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Glossary (words starting with G)

gabion a wicker basket, of cylindrical form, usually open at both ends, intended to be filled with earth, for use in fortification and engineering (OED 1)

gadder One who gads about, who wanders idly looking for pleasure, perhaps up to no good. From Proverbs 5.6 (mobility of the 'strange woman' and 7.11-12, and elsewhere. See Donald Lupton, London and the Country Carbonadoed (1632): 'they hold that a harsh place of Scripture, That women must be no goers or gadders abroad' (p. 30); and Barnabe Rich, My Ladies Looking Glasse (1616): 'Solomon thinketh that a good woman should be a home housewife, he pointeth her out her housework. She overseeth the ways of her household, she must look to her children, her servants and family: but the paths of a harlot (he saith) are moveable, for now she is in the house, now in the streets, now she lieth in wait in every corner, she is still gadding from place to place, from person to person, from company to company: from custom to custom she is ever more wandering: her feet are wandering, her eyes are wandering, her wits are wandering, her ways are like the ways of a serpent: hard to be found out' (p. 43).

gadding that gads or gads about, wandering, straggling (OED ppl)

gadzooks an oath

gage wager

gage quart pot (OED n2. 1)

gaiety lighthearted and thoughtless merriment; levity

gain object of desire (increase of advantage)

gain advantage; increase in possessions (OED n1 and n2, 2a)

gainest easiest (dialect)

gainsaid opposed, spoken against, refused

gait manner of walking, stepping

gall bile, venom

gall bitter secretion of the liver, bile; used figuratively to suggest bitterness, rancour, esp. as the result of injury or insult (OED n1. 1 and 3b)

gall make sore by chafing or rubbing

gallant fashionable, polished, chivalrous (the focus is more on social than moral attributes)

gallant characteristic of the fashionable and sophisticated

gallant fine fellows (ironic: see OED n. 2a)

gallant fashionable young man

gallantly splendidly, in a way befitting a gallant; with exaggerated courtesy or politeness (OED adv. 4)

galliard a lively dance in triple time

gallipot small earthenware pot often used by apothecaries and for trapping insects

gallows-clappers rogues (that is, wretches destined for the gallows, where a hanged body will swing in the wind like the clapper in a bell)

gambols leaps or springs in dancing or sporting; capers; more generally, frolicsome merrymaking (OED 2a and 2c)

game woman as quarry; sexual act

game puns on game as sporting activity and sexual act (Williams 2: 573-4); cf. Massinger’s The Bondman (Lady Elizabeth’s Men, 1623): ‘some great women [...] in a dearth of visitants, / Rather than be idle, have been glad to play / At small game’ (Edwards and Gibson, eds., vol. 1, 2.2.41-4); compare the use of the word ‘gamester’ for those who indulge in sexual play

game sexual activity, particularly prostitution (as in the modern 'on the game')

game card games; amorous sport

game fun, mirth (OED n. 1); schemes, intrigue (OED n. 5); card or dice games, and hence gambling; hunting (OED n. 9); the object of the chase (OED n. 10)

game dice game; gambling

game the winning position, victory in a contest, mastery (OED n. 7)

game-bears bears chained up for baiting (OED, game, n17); 'game' also suggests 'plucky, spirited' (OED, game, a1. a), the meaning of being 'keen, ready' coming later in the mid-nineteenth century (according to OED)

gamesome merry, playful (OED); but with a pun on ‘game’, meaning sexual act, and ‘gamester’, someone who indulges in sexual play

gamester one who lives by gambling, a professional dice- or card-player

gamester gambler

gamester professional dice-player (OED 3), lewd man (OED 5)

gamester one who gambles (OED 3); lewd person of either sex (OED 5)

gamesters gamblers; those who engage in sexual ‘play’

gaming gambling

gan gone (Yorkshire dialect)

gan mouth (cant)

gangrene necrosis or mortification (or dying off) of a part of the body

gape yawn (OED 6)

gapes longs, opens its mouth eagerly

gar to make or cause (Scottish and Northern dialect form)

gar him get him to (dialect)

garb style, fashion

garb form of behaviour (OED n², 3)

garb distinctive fashion, though the OED records that until 1702 the meaning could be extended to include 'a person’s outward bearing', which would seem relevant here to fall in line with the other foreign idiosyncratic mannerisms listed

garb prevailing mode or fashion; style of living, form of behaviour (OED n2. 3)

garbist one who is skilled in polite behaviour (OED's only recorded use of this term)

gather deduce, conclude (OED v. 10)

gather infer, guess that

gather wind get one’s breath back

gathered amassed (OED gather v, 3a); gained (OED gather v, 8); inferred, deduced (OED gather v, 10)

gathers concludes

gauds something gaudy; showy ornaments, pieces of finery; gewgaws (OED n2. 2)

gaudy highly ornate, showy (OED `gaudy' adj 2, 3A)

gave...light enlightened, informed

gay ‘bright or lively-looking, esp. in colour; brilliant, showy’ (OED adj. 2a)

gear apparel, clothing (OED I, 1a)

gear habits, manners (OED 1c; obsolete; rare)

gear apparatus generally (OED n. II 5a)

gear goods, merchandise, stuff (but in a depreciatory sense, meaning rubbish) but also in slang at this date may punningly refer to the sexual organs, much like the twenty-first century use of the word, tackle (OED gear n, 9a, 10 and 5b)

gelding castrated stallion

gelding (v) castrating

geldings castrated stallions

gelt castrated

general collective

generation continuing propagation of the species

Generous ‘noble, of good race, excellent, of a gentleman-like disposition’ (Florio); also virtuous, liberal, and stout-hearted

generous noble, of good birth or pedigree

genius guardian spirit (thought in classical belief to govern someone’s fortunes and determine his character (OED 1); ‘Natural ability or capacity; quality of mind; the special endowments which fit a man for his peculiar work.’ (OED 4: the earliest citation dates from 1649, but it may be applicable here)

genius attendant spirit, guardian

gent a contraction of gentle

gentle kind, courteous

gentle as befits a gentleman in demeanour

gentle (adverbial use) gently, slowly, softly

gentle associated with the gentry

gentle carriage demeanour or behaviour appropriate to the gentry, or to gentlemen

gentlefolks well-born people; people of gentry status

gentleman-usher an usher is an official or servant who has charge of the door and admits people to a hall or chamber; a gentleman-usher is a gentleman who acts as an usher to a person of superior rank

gentler kinder, courteous, more civilised, honourable and honoured

gentry coves' gentlemen's (cant).

get beget, conceive

get beget, father

get beget; gain

get up to recover an expense, loss or arrears (OED get v, 80n)

Getes the Getae, the Thracian tribe among whom Ovid was sent into exile

getten got (Yorkshire dialect)

getting begetting, conceiving

getting begetting; conception

ghastly pale, death-like, wan; terrible (OED adj. 2 and 1a)

gi' me the lie give me the lie, call me a liar to my face (OED n1. 2a)

gib familiar name for a cat

gibb’rish gibberish: unintelligible speech

gibe to speak sneeringly

gibship (personality of a) cat

giddiness thoughtless folly (with sense of haste); dizziness

giddy-headed foolish, angry, excitable

giglet lewd, wanton (laughing) woman, i.e. Doris

giglet lewd, wanton (laughing) woman

gill a quarter of a pint

gimbals ‘joints, connecting links (in machinery)’ (OED gimbal 2)

gimcrack mechanical contrivance (OED n & a, 2b)

gimcrack 'An affected showy person', used contemptuously of women (OED n. and a. 3)

gin trap (OED n1. 4); cunning (OED n1. 1); device, trick (OED n1. 2)

gin if, whether (OED, conj.; Scottish and dialect term; and records 1674 as its earliest example but this is clearly the sense here in Brome's usage)

gin against, by (OED, prep.)[e.g. 'God gin the priest had been by' = 'By God, if the priest had been by!']

gin trap (for animals)

ging company, gang (OED n. 3); cf. Jonson, The New Inn: ‘I would not willingly / See, or be seen, to any of this ging, / Especially the lady.’ (Michael Hattaway, ed., The New Inn [Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984], 1.5.45-7)

ging (disdainful) 'a company of armed men, a troop, army, host', in keeping with the military performance (OED 1);

gip an intensitive; an exclamation of anger or remonstrance addressed to a horse; an expression of surprise, derision, or contempt addressed to a person; the equivalent of 'get out', 'go along with you' (OED)

girdle belt worn around the waist, from which personal items could be suspended

girdle-glass a portable mirror attached to a woman’s girdle

girl 'used as a form of address to a girl or woman' (OED n. 4; OED cites the example of The Love-Sick Court, 3.3)

giv't give it

give give away in marriage

give fetch, be worth (OED v. 34)

give over finish, give up, i.e. stop (OED, give, v. 63)

give way allow freedom (OED, give, v. 49d)

given bestowed as a gift (OED adj. 1a)

given you the slip evaded or escaped from you; eluded, stolen off or slipped away from you unperceived

gives light enlightens, informs

gi’n given

gi’t give it (i.e. give it to)

gladsome cheerful, joyous

glanceth alludes or refers (to)

glass mirror

glaziers eyes (cant) (OED 5)

glee entertainment, play, or more generally mirth

gleek a card game involving 3 players and 44 cards

glister-pipe a pipe for administering enemas (listed in OED under 'clyster')

Globe the Globe Theatre built by Cuthbert and Richard Burbage in 1598/99 for the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men), the company in which William Shakespeare was a share-holder. A replica of the Globe exists near the original site, close to Southwark Bridge.

gloring gleaming, glittering (OED cites this as a possible invention of Brome's)

glory rejoice proudly (OED v¹, 1)

gloss plausible pretext, deceptive appearance (OED n2. 1b)

gloss superficial lustre (OED n2. 1a)

gloze to comment or explain, but usually with the intimation that the talk is specious or dubiously flattering

go to be sold for or disposed of for a sum of money (see OED go 24a)

go habitually to appear, be ordinarily dressed in a particular manner

go about endeavour, contrive (OED, about, adv. and prep. 10); in nautical terms, to change course (OED 6b), i.e. to deviate from the prescribed speech

go down find acceptance (with a person); appeal to (someone ) (OED go v, 80g)

go hard (with a person) be to their disadvantage (OED, hard, adv. 2c)

go to an exhortation, equivalent to ‘come, come’ (OED go v, 93b)

go to an exhortation, equivalent to 'come, come', or the modern 'for heaven's sake' (OED go v, 93b)

go-betwixt go-between, mediator, pander

go-well prosperous journey outward (OED go v, VIII)

goad A rod or stick, pointed at one end or fitted with a sharp spike and employed for driving cattle, esp. oxen used in ploughing; figuratively, an incitement or spur to action (OED n1. 1, 2b).

goatish a) like a goat; b) lustful (because goats were proverbially so)

godling inferior deity, a god possessing little power

godsire godfather

goes is said

gold coin(s) made of gold; large sums of money (OED gold 1, 2a)

goll hand

gondolier one who rows a gondola about the canals of Venice, steering with a single oar from the rear of the boat

gonhelly a Cornish term for a pony (OED’s earliest citation is from 1640)

Good a courteous way of addressing someone (‘good sir’ would be more usual, and it is possible that a word is missing)

Good a courteous way of addressing someone

good lack an exclamation along the same lines as ‘good heavens!’ or ‘good grief!’

good man master or male head of a household (sometimes spelled as one word)

good parts admirable qualities

good-fellow ‘agreeable or jovial companion’ (OED n. 1), drinking buddy, reveller

good-fellows convivial companions (drinking buddies)

goodman a man of substance, a leader (often with the implication of a moral leader)

Goody a term of civility formerly applied to a woman, usually a married woman, in humble life; often prefixed as a title to the surname; hence, a woman to whose station this title is appropriate (OED Goody 1a)

gorgeous in referring to dress: adorned with rich or brilliant colours; sumptuously gay or splendid; showy, magnificent (OED adj. 1)

gorgets the word ‘gorget’ can refer to a piece of female clothing covering the neck and breast, such as a wimple (OED gorget n1, 2); a necklace (OED gorget n1, 3); or a piece of armour worn around the throat (OED gorget n1, 1)

Gorgons in classical Greek mythology, the Gorgons (Stheno, Euryale and Medusa) had wings on their shoulders, serpents for hair, boars' tusks for teeth, and bronze hands (of these three sisters, only Medusa, the ugliest, was mortal)

goshawk the largest, round-winged hawk in Europe, generally deployed in hunting minor game

gossip loosely, friend or neighbour (originally, godparent, but that is clearly not the meaning here, since Doughty is the godfather, not the miller)

gossiping christening party, at which godparents and friends celebrate the birth of a child and survival of the mother

gossips godparents (but more particularly the godmothers)

got begot, fathered

got begotten, conceived

gout ‘a specific constitutional disease occurring in paroxysms, usually hereditary and in male subjects; characterized by painful inflammation of the smaller joints, esp. that of the great toe, and the deposition of sodium urate in the form of chalk-stones; it often spreads to the larger joints and the internal organs’ (OED n1. 1); the word can also be used to refer to venereal disease, as Williams notes (2: 612), ‘partly through confusion of symptoms, partly as euphemism’; however, Wat’s comparison depends on a clear distinction being drawn between gout and the pox, so it is unlikely that this sense is primary here

governed family well-managed household

government rule, the political system; authority

government direction, control, orders

grace puns on gratify: give pleasure to

grace the blessing of the food ('meat')

grace honour

grace sexual favour

grace goodwill; clemency

grace seemliness, sense of propriety

grace ‘seemliness, becomingness, favourable or creditable aspect’ (OED n. 1b); ‘the divine influence which operates in men to regenerate and sanctify, to inspire virtuous impulses, and to impart strength to endure trial and resist temptation’ (OED n. 11b)

grace ‘attractive or pleasing quality or feature’ (OED n. 2a)

grace charm or attractiveness belonging to ease and refinement of movement, action or expression (OED n. 1)

grace (v) show favour to; confer honours on

grace (n) 'a short prayer either asking a blessing before, or rendering thanks after, a meal' (OED n. 20)

grace favour

grace (n) courtesy title used to a king or queen

grace (n) seemliness (OED n. 1b); sense of propriety (OED n. 13b); attractiveness, charm (OED n. 1a); show of willingness (OED n. 1c)

grace og by the grace of God: og is a variant on ‘gog’, a corruption of ‘god’ used in oaths

graceless wicked, ungodly

gracious virtuous; blessed

grain diminutive particle, the least fraction

grains extremely small units of weight in scales to determine value

grains smallest English units of weight; twelve grains would amount to 3/1750ths of a pound avoirdupois

gramercy thanks

grand great, pre-eminent

grand chief, capital

grannam's grandmother's

grant admit, acknowledge

grateful manifesting gratitude (OED 2); pleasing (OED 1)

grateful agreeable, welcome (OED adj.1)

gratias thanks

gratify reward; give a gratuity, especially as a reward, payment or bribe; to pay for services (OED v. 2)

gratis freely, without charge

grave sombre, (but also with the sense of "marked for the grave"), elderly

grave influential, respected, authoritative (OED a1, 1); formidable (OED a1, 2b)

grave weighty, important (OED a1, 2)

grave serious

grazier a person who grazes or feeds cattle ready for sale at market (OED 2)

greasy used as a contemptuous epithet (OED)

great important, serious; noble

great important, powerful, eminent

great housekeeper a householder who keeps a hospitable and large house; a hospitable property-owner

great kettle large pot or cauldron used for heating water or other liquids; in this case, beef-broth

great-bellied pregnant

greedy worm greediness or lustfulness as an itching passion in the heart (OED worm, 11c)

green-sickness an anæmic disease which mostly affects young women about the age of puberty and gives a pale or greenish tinge to the complexion; generally deployed ironically to denote a girl's mooniness when first in love

greet weep, cry (OED v. 2; Northern and Scottish dialect)

gresco saut a card game, mentioned but not described in early modern literature

grief misfortune

grievance infliction of hardship, injury (OED 1)

grieve harass, trouble, vex, hurt (OED v. 2)

grieved afflicted, troubled, distressed (OED adj. 4)

grievous burdensome (OED adj. 1a); sorrowful (OED adj. 6)

grigs wild and merry youths (a meaning derived from the term used to define slippery eels)

gripe pinch (OED n1. 2a), figurative

gripe grasp

griped grasped or clutched; grappled with; seized or gripped

griping grasping, devouring (OED adj. 1); painful, distressing (OED adj. 2); a ‘gripe’ can also mean a spasmodic pain in the bowels (OED gripe n1, 2b)

gristle tender, delicate person (OED n. 3), with reference to the delicate bones of infancy; also, proverbial meek patient wife (from Chaucer's Clerk's Tale)

groat coin valued at roughly fourpence (OED 2), which in today's currency would be worth about £1.43

groom manservant, but in the seventeenth century taking on the more specific meaning of servant who takes care of horses

grope feel their way, as if they are in the dark

gross flagrant, striking, monstrous

gross ‘brutally lacking in refinement or decency’ (OED adj. 15)

gross large, great; coarse

gross total, whole sum

grossly palpably; excessively

ground valid reason, justifying motive (OED n. 5c)

ground set or establish; rely upon, especially in argument; investigate thoroughly; provide a background or basis for painting, embroidery, or other art (that is, the play is based upon the current event of the Lancashire so-called witches whose story had caught the public imagination, and who had just arrived in London for a new hearing)

ground foundation

grounded established, fixed; based, on these grounds, on this basis

groundsels foundation timbers, or lowest timbers in a house’s framework

groundwork cause

groundwork foundation

groves small woods; groups of trees giving shade

growth outcome

grubbing clearing ground of roots and stumps (as in the 'grubbing up' of fruit trees)

grudge cause of complaint or resentment

grudge conscience, scruple, misgiving

grudge (n) discontent; reluctance; resentment, ill-will

grudge (v) grumble, complain

grudging 'an access or slight symptom of an approaching illness' (OED n. 2)

grudging grumbling about (someone or something); begrudge

grudging complaining, being discontented

grunter and bleater pork and lamb or mutton

grutch OED to murmer, complain, repine

guard posture of defence (in sword-fighting, etc.) (OED n. 3a)

gudgeon a small fresh-water fish (Gobio fluviatilis), which was often used for bait (OED n1. 1); therefore used to refer to someone gullible, who ‘will bite at any bait or swallow anything’ (OED n1. 2a)

gudgeon (literally) a small fresh-water fish; (figuratively) a gullible person (OED gudgeon n1, 2a)

guerdon (of) reward (for)

guise fashion, manner

gulf whirlpool; ‘that which devours or swallows up anything’ (OED n. 3)

gull a credulous person; one easily imposed upon; a dupe, simpleton, fool (OED gull n, 3)

gull to dupe, cheat, deceive (OED v. 3)

gulled duped, deceived, fooled

gullery usually means deception or trickery (an attempt to gull or trick), but given Ambrose’s reply it may also mean foolishness (‘gull’ also means a foolish person)

gullery trickery

gypsy cunning, deceitful; also used as a derogatory term for a woman, similar to 'hussy' or 'baggage' (OED n. 2b), so could refer to the actions of such a woman

gyves shackles for the legs (OED gyve)