Piers Plowman

Backbiting

Backbiting, and bearing of false witness.

Can

I can rimes of Robin Hood.

I can no Latin, quod she.

Corps

By what craft in my corps, it cometh [commences] and where.

Courb

Then I courbed on my knees.

Delicate

Dives, for his delicate life, to the devil went.

Deprave

And thou knowest, conscience, I came not to chide Nor deprave thy person with a proud heart.

Ding

Diken, or delven, or dingen upon sheaves.

do

I shall . . . your cloister do make.

Egg

Adam and Eve he egged to ill.

Enseal

This deed I do enseal.

Halidom

So God me help and halidom.

Hatte

A full perilous place, purgatory it hatte.

Lack

Love them and lakke them not.

Line

Who so layeth lines for to latch fowls.

Lure

I am not lured with love.

Misty

The more I muse therein [theology], The mistier it seemeth.

Naughty

[Men] that needy be and naughty, help them with thy goods.

Pine

That people that pyned him to death.

Poss

A cat . . . possed them [the rats] about.

Reward

After the deed that is done, one doom shall reward, Mercy or no mercy as truth will accord.

Sect

He beareth the sign of poverty, And in that sect our Savior saved all mankind.

Shift

Hastily he schifte him[self].

Shrive

That they should shrive their parishioners.

Smith

What smith that any [weapon] smitheth.

Sol-fa

Yet can I neither solfe ne sing.

Spice

Hast thou aught in thy purse [bag] any hot spices?

Spinster

She spake to spinster to spin it out.

Stock

He shall rest in my stocks.

Strike

A mouse . . . struck forth sternly [bodily].

Surfeit

Let not Sir Surfeit sit at thy board.

Suster

There are seven sustren, that serve truth ever.

Team

To take his team and till the earth.

Theme

Then ran repentance and rehearsed his theme.

Tidy

A tidy man, that tened [injured] me never.

Until

Taverners until them told the same.

Warren

They wend both warren and in waste.

Wide

[I] went wyde in this world, wonders to hear.

Withwind

He bare a burden ybound with a broad list, In a withewyndes wise ybounden about.

Worth

I counsel . . . to let the cat worthe.

Wrath

If him wratheth, be ywar and his way shun.