† gainage Obs.
Also 4 gaignage, gaynage, 6–9 Hist. wainage.
[ad. AF. gaignage (Anglo-L. wainagium), f. gaigner: see prec.]
1. The profit or produce derived from the tillage of land.
| 1390 Gower Conf. I. 358 As the true man to the plough Only to the gaignage entendeth. c 1394 P. Pl. Crede 197, I trowe þe gaynage of þe ground, in a gret schire Nolde aparaile þat place, oo poynt til other ende. |
2. Husbandry, agriculture.
| 1625 Markham Inrichm. Weald Kent 4 We haue mention of Marle in bookes of gainage or husbandry. |
3. In the Law Dicts. of the 17–18th c., the word is given with various conjectural explanations which relate to the use of wainnagium in the passage of Magna Carta quoted below. The interpretation ‘implements of husbandry’ is probably correct, though it led to an erroneous derivation from wain.
| [1215 Magna Carta c. 20 in Stubbs Sel. Chart. 299 Liber homo..pro magno delicto amercietur..salvo contenemento suo; et mercator..salva mercandisa sua; et villanus..salvo wainnagio suo.] 1607 Cowell Interpr., Gainage, (Wainagium)..signifieth..the land held by the baser kind of Sokemen or villeines. 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Gainage, or Wainage, a Word anciently us'd to signify all Plough-tackle, and necessary Implements of Husbandry. |