 1865 Dickens Mut. Fr. i. vi, Might I have half a word with you?

    25. last word (in special senses). a. The final utterance in a conversation or (esp.) dispute. b. pl. The latest utterance of a person before death. The Seven Last Words, the seven utterances of Christ on the cross (also simply The Seven Words). c. The final or conclusive statement, after which there is no more to be said; hence transf. (also latest word) the final achievement, the latest thing.

a. 1563 Foxe A. & M. 1416/2 My lorde of Lincolne..sayde that thou were a frantike felow, and a man that wyll haue the last worde. 1593 G. Harvey Pierce's Super. Wks. (Grosart) II. 43 Come hee- and shee-scoldes, you that..will rather loose your liues, then the last word. 1875 Le Fanu Willing to Die xxxvi, It was plain..she would have one last word more.


b. 1692 H. Harrison (title) The Last Words of a Dying Penitent. 1808 Scott Marm. vi. xxxii, ‘Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!’ Were the last words of Marmion. 1870 tr. Bellarmino (title) The Seven Words from the Cross. 1874 E. King (title) Meditations on the last seven words of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1883 Grove Dict. Mus. III. 476 Seven Last Words, The..a composition of Haydn's dating about 1785... The ‘Seven Words’ were for long a favourite in Vienna both in church and concert-room.


c. 1881, 1891 [see last a. 6]. 1888 Daily News 21 Sept. 5/6 The long mantles that are the latest ‘word’ of Paris fashions. 1901 ‘L. Malet’ Sir Richard Calmady v. vi, The clothes..supposed..to present the last word of English fashion.

    26. of many words: given to much or lengthy speaking, loquacious, talkative, verbose; also said of a statement, verbose.

c 1430 How Good Wife taught Dau. 43 in Hazl. E.P.P. I. 183 Be noght of many wordes. 1563 Foxe A. & M. 1438/1 Your diffinition is of many wordes to no purpose. 1599 Shakes. Much Ado i. i. 158, I thanke you, I am not of many words, but I thanke you. 1797 Jane Austen Sense & Sens. xxxiv, She was not a woman of many words. 1854 R. S. Surtees Handley Cr. iii. (1901) I. 18 Augustus Barnington,..not being a man of many words, contented himself by stammering something about honour.

    **** with verb.
    27. make words. † a. to make few or many words: to speak briefly or at great length. Also to make but one word. Obs.

1530 Palsgr. 843/1 To make fewe wordes, a brief dire. a 1634 Chapman Alphonsus iii. (1654) 38 Fall to thy business and make few words. 1677 Miége New Dict., To make many words about a small trifle, barguigner, contester pour une chose de neant. 1752 Ainsworth Engl.-Lat. Dict. s.v., I will make but one word with you..te absolvam brevi.

    b. with neg.: (Not) to say anything (more) about a matter; (not) to speak or make mention of.

1576 Fleming Panopl. Epist. 67 To make no words of that which I have oftentimes read,..what harme can there be in death. 1579–80 North Plutarch (1595) 50 Lycurgus neuer bashed or made worde at the matter. 1610 Holland Camden's Brit. i. 259 Those Chronicles of the English Saxons..reported only their owne fortunate battailes, and victories but never made words of their foiles & overthrowes. 1749 Fielding Tom Jones vii. xiv, I will be so far from making any Words with you, that I will give you a Shilling more than your Demand. 1773 Goldsm. Stoops to Conq. iv, Bring me your bill, and let's make no more words about it. 1870 Morris Earthly Par. III. iv. 8 Then no more words the Strong Man made, but straight Caught up the elder in his arms.

    † c. To make a proposal of. Obs.

1645 Milton Tetrach. 43 Herod..cast his eye..upon Herodias..and durst make words of marrying her.

    d. To speak at (too) great length of. Sc.

1823 Scott Quentin D. xxxvi, You make words of nothing. 1825 Jamieson s.v., To make words, to talk more about any⁓thing than it deserves.

    28. a. take (up) the word: to begin speaking, esp. immediately after or instead of some one else.
    Partly after F. prendre la parole; partly from Gr. τὴν παραβολὴν ὑπολαβεῖν to take up one's ‘parable’ (parable n. d).

c 1489 Caxton Sonnes of Aymon ix. 204 The kinge Yon toke the worde & sayd [etc.]. 1523 Ld. Berners Froiss. I. cccxliii. 219/1 Than the duke of Bretayne toke the wordes, & sayd [etc.]. 1557 N. T. (Genev.) Luke x. 30 Iesus taking his word said [etc.]. 1697 Dryden æneis xi. 510 Then Drances took the word. 1808 Scott Marm. i. xxii, Young Selby..reverently took up the word: ‘Kind uncle, [etc.].’ 1811 Ora & Juliet II. 192 Henry..was going to address Mrs. Brewster; but lady Harriet took the word. 1823 Scott Quentin D. xxxv, There was a general murmur. ‘My Lord Duke’, said the Count of Crèvecœur, taking the word for the rest, ‘this must be better thought on.’ 1884 Howells Silas Lapham x, The Colonel, left alone with his wife.., made haste to take the word. 1887 Morris Odyssey i. 32 The Father of Gods and of men..took up the word.

    b. to take (a person's) word: to accept (his) statement or assertion as true or trustworthy: usually with for, esp. in the phrase take my word for it used to emphasize an assertion = I can assure you, you may be sure, believe me. † Formerly also, to accept or trust (a person's) promise; to give (him) credit (for a debt).

1587 in W. M. Williams Ann. Founders' Co. (1867) 69 He givinge his fayth promyse to M{supr} Alderman..M{supr} Alderman tooke his worde. 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, iv. ii. 66, I take your Princely word, for these redresses. 1597 E. S. Discov. Knts. Poste A 4, Will you take my word for two pence? Take thy word? Ile see thee hangd first (qd she) pay me my money. 1628 Shirley Witty Fair One i. i. B 4, Saue your credit and let swearing alone, I dare take your word. 1672 Wycherley Love in a Wood iv. i. 62 But may I take your word Jonas? 1693 Humours Town 38 Take my word for't. 1712 Steele Spect. No. 284 ¶4 Take my Word for it, there is nothing in it. 1712 Arbuthnot John Bull ii. iii, Nobody will take our words for sixpence. 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl. 30 Sept., I took his word and honour that he would make an effort. 1864 Whately Chr. Evid. iii. 21 How can you know, except by taking the word of the learned for it? 1889 J. K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat 186 On a matter of this kind you can take Harris's word.

    c. to take (a person) at his word: see 13 c.
    IV. 29. attrib. and Comb. a. Simple attrib. Of, pertaining or relating to, or consisting of a word or words, as word-accent, word-boundary, word-break, word-combination, word-division, word-element, word-end, word-ending, word-family, word-form, word-function, word-game (also fig.), word-group, word-history, word-idea, word-memory, word-music, word-order, word-pattern, word-patterning, word-position, word-sound, word-status, word-stem, word-store, word-stress, word-structure, word-study, word-taboo, word-tone, word-trap, word-usage, word-value, word-weapon; (with agent-n. or the like) dealing with or acting by means of words, as word-artist, word-conjuror, word-epicure, word-juggler, word-master, word-merchant, word-musician, word-pirate, word-smith, (also word-smithing), word-warrior, etc.; (with n. of action or the like, in instrumental sense) done or carried on by means of words, as word-battle, word-fence (fence n. 2 b), word-jugglery, word-war, word-wound, word-wrangle, etc.; also word-based, word-like adjs. b. Instrumental, as word-beat, word-drunk, word-pity vbs.; word-charged, word-clad, † word-strooken, word-wounded adjs. c. Objective, as word-bearer, word-breaker, † word-bridger (bridge v.2), word-coiner, word-hunter, word-spinner, etc.; word-breaking, word-building, word-coining, word-compelling, word-finding, word-juggling, word-keeping, word-making, see also sense d below, word-setting, (set v. 73), word-spinning, word-splitting, word-twisting, etc. ns. and adjs.; also with pl., † words-speaking; word-choice, word-coinage, word-composition, word-creation, word-formation, etc.; also word-formational, word-formative adjs. d. Special comb.: word association Psychol., a psychodiagnostic technique based on analysis of a person's reactions to the presentation of stimulus words, esp. with regard to the (subconscious) contents and type of the immediate associations formed, reaction time, etc.; more generally, the associations connected with certain words; freq. attrib.; word-base Philol., the simple word from which its derivatives and inflected forms arise; a root morpheme, etc.; † word-bate [bate n.1], contention about words; word-blind a. Path., affected with word-blindness, i.e . inability to understand written or printed words when seen, owing to disease of the visual word-centre; word-bound a., (a) restrained in speech, unable to use words freely or fluently; (b) bound by one's word or promise; † word-braving, boasting; word-catcher, (a) one who catches or cavils at words, a petty or carping critic; (b) one who catches and collects words: applied contemptuously to a lexicographer (quot. 1835); word-catching, catching at words, petty criticism; word-category Linguistics = word-class; word-centre Anat., each of certain centres (centre n. 7 a) in the brain which govern the perception and use of words (spoken or written); word-class Linguistics [cf. G. wortklasse], a category of words of similar form or function; esp. applied to parts of speech; word-count, a statistical study of word frequency (see below); word-craft, the art of using words, oratorical or literary skill; word-deaf a. Path., affected with word-deafness, i.e. inability to understand words when heard, owing to disease of the auditory word-centre; † word-dearthing a., producing dearth of words, involving a great expenditure of words; word-field Linguistics, a group of lexical items seen as associated in meaning because occurring in similar contexts; word-final a., occurring at the end of a word; also as n., a letter or sound occurring in this position; hence word-finally adv.; cf. word-initial adj. below; † word-flowing a., fluent in speech; word frequency, the relative frequency with which a word is used in a given text or corpus; word geography, the study of the regional distribution of word and phrases, or a book treating of this; hence word-geographical a.; word-hoard, literal rendering of OE. wordhord treasure of speech; recently in general use, the words used by a person or group of people, vocabulary; also, a source or store of words; word-index, a list of the words used by a given author or in a given work (or corpus) with reference to the passages in which they occur, but without quotations (cf. concordance n. (6 b); word-initial a., occurring at the beginning of a word; also as n., a letter or sound occurring in this position; hence word-initially adv.; word-internally adv., = word-medially below; word-ladder, a puzzle in which a word has to be converted into another of equal length by being taken through a series of word-changes, each word differing by one letter from the last; also called doublets; word length Computers, the number of bits, digits, etc., in a word (sense 12 g above); word-magic Anthropol., magic thought to be exerted by the knowledge or use of the proper name or term for something, or the supposed magical property residing in such a name; also transf.; word-making and word-taking, a game played with lettered cards, app. a forerunner of the modern Lexicon or Scrabble; word mark, (a) a real or invented word used as a trade mark; (b) Computers, a bit that takes a different value according as the character containing it does or does not begin (or end) a word; a character containing such a bit; word-medial a., occurring in the middle of a word; hence word-medially adv.; word method Educ., a method of teaching pupils to read in which they are taught to recognize words as complete units before learning the letters or syllables which compose them; the ‘look-and-say’ method (see look v. 47); word-paint v. trans., to ‘paint’ in words, describe vividly, make a word-picture of; so word-painter, word-painting n. and a.; word-painted a., (a) decorated or adorned with words; (b) ‘painted’ or described vividly in words; word-pair, a pair of words resembling each other in sound or form; word-palatogram (see quot. 1948); word-perfect a., knowing perfectly every word of one's lesson, part, etc.; word-picture, a vivid description in words, presenting the object to the mind like a picture; word-play [cf. G. wortspiel], a play of or upon words (see play n. 7 b); word problem Math., the problem of determining whether two different products are equal, or two sequences of operations are equivalent; word processing [cf. G. textverarbeitung text processing], the storing and organizing of texts by electronic means, spec. by a word processor; hence (as a back-formation) word-process v. trans. to edit, produce, etc., using a word processor; word-processed ppl. a.; word processor, a keyboard device incorporating a computer programmed to store, amend, and format text that is keyed in, a printer to print it automatically, and often also a screen to display it; word recognition Educ., the process or faculty of perceiving words in reading and identifying them with the ideas they represent; word-salad, a type of speech indicative of advanced schizophrenia in which random words and phrases are mixed together unintelligibly; also fig.; word-shot nonce-wd. [after earshot], the distance within which one person can speak to another; word-sign, something used to represent a word; spec. a graphic character representing a complete word; esp., in Egyptian hieroglyphics, etc. = logogram 2 b; word-spite, spite or ill-will expressed in words (in quot. attrib.); word square, a set of words of the same number of letters to be arranged in a square so as to read the same horizontally or vertically; a puzzle in which such a set of words has to be guessed (Webster Suppl. 1880); word-stock, the sum of words available to a language, dialect, etc.; vocabulary; also fig.; word-strife, a rendering of logomachy; word-symbol, a word used as a sign or symbol; spec. = logogram 2 b; word time Computers, the time between the reading of the first bits of successive words; word-type, (a) a word used to symbolize or represent an idea; (b) Philos. (see quot. 1936); (c) a word forming a distinct item in a vocabulary; word-vision: see quot., and cf. word-blindness; word-watch v. intr., to observe linguistic usage, esp. with regard to changes and innovations; also word-watcher; word-watching vbl. n.; † word-wood a. [wood a.], ‘mad’, wild, or unrestrained in speech; word-wrap [cf. wrap-around n. 3] (see quot. 1982); so word-wrapping vbl. n.; word-writing, Bloomfield's term for ideographic writing. See also word-book, etc.

1903 Winbolt Lat. Ilexam. Verse 75 Discrepancy..between *word-accent and metrical stress.


1933 Dylan Thomas Let. Sept. (1966) 20 Mr. Neuburg has payed you a..compliment. ‘One of the most exquisite *word-artists of our day.’ 1945 C. Bax Vintage Verse iii. 95 This faultless word-artist [sc. Milton]..was buried in St. Giles's, Cripplegate.


1910 Rev. Neurol. & Psychiatry VIII. 641 (title) The practical value of the *word-association method in the treatment of the psycho⁓neuroses. 1918 M. D. Eder Jung's Stud. in Word-Association p. v, We owe to Dr. Jung..the application of the association method to unconscious mental processes... These studies in word association have now acquired a permanent place in the historical development of this [sc. psychoanalytical] theory. 1946 A. Christie Hollow xxvi. 221 ‘What is there about that that interests you so, M. Poirot?..’ ‘Association—a point of the psychology.’ ‘Word association? Horse and cart. Rocking horse?’ 1952 C. P. Blacker Eugenics: Galton & After 52 Galton also tried out on himself an elaborate system of word-association tests. His method was different..from that later popularized by C. G. Jung, but the underlying idea was the same. 1971 J. Elsom Theatre outside London vii. 126 These discussions were linked with word-association games. 1977 Canad. Jrnl. Linguistics 1976 XXI. ii. 200 ‘Navaho word associations’, which examines the role of grammatical form-classes in word association tests, has no subject under the age of seventeen.


1931 C. L'E. Ewen Hist. Surnames xiv. 360 The root of Skr. and Pers. yuvan ‘young’ may well be one of the *word-bases of Ewan, Owen [etc.]. 1956 Essays & Studies IX. 98 The appearance of the same word-base in various forms (polyptoton): (al) ar knitt & onyd in this onyng, & made holy in this holyhede. 1964 J. Vachek in D. Abercrombie et al. Daniel Jones 195 Some ModE affixes (especially the word-formative ones) are..more easily separable from their word-bases than others.


1963 J. Lyons Structural Semantics ii. 11 A *word-based grammar seems to be more satisfactory than a morpheme-based grammar for the description of languages of the ‘inflecting’ type.


a 1640 Jackson Creed x. xxxvii. 3155 *Word-Bates, or Verbal Quarrels, arising from ambiguous..expressions.


1853 Kingsley Hypatia xxvii, Not unwilling, like a philosopher and a Greek,..to embark in anything like a *word-battle.


1846 Trench Mirac. xxxii. 442 The *word-bearer for the rest of the apostles proves also, when occasion requires, the sword-bearer.


1641 J. Jackson True Evang. T. iii. 197 They revile, and *word-beate our persons.


1890 W. James Princ. Psychol. I. ii. 55 If this order of association be ingrained and habitual in that individual, injury to his visual centres will make him not only *word-blind, but aphasic as well. 1898 H. C. Bastian Aphasia etc. 329 The patient..was neither word-deaf nor word-blind.


1881 J. Ross in Lancet 26 Nov. 905/1 This particular variety of amnesic aphasia has been named ‘*word-blindness’ by Kussmaul.


1644 W. Newport Fall of Man 23 For a Christian to be absolutely *word-bound, to be tied so to anothers forme or his own, that he hath no liberty to vary in any expression, is a great bondage. 1714 Spect. No. 560 ¶2 If I appear a little word-bound in my first..responses, I hope it will..be imputed..to the long disuse of speech. 1836 J. Baillie Separation ii. iii, Learn from him The story of the war. Word-bound he is not: He'll tell it willingly.


1933 L. Bloomfield Language xxiii. 419 At the time of the loss of -n, the language did not distinguish *word-boundaries in the manner of present⁓day English. 1978 Language LIV. 21 The well-known word-boundary phenomena of French, such as liaison, elision, and h-aspiré.


1642 Fuller Holy & Prof. St. iii. xvii. 195 A *word-braving, or scorning of all wealth in discourse.


1968 J. R. Biggs Basic Typogr. 41/1 Spacing is consistent but the right-hand margin is left irregular. This does not always reduce *word breaks very much. 1980 B. Crutchley To be a Printer 55 Bad word⁓breaks at the end of lines and similar shoddiness.


1825 Scott Betrothed iii, The promiser..escapes not the sin of a *word-breaker, because he hath been a drunken braggart.


Ibid. vii, Better is an empty stomach..with a clear conscience, than a fatted ox with iniquity and *word-breaking.


a 1400 Wyclif's Bible Pref. Ep. vii. 72 Recapitulatour, *word bregger.


1862 W. Barnes Tiw p. v, The known course of Teutonic *word⁓building. 1894 (title) Word Building as a Guide to Spelling.


1735 Pope Prol. Sat. 166 Each *Word-catcher, that lives on syllables. 1835 R. Garnett Philol. Ess. (1859) 8 Of this sort of knowledge—the very foundation of all rational etymology—our word-catchers do not seem to have had the smallest tincture. 1837 Lockhart Scott I. x. 330 This narrow-minded, sour, and dogmatical little word-catcher.


a 1743 Savage Wks. (1775) II. 253 (Jod.) Is not *wordcatching more serviceable in splitting a cause than in explaining a fine poet? 1837 Lockhart Scott IV. iv. 152 Sharp word⁓catchings,..and all the quips and quibblets of bar pleading.


1938 B. L. Whorf in Language XIV. 275 *Word Category; a category (overt or covert or mixed) which delimits one of a primary hierarchy of word classes each of limited membership (not coterminous with entire vocabulary), e.g. the familiar ‘parts of speech’ of Indo-European and many other languages, vs. Modulus Category; one which modifies, either any word of the vocabulary, or any word already allocated to a delimited class, e.g. voices, aspects, cases. 1964 J. Vachek in D. Abercrombie et al. Daniel Jones 195 The comparative suffix -er does not imply the change of the word-category of the basic word, while the agentive -er necessarily does so.


1898 H. C. Bastian Aphasia etc. 14 It is permissible to speak of these portions as auditory and visual ‘*word centres’ respectively.


1941 E. Blunden Thomas Hardy xi. 236 An innovation of *word-choice.


1879 Spurgeon Serm. XXV. 328 He sought truth, not controversy and *word-chopping.


1812 W. Tennant Anster F. vi. lxi, Sweet utterance of *word⁓clad breath.


1914 L. Bloomfield Introd. Study Lang. iv. 108 (title) *Word-classes. Ibid. iv. 109 Other word classes which are not expressed by formational similarity. 1924 O. Jespersen Philos. Gram. iv. 61 We have a great many words which can belong to one word-class only: admiration, society, life can only be substantives [etc.]. 1953 C. E. Bazell Linguistic Form vi. 76 The so-called parts of speech (still more inappropriately word-classes) are classes of stem-morpheme. 1973 Computers & Humanities VII. 159 Lyne's resolution of word class problems (is y an adverb or a pronoun?) uses a rather complex algorithm.


1865 Reader 4 Feb. 133/1 Largely drawn upon by our modern *word-coinage, more especially by the nomenclature of science.


1935 Vanity Fair Nov. 38/1 There appears to be little leakage of their vernacular into even so ambitious a *word-coiner as Variety. 1981 Verbatim Spring 14/2 Since I started publishing Verbatim, these and other word-coiners have been sending their creations to me, pressing for recognition.


1920 19th Cent. Mar. 482 *Word-coining was then a common industry.


1887 Rider Haggard Allan Quatermain ix, A time-serving and *word-coining politician.


1864 W. D. Whitney in Ann. Rep. Bd. Regents Smithsonian Inst. 1863 108 The conditions of that ancient period, and the degree in which they could quicken the now sluggish processes of *word-combination and formation are beyond our ken. 1932 A. H. Gardiner Theory of Speech & Lang. iii. 158 Syntax..may be defined as the study of the forms both of the sentence itself and of all free word-combinations which enter into it.


1872 Lowell Dante Prose Wks. 1890 IV. 139 The..*word-compelling Dante.


1904 H. Bradley Making Engl. 127 The copious *word-composition of Greek.


1845 Maurice Mor. Philos. in Encycl. Metrop. II. 576/1 These..specimens of Greek subtlety..they would be inclined to denounce..as the exploits of a mere *word-conjuror.


1930 Proc. Brit. Acad. XVI. 147 There are prejudices, preferences, analyses, comparisons, statistics, verse-tests, *word-counts, sense of style, poetical feelings, intuitions—but we must not call all this evidence. 1937 Palmer & Hornby Thousand-Word Eng. 11 The compiler has recourse to statistics of word-frequency; he organizes a ‘word-count’. 1957 Eng. Lang. Teaching (British Council) XII. 1.10 There are valuable word-counts which give a clear picture of the relative importance of specific words in our total lexicon. 1980 Amer. Speech 1977 LII. 7 A computerized word count.


a 900 Cynewulf Elene 592 He is..*wordcræftes wis. 1804 J. Collins Scripscrap A 3, A Noviciate in the Science of Word-craft. 1894 Athenæum 22 Dec. 863/2 The French school of literary critics of life..have been curious in their wordcraft.


1884 Amer. Jrnl. Philol. July 187 That species of *word-creation commonly designated as parasynthetic. 1952 W. D. Jacobs William Barnes, Linguist 7 Are there means of word-creation and actual words themselves in the writings of Barnes by which English might well profit?


1898 H. C. Bastian Aphasia etc. 329 Such individuals though *word-deaf have nevertheless preserved their voluntary speech.


1886 Buck's Handbk. Med. Sci. II. 329/1 The so-called *word-deafness, in which the patient hears but does not understand words, though he reads them understandingly and repeats them perfectly.


1593 Nashe Christ's T. Wks. (Grosart) IV. 102 Thys huge *word-dearthing taske.


1891 Tablet 29 Aug. 331 The science of *word-derivation is a growing one.


1914 L. Bloomfield in Trans. Amer. Philol. Assoc. XLV. 66 We have many instances of the writing of uneducated people..in which the *word-division is entirely wrong. 1929 K. Sisam in S.P.E. Tract XXXIII. 441 A respectably printed American book..is not noticeably different in [typographical] word-division from a contemporary English book. 1976 Classical Q. XXVI. 95 His word-divisions are probably his own and without any authority.


1912 Kipling Diversity of Creatures (1917) 23 *Word-drunk people. 1964 Punch 15 Apr. 575/1 The word-drunk Don Adriano.


1928 O. Jespersen Internat. Lang. ii. 121 In Novial the elements are separate words, in Esp[eranto]—Ido inseparable *word-elements. 1964 C. Barber Ling. Change Present-Day Eng. iv. 78 These [new learned words] are usually formed from Latin or Greek word-elements. 1965 W. S. Allen Vox Latina i. 35 It [s] is not voiced between vowels or at word-end as in English roses.


1878 W. Barnes Outl. Eng. Speechcraft 83 (heading) The power of the *word-endings [sc. suffixes]. 1966 J. Derrick Teaching English to Immigrants vi. 210 Meaning is conveyed..with a reduced form of grammar—word-endings are left off, structural words omitted, etc.


1926 Fowler Mod. Eng. Usage 553/2 A phonetically consistent method is in English peculiarly hard to reconcile with the keeping together of *word families. 1978 Language LIV. 237/1 Finding translation equivalents and association of morphological word-families.


1862 Merivale Rom. Emp. lxvi. VII. 456 The vanity and frivolity of these masters of *word⁓fence.


1952 H. Basilius in Word VIII. 103 Jost Trier's study of the German *word-fields relating to the concept reason, its powers and qualities. 1965 Amer. Speech XL. 62 Job is not identical with Arbeit; it stands at the lowest level of this word-field.


1918 A. W. Aron in C. Hockett Leonard Bloomfield Anthol. (1970) 58 These variations in word-initial [in Irish] do depend on the phonetic character of the original preceding *word-final. 1949 E. A. Nida Morphology (ed. 2) ii. 24 Only the word-final tones are indicated. 1977 G. P. Delahunty in D. {Oacu} Muirithe Eng. Lang. in Ireland 132 Devoicing of word-final voiced consonants. 1983 Word XXXIV. 149 We find that in modern Swabian they all occur in word-final position.


1965 Canad. Jrnl. Linguistics Fall 64 Those [vowel segments] which occur both before consonants and *word-finally. 1978 Language LIV. 443 High vowels are dropped after heavy stems word-finally.


1955 R. Jakobson in Saporta & Bastian Psycholinguistics (1961) 423/2 The more difficulties he has with *word-finding in the proper sense of this neuropsychiatric term; that is, difficulties with spontaneous selection of words.


1681 R. L'Estrange Tully's Offices 66 Crassus..was a *word-flowing Speaker.


1897 M. Kingsley W. Africa ii. 36 A perfect *word-fog of directions and advice.


1874 H. Bendall tr. A. Schleicher's Compar. Gram. 3 The Semitic, which is not akin to the Indo-European, has more *word-forms. 1952 Mind LXI. 239 As society discovers..that judgments imputing responsibility..are never justified, the word-form ‘responsibility’ comes to change its meaning. 1967 D. G. Hays Introd. Computational Linguistics ii. 21 The plan is to record, before each word form, the number of cells it occupies.


1856 W. D. Whitney in Jrnl. Amer. Oriental Soc. V. 197 The work..exhibits..the phenomena of the agreement and disagreement of the Greek and Sanskrit accentuation, throughout the departments of declension, conjugation and *word-formation. 1884 Cust in 13th Addr. Philol. Soc. 77 The oldest phase of the Hæmitic Word-formation.


1948 L. Spitzer Linguistics & Lit. Hist. ii. 81 Thus Cervantes has expressed his perspectivistic vision in a *word-formational pattern of the Renaissance reserved for hybrids. 1979 Dictionaries I. 18 Lexicographers very often assume a kind of word-formational capacity or knowledge when they list derivatives as run-on entries.


1964 *Word-formative [see word-base above].



1928 B. Q. Morgan German Frequency Word Bk. p. ix, It was our original intention to publish the figures for *word frequency, group frequency, and basic frequency. 1951 Archivum Linguisticum III. ii. 123 (heading) Word⁓frequency in Norwegian. 1974 Bedford & Dilligan Concordance Poems Alexander Pope II. 669/1 A six-page analytic table showing word-frequency distribution and the ratio between each word and the number of its occurrences.


1912 L. Bloomfield in C. Hockett Leonard Bloomfield Anthol. (1970) 35 The relation of word-form to *word-function.


1910 R. B. Stern Neighborhood Entertainments vi. 263 (heading) Some *word games [describes anagrams, logomachy, etc.]. 1922 S. Lewis Babbitt xviii. 227 Word-games in which you were an Adjective or a Quality. 1929 A. C. S. Ashmore (title) Word games and word puzzles. 1934 Mind XLIII. 117 Those who are reluctant to regard philosophy as mere mystery-mongering or as an academic word-game. 1953 E. Coxhead Midlanders vi. 143, I never could do word-games or crosswords. 1974 Passmore & Robson Compan. Med. Stud. III. xxxiv. 8/1 Wittgenstein described speech as a ‘word game’, implying that language follows defined rules similar to those which govern sports. 1975 R. Lewis Double Take iv. 124 We aren't here to play word games... If this is the way you want to conduct the discussion we might as well call it off.


1962 A. McIntosh in Davis & Wrenn Eng. & Medieval Stud. 240 *Word-geographical criteria..may well therefore turn out to provide the only practicable line of attack.


1921 E. C. Roedder in Jrnl. Eng. & Ger. Philol. XX. 183 The finding and fixing of the isolectic lines is a task of *word geography. 1949 H. Kurath (title) A word geography of the Eastern United States. 1980 Amer. Speech LV. 195 Its lexicology is sketched here as a development of conventional word geography.


1884 H. Sweet ibid. 90 Concentrating his attention on the mere sounds of his *word-group. 1897 Anwyl Welsh Gram. §19 The unit of connected speech is..the word-group; e.g. in English, ‘what-do-you-want?’


1876 Whitney Lang. Study ii. 66 If English stood all alone among the other languages..but an insignificant part of its *word-history could be read.


1869 W. Barnes Early England & Saxon-English 130 A Hoard, as herd, is a kind of gathering of any kind of things, as..*Word-hoard—Vocabulary. 1892 Brooke E.E. Lit. i. 1 Widsith told his tale, unlocked his wordhoard. 1961 Webster Pref. 6a/1 Books consulted in the Springfield City Library whose librarians have..given the editorial staff..access to its large and valuable word-hoard. 1966 Listener 24 Nov. 779/2 Thomas was immensely proud of his bulging word-hoard. 1975 P. Fussell Great War & Mod. Memory (1977) ii. 49 Lousy with, meaning full of,..entered the colloquial word-hoard around 1915.


1876 A. S. Palmer (title) Leaves from a *Word-hunter's Note-book.


1753 Armstrong Taste 131 Those sacred groves where raptur'd spirits..in *word-hunting waste the live-long day. 1935 A. Huxley Let. 13 Jan. (1969) 389 Nothing is more inclined to keep me awake than *word-hunting.


1902 E. W. Scripture Elem. Exper. Phonetics x. 150 A *word-idea should be learned as parts of various courses of thought in order to form the necessary language associations. 1922 D. H. Lawrence Aaron's Rod xiii. 175 Even his deepest ideas were not word-ideas, his very thoughts were not composed of words and ideal concepts.


1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 399 *Word-images as integral components of percepts and concepts.


1937 M. L. Hanley (title) *Word index to James Joyce's Ulysses. Ibid. p. iii, In 1931..I had made a word index and partial concordance to the B-Text of Piers Plowman. 1960 Amer. Speech XXXV. 215 A lamentable deficiency is the lack of a full word index.


1918 *Word-initial [see word-final above]. 1926 L. Bloomfield in Saporta & Bastian Psycholinguistics (1961) 29/2 English word-initial [st-]. 1949 E. A. Nida Morphology (ed. 2) ii. 16 Word-initial prevowel glottal stops. 1981 N. & Q. Oct. 398/1 A large number of unexplained intersubstitutions of c and g in word-initial position.


1973 A. H. Sommerstein Sound Pattern Anc. Gr. iii. 103 Not all rules with left⁓hand environments can apply *word-initially.


1964 D. Ward in D. Abercrombie et al. Daniel Jones 385 The substitution of corresponding voiceless phonemes for all voiced phonemes except sonants in word-final position and *word-internally before voiceless consonants.


1876 Emerson Lett. & Soc. Aims, Poet. & Imag. Wks. (Bohn) III. 160 Barbaric *word-jingle.


1901 Month Jan. 16 The greatest *word-juggler of all time.


1847 Lewes Hist. Philos. (1867) I. ii. 14 The *word-jugglery of mysticism.


1855 Milman Lat. Christ. xiv. iii. (1864) IX. 143 Bewildered by his own skilful *word-juggling.


1876 Mrs. Whitney Sights & Insights xxxiv. 320 Very faith, deeper than mere *word⁓keeping.


1945 N. & Q. 6 Oct. 151/1 In the amusement sections of newspapers it [sc. the game or puzzle called ‘Doublets’] is usually referred to as ‘*Word-Ladder’. 1958 Birmingham Mail 27 Jan. 6/7 Today's puzzle is for your shortest Word Ladder from Head to Body. It can be done in five easy steps without using any unusual words. 1982 D. Parlett Penguin Bk. Word Games 98 Word Ladders.


1951 Proc. IRE XXXIX. 277/2 Digital computers commonly use a fixed *word length (that is, a fixed number of characters) which is a characteristic of each computer. 1970 O. Dopping Computers & Data Processing vi. 98 The word length is usually chosen in such a way that a numeric operand or result in general can be stored in one memory cell with ‘normal’ precision.


1960 J. B. Carroll in Saporta & Bastian Psycholinguistics (1961) 338/2 A single word or *word-like utterance.


1866 G. Stephens (title) The Old Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England, with Introductions, Appendices, *Word-Lists, Runic Alphabets, &c.


1923 Ogden & Richards Meaning of Meaning ii. 42 The earlier writers are full of the relics of primitive *word-magic. To classify things is to name them.. to know their names is to have power over their souls. 1938 S. Chase Tyranny of Words iv. 37 Here, to follow Malinowski, we note the seeds of word magic, in which the name gives power over the person or thing it signifies. 1960 H. Read Forms of Things Unknown vii. 121 The name he chooses is magically apt, and in word-magic we must acknowledge the primordial intensive aspect of poetry.


1855 Kingsley Glaucus 69 What the long-*word-makers call an ‘interosculant’ group.


a 1856 J. Stoddart Glossology (1858) x. 231 Onomatopoeia. The literal signification of the term..is nothing more than ‘*word-making’. 1867 W. D. Whitney Lang. & Study of Lang. 116 All word-making by combination..is closely analogous with phrase-making. 1876 Geo. Eliot Dan. Der. lx, The order of word-making.


1935 Encycl. Sports, Games & Pastimes 396/1 The games played with these [cardboard] letters are very numerous. *Word making and word taking may be mentioned first. 1952 G. Raverat Period Piece xii. 243 Our chief intellectual exercise [c. 1900] was the Letter Game; Word-making and word-taking. 1980 L. Lewis Private Life of Country House ii. 20 My mother..scattered on the floor the cardboard letter squares from a game called ‘Wordmaking and Wordtaking’.


1902 Encycl. Brit. XXXIII. 387/1 The registration of ‘*word marks’ was first provided for by the Trade Marks Act, 1883. In that statute, however, clause (d) read ‘a fancy word or words not in common use’. 1964 T. W. McRae Impact of Computers on Accounting i. 11 The programmer then looks at the data..and divides up the storage locations as required by setting a ‘wordmark’ in the far right⁓hand position of each variable-length storage word. 1969 P. B. Jordain Condensed Computer Encycl. 567 Each instruction must begin with a word mark [in a variable word-length computer]. 1976 Century of Trade Marks (Patent Office) i. 1/2 These were early instances of word marks, though usually in conventional form—for example, CATIM (Cati manu: from the hand of Cato), and OFALBIN (officina Albini: the workshop of Albinus)—whereas earlier marks had been almost invariably devices or ideographic symbols. 1980 J. Frates Introd. Computer vi. 165 The storage location of the last piece of data will store a word mark in addition to the character to indicate to the computer that it has reached the end of that particular item of data.


1884 H. Sweet in 13th Addr. Philol. Soc. 89 This..makes the colloquial language a far better medium of teaching *word-meanings.


1949 E. A. Nida Morphology (ed. 2) 293 (heading) Reduction of *word-medial consonant clusters. 1963 J. Lyons Structural Semantics iv. 68 There is an opposition.., in word-initial and word-medial position, between the voiced and the voiceless plosives.


1968 Language XLIV. 532 A variety of further clusters occurred *word-medially.


1890 W. James Princ. Psychol. I. xvi. 684 ‘Ataxic’ and ‘amnesic’ aphasia, ‘word-deafness’, and ‘associative aphasia’ are all practical losses of *word-memory. 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 394 Forms of word memory.


1920 Punch 7 Jan. 9/2 The *word-merchant [sc. a journalist] was laughing at us all the time. 1977 Grimsby Even. Tel. 14 May 7/4 He [sc. Malcolm Muggeridge] is the best word merchant of our time.


[1879 First Infant Reader in Mod. School Reader Series p. 2 The experience of many years has convinced us that a judicious combination of the Word and Phonic methods of teaching Children to read is the best.] 1932 in E. Blyton Mod. Teaching in Infant School v. 62 The *Word Method, or the Look-and-say Method. 1981 D. Rowntree Dict. Educ. 350 Word method, teaching a pupil to read by getting him to recognize whole words right from the start.


1853 Mrs. Gore Dean's Dau. xxiv, Do not give Miss Mordaunt reason to suppose me the only *word-mill in the family!


1855 Geo. Eliot in Westm. Rev. Oct. 596 As long as the English language is spoken, the *word-music of Tennyson must charm the ear. 1895 G. B. Shaw Our Theatres in Nineties (1932) I. 77 M. Maeterlinck's fragile word-music. 1962 Observer 22 Apr. 23/4 The ailing cause of Shakespeare-designed-to-be-read-as-word-music.


1895 ‘Mark Twain’ in N. Amer. Rev. July 11 This is [James Fenimore] Cooper. He was not a *word-musician. His ear was satisfied with the approximate word.


1892 H. Sweet New Eng. Gram. I. §113. 42 We find the same grammatical relation expressed..sometimes by *word-order. 1898 Sweet New Engl. Gram. ii. §1772 The original Arian word-order. 1958 Aspects of Translation 35 Inflexions and grammar impose a more rigorous word-order on the French language than on English. 1965 O. Funke in English Studies Feb. 58 The transition from paradigmatic to syntagmatic (prepositional or word-order) expression. 1973 Archivum Linguisticum IV. 28 The comparative fixity of word-order relative to grammatical function is the conditional par excellence for the supposed superfluity of gender distinctions.


1894 M. Dyan Man's Keeping vi, His mother..*word-painted a picture to him. 1906 G. A. B. Dewar Faery Year 57 We can no more word-paint the water than we can the sunbeam.


1870 J. G. Whittier in Atlantic Apr. 467 Not by the page *word-painted Let life be banned or sainted. 1937 ‘C. Caudwell’ Illusion & Reality v. 100 The word-painted lands of the nightingale, of the Grecian urn, of Baiae's isle.


1861 Bentley's Misc. XLIX. 169 Owen Meredith is another *word-painter, even luxuriant in power.


1866 (title) *Word Paintings: in Series. 1892 J. Tait Mind in Matter (ed. 3) 296 Like a poem, a parable is a word⁓painting.


1882 Archaeologia Cantiana XIV. 3 The descriptive power of a *word-painting historian.


1936 G. K. Zipf Psycho-Biol. of Lang. iv. 134 *Word-pairs like submit and remit, or accuse and excuse. 1964 J. Vachek in D. Abercrombie et al. Daniel Jones 194 The ModE word-pair longer [lɔŋgə] (comparative of long): longer [lɔŋə] (the noun of agent derived from the verb to long).


1948 J. R. Firth Papers in Linguistics 1934–51 (1957) xi. 150 Palatograms here presented..are *word-palatograms. That is to say, they are used for the abstraction of articulatory contact and possibly also of movement from suitably selected words taken as whole utterances. 1957 Word-palatogram [see kymography].



1694 Pepys Let. in Academy (1890) 9 Aug. 110/1 Your Specimen of Musick-Characters..must appeare Gracefull, when y⊇ *Word-Part shall bee added.


1912 Beerbohm Christmas Garland 66 Intensive vision has this Mr. Hardy, With a dark skill in weaving *word-patterns. 1938 L. MacNeice Mod. Poetry ii. 40 The normal business of poetry is the conveying of information through certain kinds of word-patterns. 1957 C. E. Bazell in Miscelanea Homenaje a André Martinet I. 27 Some languages confer word-status by integrating a unit into the particular word-pattern.


1951 R. Firth Elem. Social Organiz. vii. 221 It does this..by response to the aesthetic qualities of the *word-patterning and imagery used.


1673 Marvell Reh. Transp. ii. 255 You are..a meer *Word-pecker. a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Word-pecker, one that play's with Words.


1894 ‘J. S. Winter’ Red Coats 104 [He] had gone over, with care and loving attention, every little trifling detail of this interview, until he might fairly have been described as ‘*word-perfect.’


1851 J. Brown Let. 23 June (1912) 119, I wish you would paint some *word pictures, some studies from Nature as you take your drives. 1858–61 J. Brown Horæ Subs. (1863) 284 Such word⁓pictures as you find in Dante.


1603 Dekker Wonderful Year To Rdr., Banish these *Word-pirates, (you sacred mistresses of learning) into the gulfe of Barbarisme.


1642 Fuller Holy & Prof. St. i. iii. 8 Not so much *word-pitying her, as providing necessaries for her.


1855 H. Martineau Autobiogr. (1877) I. 397 An opportunity..for paradox, and *word-play. 1896 J. Rendel Harris Hermas in Arcadia 74 To determine what the word-play consists in. 1911 H. M. R. Murray Erthe upon Erthe Introd. p. xxix, Word-plays of the kind..are..not common in Latin verse of the time. 1962 W. Nowottny Lang. Poets Use v. 99 The next [chapter] will discuss some aspects of conspicuous word-play—or, to use a more convenient term—of ‘verbal schemes’. 1967 Sci. Amer. Sept. 268/1 The double acrostic..was..the most popular form of word-play in English-speaking countries throughout the last quarter of the 19th century and until the end of World War I. 1967 C. L. Wrenn Word & Symbol 13 The medieval love of riddling and word-play was occasionally displayed by Anglo-Saxon versifiers. 1982 I. Hamilton Robert Lowell (1983) ii. 18 Argument pursued for the sake of wit and wordplay rather than for any just or true solution.


1894 O. Jespersen Progress in Lang. iv. 99 Is it beneficial to a language to have a free *word-position? 1961 Brno Studies III. 46 The number of word-positions in which the correlation could be utilized.


1657 J. Watts Scribe, Pharisee, etc. i. 123 You cannot bring us of, from the *word⁓preaching.


1947 Jrnl. Symbolic Logic XII. 90 The *word problem for semigroups. 1972 M. Kline Math. Thought xlix. 1143 For one defining relation Wilhelm Magnus (1907–) showed that the word problem is solvable. but the general problem is not.


1984 Which Micro Dec. 73 (Advt.), For *word processing letters in professional type. 1985 Daily Tel. 10 June 11/1 To a newspaper reporter, the ability to wordprocess stories on aircraft and in hotel bedrooms must truly be a boon.


1984 N. & Q. Dec. 552/1 This text (excepting the chapter-notes and bibliographies) reproduces a *word⁓processed typescript.


1970 Administrative Management Nov. 36/3 ‘*Word processing’, a concept that combines the dictating and typing functions into a centralized system. 1977 Times 12 Sept. 5 Word processing can already be seen to be at the forefront of the next revolution in the office... The keyboard of the word-processing typewriter..is standard but typing on it produces not only a paper copy but also a magnetic recording which can be automatically searched and edited.


1970 Administrative Management Nov. 37/1 In 1970..ITEL..introduced its ‘*Word Processor’. 1974 Ibid. Mar. 48/2 The multi-functional word processor can handle a whole range of text manipulations. 1977 N.Y. Times 1 Jan. 22 Word processors call up documents, page by page and line by line, on cathode ray screens for editing. They print out finished versions automatically or send them via telephone lines to distant points. 1979 Daily Tel. 24 Dec. 16/3 Word-processors show their greatest strengths when they are used to produce long reports which need to be constantly altered and with any typing which must be word perfect. 1981 Times Lit. Suppl. 22 May 588 (Advt.), Manuscripts typed, edited, corrected and indexed by word processor. 1984 D. Lodge Small World ii. ii. 121 A roomful of secretaries..would wait patiently beside their word-processors, ready to type..his latest reflections.


1928 Funk's New Stand. Dict., *Word recognition. 1956 T. W. Clymer in R. H. Beck Three R's Plus 139 Word-recognition skills have been mentioned... Context clues are the quickest and easiest of the word-recognition techniques. 1978 J. Baron in W. K. Estes Handbk. Learning & Cognitive Processes VI. iv. 159 Let us assume that one mechanism of word recognition in reading involves activation of a semantic code directly from a letter or spelling-pattern code.


1915 Stedman's Med. Dict. (ed. 3) 1034/2 *Word-salad, a term applied by Forel to the jumble of meaningless words uttered by a patient suffering from catatonia. 1930 L. E. Hinsie Schizophrenia ii. 28 The symptomatology is ordinarily not at all bizarre; there is not the scattering of thought, nor the ‘word-salad’. 1960 R. D. Laing Divided Self xi. 215 Her ‘word-salad’ seemed to be the result of a number of quasi-autonomous partial systems striving to give expression to themselves out of the same mouth at the same time. 1976 N. Postman Crazy Talk 228 The exorbitant fee one must pay..is made to seem plausible by a word salad of imposing proportions.


1736 Gentl. Mag. VI. 353/2 Dame Law..call'd over her *Word-selling Crew.


1960 Times 18 Jan. 3/1 And so many composers have turned gratefully to *word-setting. 1985 Times 13 June 13/8 Why is word-setting generally so difficult for English composers?


1900 Jrnl. Anthrop. Inst. XXX. 156 As regards *word-signs, in general the connection of the meaning of the word with the picture is obvious enough once it is pointed out. Ibid., The connecting link between the picture and its word-sign value. 1908 G. K. Chesterton Man who was Thursday ix. 165 It did not take him long to learn how he might convey simple messages by what would seem to be idle taps upon a table or knee... ‘We must have several word-signs,..words that we are likely to want.’ 1941 Language XVII. 149 In my opinion, ideogram and word⁓sign are not interchangeable terms, either in Egyptian or English. 1964 P. A. D. MacCarthy in D. Abercrombie et al. Daniel Jones 162 Four uniliteral ‘word-signs’ for the, of, and, to, are standard.


1872 Yng. Gentleman's Mag. 212 Little *word-sketches of those absurd scenes.


1896 Literary World 19 June 571/2 Stevenson, the soaring child of genius and the plodding *word-smith. 1961 Observer 23 July 19/3 Gunther has lost none of his old skill as a wordsmith: the adjectives come pouring out in a torrent of enthusiasm, bristling with brackets, dashes, afterthoughts, and statistics. 1968 Daily Tel. 7 Nov. 23/1 We already know John Updike as a resourceful wordsmith, a fine writer. 1976 Bookseller 4 Sept. 1645/1 That ubiquitous wordsmith A. J. P. Taylor.


1958 *Wordsmithing [see copy-writing vbl. n. s.v. copy n. C]. 1981 Maledicta V. 346 Enjoys word⁓smithing, learning languages, and the study of names.


1925 I. A. Richards Princ. Lit. Criticism xvi. 119 Many people are able to imagine *word-sounds with greater delicacy..than they can utter them. 1951 N. M. Gunn Well at World's End xxx. 295 She was making word⁓sounds, lapping him about.


1582 N. T. (Rhem.) Acts xvii. 18 What is it that this *wordsower would say?


1887 W. Morris in Mackail Life (1899) II. 187, I am an inveterate *word-spinner.


1872 Spurgeon Treas. Dav. III. Pref. p. v, Huge folios, full of dreary *wordspinning.


1857 Sir F. Palgrave Norm. & Eng. II. 561 A silly, yet ferocious, *wordspite quarrel between Otho and Hugh-le-Grand.


1861 J. Tulloch Engl. Purit. iv. 436 He had too large a soul to take delight in mere *word-splitting.


1890 Little Folks Jan. 68 Geographical *Word Square.


c 1400 Rom. Rose 5451 They maken foolis glorifie Of her *wordis spekyng. c 1440 Alphabet of Tales 511 Þerfor is it not gretelie to charge of wurdis-spekyng and a man do wele.


1937 A. H. Gardiner in Mélanges Ling. et Phil. offerts à J. van Ginneken 310 It seems necessary, as between the different classes [of proper names], to assign independent *word-status further only to classes II and V. 1982 Papers Dict. Soc. N. Amer. 1977 67 In such cases the problem of word-status is involved.


1948 L. Spitzer Linguistics & Lit. Hist. i. 7 This French word-family..was a blend of at least two *word-stems. 1962 W. Nowottny Lang. Poets Use v. 100 Syntactical patterns and individual words (or word⁓stems).


1911 L. Bloomfield in C. Hockett Bloomfield Anthol. (1970) 29 The farther back we look into the history of any IE. language, the more diversified and concrete a *word stock do we find. 1926 Friedrichsen Gothic Vers. Gosp. 23 By skilfully grafting the vigorous scions of his own speech on to the exotic word⁓stock. 1940 J. H. Jagger Eng. in Future i. 25 About two per cent. of the word-stock consists of words of this sort [sc. slang words that have entered Standard English] made since the Norman conquest. 1973 Computers & Humanities VII. 195 Normal discourse draws upon a word-stock which in any theorizing must be treated as infinite.


1863 W. Barnes Gram. & Gloss. Dorset Dial. 9 In searching the *word-stores of the provincial speech-forms of English, we cannot but behold what a wealth of stems we have overlooked at home. 1971 J. Z. Young Introd. Study Man xxxv. 489 [The region behind the superior temporal gyrus] has also been called ‘the area of ideational speech’ or indeed ‘word store’.


1924 H. E. Palmer Gram. Spoken Eng. i. 6 *Word-stress. (In the opinion of the author the term syllable-stress would be more appropriate.) This term is used with reference to a syllable (in a word of more than one syllable) which is susceptible of receiving one of the four nucleus-tones. 1953 C. E. Bazell Linguistic Form viii. 100 Word-stress is therefore highly marginal in language. 1966 J. Derrick Teaching Eng. to Immigrants iii. 111 This distribution of stress in the individual word, ‘word stress’ as it is called, is a basic difficulty for the foreign learner.


a 1670 Hacket Abp. Williams ii. (1693) 107 The end of this λογοµαχία, or *Word-strife.


1850 T. A. Trollope Impress. Wand. iv. 56 The emasculated tribe of *word stringers.


1622 Mabbe tr. Aleman's Guzman d'Alf. i. 263 Whilest he was hearing this sad storie..being so *word-strooken to the heart.


1951 Essays & Studies IV. 123 Alliteration, assonance..can be considered as markers or signals of *word-structure or of the word-process in the sentence. 1975 Language for Life (Dept. Educ. & Sci.) xi. 183 Their attention should constantly be drawn to details of word structure.


1940 Amer. Speech XV. 183 Mrs. Ernst presents for her pupils..the essentials of *word-study. 1979 N. & Q. June 245/2 The author of a word-study.


1904 *Word-symbol [see ideogenetic a. s.v. ideo-]. 1933 L. Bloomfield Language xvii. 287 In the writings of other languages, where words are of various lengths, we find word-symbols used for phonetically similar parts of longer words. 1955 G. A. Kelly Psychol. Personal Constructs 459 A pre⁓verbal construct is one which continues to be used even though it has no consistent word symbol.


1923 Ogden & Richards Meaning of Meaning ii. 37 In Fraser's Golden Bough numerous examples of *word taboos are collected. 1978 Language LIV. 217 The importance of word taboo on the basis of more recent linguistic-anthropological work.


1954 Computers & Automation May 22/1 *Word time. 1969 P. B. Jordain Condensed Computer Encycl. 567 All activities must be calculated in multiples or submultiples of word time or cycle time.


1894 O. Jespersen Progress in Lang. ix. 340 So much for *word-tones; now for the sentence melody. 1928 Proc. Brit. Acad. XIV. 354 The four word-tones used in the Mandarin language of Peking to keep otherwise identical words apart. 1964 Archivum Linguisticum XVI. 81 He gives some interesting examples of how word-tones and sentence intonation may combine.


1610 Holland Camden's Brit. i. 307 With a wily *word-trap, hee deceiued the Archbishop. 1820 T. Mitchell Com. Aristoph. I. 92 With silent glee his word-traps he lays deftly.


1920 D. H. Lawrence Women in Love xxiii. 339, I know your dodges. I am not taken in by your *word-twisting. 1959 I. & P. Opie Lore & Lang. Schoolch. xiv. 320 By using slang, local dialect,..word-twistings, codes and sign language, children communicate with each other in ways which outsiders are unable to understand.


1911 S. S. Colvin Learning Process (1931) vii. 108 The *word-types of images, as can be readily seen, are symbolic; they stand for concrete realities, which, however, generally are not revived in connection with the symbol. 1936 Jrnl. Philos. 17 Dec. 702 Let us call a ‘word-type’ a class or kind of defining character of a class of tokens which are similar to one another in certain essential aspects. 1961 Brno Studies III. 33 Mathesius laid special stress on the part played in English complex condensation cases by three types of nominal forms derived from verbal bases... The word-types will be referred to as..condensers. 1976 Biometrika LXIII. 435 How many word types did Shakespeare actually know?


1924 R. M. Ogden tr. K. Koffka's Growth of Mind v. 270 A difference in the serial order of the correct *word-usage must then depend..upon a difference in the colour-phenomenon itself. 1971 Jrnl. Gen. Psychol. Apr. 188 Creativity and originality were not measured by any of the three types of word-usage.


1932 Faucett & Maki (title) Study of English *word-values. Ibid. 8 This book will..be useful to those interested..in fixing a graded vocabulary scale for supplementary readers,..in helping teachers and students to develop a sense of word-values [etc.]. 1938 I. Goldberg Wonder of Words xx. 438 For & has the phonetic value of et, but it has the word-value of and.


1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 313 Visual ideation, more particularly in reference to the association of written symbols with their meaning—that is, *word-vision—is specially impaired by lesion of the left angular gyrus.


1647 Trapp Comm. Jas. ii. 14 (1656) 906 Livy telleth us of the Athenians, that they waged *Word-war against Philip. 1862 Merivale Rom. Emp. lxvi. VII. 460 The word-war of the dogmatists.


1856 R. A. Vaughan Mystics (1860) I. 123 He regarded with dislike the idle *word-warfare of scholastic ingenuity.


1600 Nashe Summers Last Will 1447 Those *word-warriers..Had their heads fild with coosning fantasies. 1866 Liddon Bampton Lect. i. (1867) 17 Professional word-warriors of the fourth and fifth centuries.


1968 Listener 25 Apr. 525/1 What happens if in turn we *word-watch on Mr. Davie? Could it be that to use the word ‘histrionic’ ten times in one short article is itself somewhat histrionic?


1973 N.Y. Times 7 May 39/1 *Word watchers introduce a note of good sense..to the action and passion of their times. 1980 Amer. Speech LV. 77, -gate has undergone some developments that should interest word-watchers.


1981 Verbatim VII. iii. 20/2 Collectors are needed to find quotations for a new dictionary of American slang... The chief motivation for volunteering should be interest in specialized *word-watching.


a 1555 Ridley Cert. Godly Confer. (1556) 34 b, Truste not..to these *worde weapons, for the kingdome of godde is not in wordes, but in power.


1849 Lytton Caxtons viii. iii. (1874) 199 Trevanion was a terrible *word-weigher.


a 1250 Prov. Alfred 281 in O.E. Misc. 118 Wymmon is *word-woþ [v.r. word⁓wod].


1902 F. E. Hulme Proverb-Lore 114 Sword-wounds may be healed, *word-wounds are beyond healing.


1810 Crabbe Borough iv. 523 When the preacher..Dropp'd the new word,..we heard the cry Of the *word-wounded.


1643 Herle Answ. Ferne 11 Indisposed to this kind of *word wrangle.


1914 D. Crawford Thirsting After God iii. i. 152 Mere windy *word-wrangling.


1977 IEEE Trans. Professional Communication June 14/2 One very useful feature..is called *word wrap. 1982 A. J. Meadows et al. Dict. New Information Technol. 193/1 Word-wrap, a word processing term. It refers to the way in which a partially typed word is moved to a new line if its length proves too much to fit into the existing line. 1983 Austral. Personal Computer Sept. 124/2 Automatic wordwrap operates at the end of a screen line (40 chars).


1984 Computing Today May 93 (heading) *Word-wrapping. 1985 Listener 25 Apr. 38/1 Word-wrapping, that puts in the ends of lines automatically on reaching the right-hand side of the screen, was another counter-creative feature.


1571 Golding Calvin on Ps. xii. 3 This dubblehartednesse..maketh men dubble⁓tunged & *woordwresters.


1933 L. Bloomfield Language xvii. 285 A better name [for ideographic writing]..would be *word-writing or logographic writing. 1942 ― in C. Hockett Bloomfield Anthol. (1970) 385 In word writing each word is represented by a conventional sign... Chinese writing is the most perfect system of this kind.

    
    

    
     ▸ slang (orig. U.S., in the language of rap and hip-hop). Also word up. Expressing affirmation, agreement, or admiration: ‘That's the truth!’ ‘There's no denying it!’ ‘For sure!’

1981 J. Spicer et al. Money (Dollar Bill Y'all) (song) in L. A. Stanley Rap: the Lyrics (1992) 301 Word.., that's a good record, man. 1986 ‘Cameo’ (title of record) Word up! 1993 B. Cross It's not about Salary 251 Tommy Boy signed it, and here's the House of Pain, word up. 2002 N. McDonell Twelve liii. 133 ‘Yo b, we gonna smoke some mad bowls tonight,’ Timmy says to Mark Rothko. ‘Word, word,’ Mark Rothko agrees sagely.

    
    

    
     ▸ colloq. (orig. U.S.). (the) word on the street: a rumour or piece of information or gossip currently in circulation. Cf. sense A. 4b.

1919 Evening Capital (Annapolis, Maryland) (Electronic text) 4 Jan. (advt.) Chandler is back to $1795. That's the word on the street today. 1977 Washington Post (Nexis) 17 July a5 The word on the street is that next time it's the torch. 2001 Sci Fi June 32/1 Word on the street is that the Hughes brothers are calling this an ‘urban thriller’.

▪ II. word, v.
    (wɜːd)
    [f. word n.; cf. OHG. wortôn in spilewortôn to jest, MHG. worten to converse, discourse, ON. orða to talk, Goth. -waurdjan to speak).]
    1. a. intr. To utter words; to speak, talk, Obs. or arch.

c 1205 Lay. 18052 Þe king wordede þus. 1393 Langl. P. Pl. C. xiv. 246 Whi ȝe worden to me þus was for ich aresonede reson. ? a 1400 Morte Arth. 3393 And now wate thow my woo, worde as the lykes. c 1400 Beryn 3261 Al be that Geffrey wordit sotilly, The Steward & þe burgeysis held it for foly, Al that evir he seyd. 1690 C. Nesse O. & N. Test. I. 131 The judge..will not ask men..how they have worded, but how they have walked. 1819 Keats Hyperion ii. 251 Thus wording timidly among the fierce. 1850 [see wording vbl. n. 1].


    b. to word it: to talk, esp. excessively or violently; to have (high) words with. Obs. or dial.

1612 Webster White Devil ii. i. C 3 b, My Lords, you shall not word it any further Without a milder limit. 1613 Day Dyall vi. (1614) 102, I will not stand wording it with our Adversaries. 1643 Trapp Comm. Gen. xi. 7 Thus God words it with them. 1647 ― Comm. Jas. iii. 13 (1656) 909 [Who is a Wise man.] Not he that words it most; for multiloquio stultiloquium. 1692 L'Estrange Fables ccccxxiii. 399 He that..contemns a Shrew to the Degree of not Descending to Word it with her. a 1716 South Serm. (1744) X. 148 Men may snarl, and word it high against providence. a 1825 Forby Voc. E. Anglia, Word, to dispute; to wrangle. Ex. ‘They worded it a long while’.

    2. trans. To utter in words, say, speak (occas. as distinct from singing); † also, to speak of, mention. Obs. or arch.

13.. E.E. Allit. P. C. 421 When I hade worded quatsoeuer I cowþe, To manace alle þise mody men. 1606 Shakes. Ant. & Cl. iv. xiii. 9 Say, that the last I spoke was Anthony, And word it (prythee) pitteously. 1611 ― Cymb. iv. ii. 240, I cannot sing: Ile weepe, and word it with thee. 1663 Waterhouse Fortescutus Illustratus 424 This way of Government being..changed,..it was made capitall (not onely to endeavour, but even to word the restitution thereof). 1849 [see wording vbl. n. 1].


    † 3. a. To ply or urge with words. Obs. rare.

1606 Shakes. Ant. & Cl. v. ii. 191 He words me Gyrles, he words me, That I should not be Noble to my selfe.

    † b. To bring by the use of words (into or out of a specified condition or course of action). Obs.

c 1645 Howell Lett. (1650) II. xix. 32 To have to doe with perverse irrationall half-witted men, and to be worded to death with nonsence. 1692 South Serm. I. Ep. Ded. A 3 b, Men are not to be Worded into new Tempers, or Constitutions. a 1716 Ibid., 1 Peter ii. 23 (1744) VIII. 187 Not..to word away our souls, or declaim ourselves into perdition.

    4. a. To express in or put into words; to compose, draw up. Obs. exc. as in b.

1613 (title) Songs of Mourning... Worded by Tho. Campion. And set forth to bee sung with one voyce to the Lute, or Violl: by John Coprario. 1623 Lisle ælfric on O. & N. Test. To Rdr. 32 It would giue vs occasion either in wording or sentensing the principall parts thereof to looke back a little into this outworne dialect. 1654 Whitlock Zootomia 210 Before the first Logician ever worded a Proposition. 1658–9 Burton's Diary (1828) IV. 225, I would have the question worded, before you rise, lest to-morrow be spent in it. a 1700 Ken Hymnotheo Poet. Wks. 1721 III. 282 Love dictated, Love worded ev'ry Line. 1806 W. Taylor in Ann. Rev. IV. 604 Spreading languages..have flourished and have faded, without wording one eminent narrative poem. 1831 Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. (1842) I. 456 This statement of limits is found worded over again in the Protocol.

    b. esp., and now only, with reference to the kind of language or form of words used; hence freq. with advb. qualification.

1619 Middleton Love & Antiq. Wks. (Bullen) VII. 315 Triumphs, wherein Art hath been but weakly imitated and most beggarly worded. 1671 Baxter Holiness lxiv. 18 They have not the skil to word and methodize their notions rightly. 1701 J. Norris Ideal World i. ii. 126 'Tis in reality one and the same question, only differently worded. 1713 Pope Let. to Addison 14 Dec., This little instant of our life, which (as Shakespear finely words it) is rounded with a sleep. 1836 Thirlwall Greece xx. III. 153 Instructions angrily worded. 1883 R. Broughton Belinda i. viii, It is coarsely worded, I admit,..but, believe me, the advice is sound. 1908 R. Bagot A. Cuthbert xxii. 267 She kept repeating to herself various ways of wording her message; for it was..no easy one to construct.

    c. nonce-uses. To represent as in words; to pad out with (unnecessary) words.

1611 Shakes. Cymb. i. iv. 16 This matter of marrying his Kings Daughter..words him (I doubt not) a great deale from the matter. 1646 T. Coleman Brotherly Exam. Re-ex. Postscript 22 Pamphlets..wherein six pages..are worded out to thirty six.

    d. intr. for pass. To admit translation into words. poet.—1 (after wear v.1 15).

1935 L. MacNeice Poems 26 My dream will word well—But will not wear well.

    5. To speak to, accost; to tell, pass word to. Also to rebuke or tell off. Austral. slang.

1906 E. Dyson Fact'ry 'Ands i. 2 I'll word 'em [girls] when they pass again. 1916 C. J. Dennis Songs Sentimental Bloke 50 I met 'im on the quite, An' worded 'im about a small affair. 1936 N. Marsh Death in Ecstasy vi. 79 He looks more like a regular dick. An' yet if I worded him maybe he'd talk back like a bud's guide to society stuff. 1945 Baker Austral. Lang. vi. 121 He..words him, rebukes him. 1967 K. S. Pritchard Subtle Flame 234 Ted worded a mate of his on the Western Star.

▪ III. word
    obs. (erron.) form of weird n.

14.. Guy Warw. (Camb.) 1155, 7416.


▪ IV. word
    see ord, world, worth v.

Oxford English Dictionary

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