Middle English Dictionary Entry
engreǧǧen v.
Entry Info
Forms | engreǧǧen v. P. engregged, (?error) engroged. |
Etymology | OF engregier. |
Definitions (Senses and Subsenses)
Note: Cp. agreggen.
1.
(a) To burden (someone), to oppress; (b) to make (a wrong) worse, to aggravate; (c) to harden (the heart); (d) of a disease: to worsen; of a tyrant: to grow more severe.
Associated quotations
a
- (c1390) Chaucer CT.Pars.(Manly-Rickert)I.978 : Thise thynges..engreggen the conscience of man.
- a1475 Burgh Cato(1) (Hrl 4733)408 (note p. 34) : Engreggith [Rwl C: Whan dreede of dethe a man so aggreggithe, It wastithe liff].
b
- c1410 Chaucer CT.Mel.(Hrl 7334)B.2477 : Euerych of hem [each sin] encreseth and engreggith [vr. aggreggeth] oþer.
c
- a1425(a1382) WBible(1) (Corp-O 4)Ex.7.14 : Engregid [WB(2): maad greuouse] is the herte of Pharao.
- a1425(a1382) WBible(1) (Corp-O 4)Ex.8.15 : Pharao..his herte engredgide [L ingravavit] and herde not hem.
d
- c1450(1438) GLeg.Benedict (GiL47) (Eg 876) 223/363 : Anone he was smyten withe a feuer, and eueri day the siknesse engregged, and the .vj. day he made hymselff to be born into the oratorie.
- c1450(1438) GLeg.Urban (GiL70) (Eg 876)359/8 : Dalmacien the prouost of þe citee of Rome..engroged [F: se forsenoit; Hrl 4775: engregged; Lamb 72: grucchyd] gretly ayeinst the cristen.
Supplemental Materials (draft)
Note: Sense (d) added. Gilte Legende glossary: "engregged v. pa. 'became worse'"; "engroged v. pa. 'oppressed'"--a previously unattested intransitive use. In the GLeg.Urban example, 'engroged' is treated here in MED as an erroneous variant of 'engregged,' for want of a better option, but in fact none of the English readings seem adequate to either the context or the French source ('went mad; lost his mind'); and the Hrl and Lamb readings look suspiciously like weak attempts to make sense of an unintelligible and perhaps corrupt 'engroged'. If the translator had written 'raged' or 'enraged' (the former very common and the latter found in this intransitive sense as early as Berners' Huon of Burdeux), the sense would be satisfactory and the textual history plausible. If the translator mistook French forsener 'go mad' for farsir 'stuff oneself' engorged would have been a possible, if unlikely, rendering (found in English from the turn of the sixteenth century).