marchant
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: marchants
Senses: examples: text: His wife (having invented a present shift) laughed on her husband, saying: What marchant I pray you have you brought home hither, to fetch away my tub for five pence, for which I poore woman that sit all day alone in my house have beene proffered so often seaven: […]
ref: 1566, William Adlington, The Golden Asse:
text: By Jove, master marchant, by sea or by land
Would get but smale argent if I did not stand
His very good master, I may say to you,
When he hazards in hope what hap will insue.
ref: 1575, “Apius and Virginia”, in Isaac Reed, Octavius Gilchrist, editors, A Select Collection of Old Plays, London: Septimus Prowett, published 1826, page 353:
text: Now by the chaunge of a vizard one man might play the king and the carter, the old nurse and the yong damsell, the marchant and the souldier or any other part he listed very conveniently.
ref: 1589, George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie, Book I, Chapter 14:
text: Faith Gentlemen now I play a marchants part,
And venture madly on a deſperate Mart.
ref: c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 217, column 2:
text: ‘What thinke you of this English, tel me I pray you.’ ‘It is a language that wyl do you good in England but passe Dover, it is woorth nothing.’ ‘Is it not used then in other countreyes?’ ‘No sir, with whom wyl you that they speake?’ ‘With English marchants.’ ‘English marchantes, when they are out of England, it liketh hem not, and they doo not speake it.
ref: 1591, John Florio, Second Frutes to be gathered of twelve trees, of diverse but delightful tastes to the tongues of Italian and English:
text: In an other corner, Mistris Minx, a marchants wife, that will eate no cherries, forsooth, but when they are at twentie shillings a pound, that lookes as simperingly as if she were besmeard, and iets it as gingerly as if she were dancing the canaries, […]
ref: 1592, Thomas Nash[e], Pierce Penilesse His Supplication to the Deuill. […], London: […] [John Charlewood for] Richard Ihones, […], →OCLC:
text: The Marchant that returnes from ſome far forrain lands,
Eſcaping dreadfull rocks and dangerous ſhelfs and ſands,
When as he ſees his ſhip her home-hauen enter ſafe,
Will he repine at God, and as offended chafe
For being brought to ſoone home to his natiue ſoile,
Free from all perills ſad that threaten ſaylor’s ſpoile?
ref: 1594, Odet de la Noue, translated by Iosuah Silvester, The Profit of Imprisonment. A Paradox, VVritten in French by Odet de la Noue, Lord of Teligni, Being Prisoner in the Castle of Tournay., London: […] Peter Short, for Edward Blunt:
text: To whom they shewed, how those marchants were
Arriv'd in place their bondslaves for to buy […].
ref: 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
text: The grasse and herbe doth fat sheepe in very short space, proued by English marchants which haue caried sheepe thither for fresh victuall and had them raised exceeding fat in lesse then three weekes.
ref: 1598, Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I.:
text: You Marchant Mercers, and Monopolites,
Gain-greedy Chap-men, periur'd Hypocrites,
Diſſembling Broakers, made of all deceipts,
VVho falſifie your Meaures and your VVeights,
T' enrich you ſelues, and your vnthrifty Sons
To Gentillize with proud poſſeſſions: […]
ref: 1608, [Guillaume de Salluste] Du Bartas, “[Du Bartas His First Week, or Birth of the World: […].] The Third Daie of the First Week.”, in Josuah Sylvester, transl., Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Humfrey Lownes [and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson […]], published 1611, →OCLC, page 73:
text: "An' he bes free times as old as herself," he wailed, " an' ugly as a squid ! But he bes rich — rich as any marchant — an' for the bread an' the fixin's an' the gold she bes takin' 'im."
ref: 1916, The Windsor Magazine - Volume 44, page 353:
glosses: Obsolete form of merchant.