Middle English Dictionary Entry

draught n.
Quotations: Show all Hide all

Entry Info

Forms draught n. Also draucht, drauȝt, drauht & draght, dract, dragt, draȝt, draht, drathe, draiȝt & draugth, draȝth, drauȝhthte & draufthe & draut, drauth.
Etymology Prob. OE *dreaht, *dræht (cp. OE dragan v. & OI drāttr, OHG traht, MDu. dracht, etc.).

Definitions (Senses and Subsenses)

1.
(a) The action of pulling, a pull, pulling in harness; (b) pulling or drawing a net to catch birds or fish; (c) the drawing of water from a well; drawing of liquor from a cask, etc.; (d) one cut of a saw through a timber or the like; also, a cut made with a carving knife; (e) fithele ~, the playing of a fiddle; (f) the dragging of an offender through the streets; (g) pressure exerted on a scale so as to modify its results (specifically in order to compensate for prospective loss or damage), cloff.
Show 20 Quotations
2.
(a) A blow with a sword; also, a spear thrust; at a (one) ~, with one blow; (b) a shot with bow and arrow; also fig.
Show 13 Quotations
3.
(a) A motion or movement, course; haven a ~, ?to take a walk; maken ~, make (one's) way, direct (one's) course; taken a ~, advance; (b) a move in chess (or in related games); (c) in pl.: chess or a similar game; (d) the course of one's life; a turn of fate; (e) a trick, stratagem; drauen (haven) ~, to play a trick, engage in a deceitful or sinful activity.
Show 23 Quotations
4.
(a) A mechanism for drawing water from a well, ?a well sweep; (b) a place a fishing net may be drawn; (c) ~ of boteleres, a company of butlers; (d) a current; fig. ~ of deth; (e) attraction, power to attract or draw; (f) desire, inclination; (g) skill in designing or constructing.
Show 15 Quotations
5.
(a) A drawbridge; (b) something drawn or spun out, thread, fiber; (c) entrails drawn from a fish.
Show 6 Quotations
6.
(a) A load (for man or beast), a burden; also, a variable measure of weight or quantity; of eighte oxen ~, requiring eight oxen to draw; (b) the number of fish caught in one haul, a catch.
Show 7 Quotations
7.
(a) The quantity of liquid that one drinks at a time; a drink of water, wine, potion, etc.; drauen (drinken) a ~; drauen at a ~, to drink (sth.) in one pull; (b) fig. a draught of love, pleasure, misfortune, understanding, etc.
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8.
The distance an arrow can be shot with a bow, crossbow, or arbalest; a bowshot; arblastes ~, arwe ~, boue ~.
Show 9 Quotations
9.
(a) That which is drawn or written; a line, drawing, design, character; (b) ?a furrow on the working surface of a millstone; (c) a copy or draft of a writing; (d) a treatise.
Show 9 Quotations
10.
Education, training.
Show 3 Quotations
11.
A mystical ecstasy.
Show 1 Quotation
12.
Cpds.: (a) ~ bed, a folding bed; ~ bem, a beam that can be raised and lowered; ~ brigge, a drawbridge; ~ chaumbre, a room to which one can retire, a private room; (b) ~ lef, the section of a bridge that can be raised and lowered; ~ lover, a louver [cp. lǒver]; ~ nail, a punch for driving nails below the surface of the wood; ~ notes, notes sung slowly or drawn out; ~ ox, an ox used for drawing a plow or wagon; ~ pinne, a pin of some kind as part of a wagon; ~ rap, a rope for suspending the carcass of a slaughtered animal; ~ touail, a figured cloth or kerchief; ~ water, water drawn up from a well; ~ welle, a well from which water is drawn up.
Show 25 Quotations

Supplemental Materials (draft)

  • (1344) Acc.R.Priory HTrin.Dub.(DubPRO)61 : In c de draghtbord emptis ad Hibernicos, v s.
    • Note: New compound: ~ bord
    Note: Belongs to sense 12.(a).
    Note: Editor's note: "Boards apparently of very large size, perhaps such as were too large to be placed in a cart which had to be drawn."
  • (a1470) Malory Wks.(Win-C)1130/25 : They [wounded knights] were layde inwyth draughtes by hir chambir…that she myght herselff se unto them that thay wanted nothing.
    • Note: New sense
    Note: Vinaver: "recess"
Note: In sense 3.(e), move the (a1470) Malory quot. to sense 3.(a). Also remove the bold-faced phrase haven ~ from the gloss in sense 3.(e).--per REL

Supplemental Materials (draft)

Note: The sense given to the compound ~ nail, "a punch for driving nails below the surface of the wood," i.e., a drift pin or drift punch, is that suggested by Salzman in Building in England, but remains open to question, given that 'drift' and 'draft' normally bear opposite meanings. This point is made forcefully by E. Wilson in RES N.S. 38 (1987), 445-70, who adduces 'draw pins' and 'draw bore pins,' pins used to draw a mortise-and-tenon joint together and tighten it--but which are not tools in the usual sense. He also notes "a suggestion from Margaret Rule (excavator of the Mary Rose) that it might be a tool for extracting nails" (John Clark, "The Debate of the Carpenter's Tools Revisited," Newsletter [of the] Tools and Trades History Society 119 (Winter 2012), p. 4). If Rule's suggestion is valid, however, the unusual verb + object form of the compound ('pull-nail' = 'nail-puller') bears comparison with an equally obscure compound in the same poem 'rewle-stone', which may be a 'roll-stone' or pinch bar.

Supplemental Materials (draft)

  • a1400 Trin-C O.9.39 Recipes (Trin-C O.9.39) 32/21 : Whanne þat alle þy colours ben þus dried vp, as many colours as þu hast of oon godenesse put hem togidres, and oþere þat be nouht so gode as ben þylke of the furste drawt put hem togydres.
    • Note: Clarke's gloss = 'draught (liquid)'. ?Poss. new sense = 'selection'. ?Cf. OED draught, n., sense 34.

Supplemental Materials (draft)

  • a1500 Sln.122 Artist.Recipes (Sln 122) 115/7 : Take a pensel oþer a florischyng penne and drawe smale drawthis vpon þe blewe lettere.
  • a1500 Dc.45 Artist.Recipes (Dc 45) 146/29 : Take a pensel and wete þerin..and draw what drawttes þt þu wilt, and softely ley þy gold ful þeroppon.
    • Note: Additional quot., sense 9.(a). New spelling (pl.) = drawthis & drawttes.
  • a1500 Sln.122 Artist.Recipes (Sln 122) 117/14 : With a pensel drawe thy drawthes [Add 18216: þraȝ þy þraȝtes] on yron or copere.
    • Note: Additional quot., sense 9.(a). ?New spelling (pl.) = drawthes & þraȝtes. See p. 352 for Clarke's commentary.
  • ?a1475 Cmb.Dd.5.76 Artist.Recipes (Cmb Dd.5.76) 218/8 : Take a pencell or a florissyng pen and draw smal draghtes: if it be not clere within þan es it not fyne.
    • Note: Need date, sense 9.(a).

Supplemental Materials (draft)

  • a1425 Daniel *Treat.Uroscopy (BodeMus 187:Harvey)f.26v (2.4) : 'Artetica passio' is causede of mater reumatik falland fro þe cerebre doun to þe neþer parties of þe body, & namely to þe parties þat ar more noble & more worþi, as to þe spirituales..Which parties, in as mykel as þai be more noble, here draught is þe more myȝty.
    • Note: ?New sense. Harvey and Tavormina gloss = 'draw, pull'.
  • ?c1400(1379) Daniel *Treat.Uroscopy (Roy 17.D.1)f.33rb (2.3) : Somtyme þe vryn is blo mykel like a draght of lede wiþ a plum in papir or in a perchemyne lef.
    • Note: Additional quot., sense 9.(a).

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