▪ I. morse, n.1
(mɔːs)
Also 5 mors.
[a. OF. mors (Godef. 1380), ad. L. mors-us bite, catch (of a buckle), f. mordēre to bite.]
The clasp or fastening of a cope, frequently made of gold or silver, and set with precious stones.
| 1404 Durh. Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 394 Item j mors cum lapidibus. 1489 Will of Atwode (Somerset Ho.), A mortuary cloth of blac velvett the orfraies & mors w{supt} flowres. 1489–90 Rec. St. Mary at Hill (1905) 150 Item, for Cere clothe to the orpharas, the hode & the moose [? read morse] of the saide coope. 1536 in Antiq. Sarisb. (1771) 197 Six copes..having in the Morse red and white Roses of pearls. c 1540 Invent. in Trans. Lond. & Mdsx. Archæol. Soc. IV. 329, iij copes of white bawdekyn with fflewres of gold and dases..and thys letter I in the morses. Ibid. 349, xxvij newe morsys for copys. 1826 A. E. Bray De Foix ii. (1884) 15 His tunic was fastened in front by a morse, or brooch, richly enamelled,..and representing the Virgin Mary. |
▪ II. morse, n.2
(mɔːs)
Forms: 5–8 mors, 6 morsse, 7 morss, moss, 8 morsh, 6– morse.
[a. Lapp. morsa, morssa, or the equivalent Finnish mursu. Cf. F. morse (first in morce marin = Caxton's mors marine), Russian morzh.]
1. The sea-horse or walrus, Trichechus rosmarus.
| 1482 Caxton Chron. Eng. cclvii. 336 This yere were take iiij grete fisshes bytwene Eerethe and london, that one was callyd mors marine [etc.]. c 1553 Chancelour in Hakluyt's Voy. (1599) I. 237 There are also a fishes teeth, which fish is called a Morsse. c 1614 Voy. [to Spitzbergen] in Archœologia Amer. (1860) IV. 313 Theise morses use to goe ashoare vpon some beach or pointe of lowe land. 1710 Whitworth Acc. Russia (1758) 83 Morses, or sea-horses, from Nova Zembla, used to load thirty boats a year with blubber. 1855 W. S. Dallas in Syst. Nat. Hist. II. 471 The Walrus, Morse, or Sea-Horse,..is an inhabitant of the Arctic portions of both Hemispheres. |
† 2. Erroneously applied to the hippopotamus.
| 1775 Ash, Morse, the hippopotamus, the river horse. 1891 Syd. Soc. Lex., Morse teeth, a name given to the teeth of the hippopotamus used for making artificial teeth. |
3. attrib., as morse-hide, morse-ivory, morse-teeth.
| 1681 Grew Musæum i. §v. i. 89 A piece of a *Morse-Hide. |
| 1877 W. Jones Finger-ring 89 A *morse ivory thumb-ring of an Earl of Shrewsbury. |
| 1618 T. Barker in St. Papers Col., E. Indies 1617–21 (1870) 159 Tin, brass, *morse teeth, Muscovy hides. |