rere-supper Obs. exc. arch.
Also 4–5 -soper(e, 4–6 -souper; 6–7 reare-, 7 rear-, reer-supper. (Written indifferently with or without hyphen and as one word.)
[a. AF. rere-super: see rere- and supper.]
A supper (usually of a sumptuous nature) following upon the usual evening meal, and thus coming very late at night. (App. in use down to the early part of the 17th c.)
| 1303 R. Brunne Handl. Synne 7260 Rere sopers yn pryuyte [F. les rere supers en priuité]. Ibid. 7268 Ȝyt are þere ouþer rere sopers Wyþ men þat serue knyȝtys and squyers. 1390 Gower Conf. III. 32 Thanne is he redy in the weie Mi reresouper forto make. c 1430 Lydg. Min. Poems (Percy Soc.) 90 He fonde up first ryot and dronkennesse..Fonde reresoupers and fetherbeddis softe. a 1450 Knt. de la Tour (1868) 8 Also she wold haue rere sopers whanne her fader and moder was a-bedde. 1509 Fisher Serm. C'tess Richmond Wks. (1876) 294 Eschewynge bankettes, reresoupers, ioncryes betwyxe meales. 1553 T. Wilson Rhet. 110 b, With banquetyng from daie to daie, with sumptuous reare suppers. 1606 G. W[oodcocke] Hist. Ivstine xii. 55 Immediatly vpon a banket, the Physician Thessalus made a reare-supper. 1665 R. Brathwait Comment Two Tales 50, Reer Suppers were my Solace: I suited my youthful Fancy to jovial Company. [1826 Scott Woodst. xvi, He was guilty of the enormity of rere-suppers. 1830 James Darnley xxvi, Prognostications of a rere supper.] |