4 THE DIALECT 0¥ piece of millstone on Abimelech's head, and all to brake his skull ; ' on which passage a well-known commentator remarks, ' A most nonsensical yersion of what is literally, ** And she brake, or fractured, his skull " ' ; the writer being evidently unacquainted with this peculiar adverb. I must add that his version reads * break ' the infinitive for * brake ' the past tense, which is perhaps what has led him astray, or else is a second blunder consequent on the first. In Wordsworth's Commentary the passage is correctly rendered ; thus —
- all to brake his skull," t. e. wholly fractured his skull.* The
expression alto for entirely occurs frequently in the Toumdey Mysteries : e. g. — ' I wold be rent and aJto tome.' — Ohlacio Magorunn. [The use of dH-to as an adverb arose from entirely misunderstand- ing the M.E. al tohraky in which <d is the adverb, and tobr<ik the verb.— W. W. S.] Amang, cdso Emang, among. Often found without its substantive or pronoiui, as, ' There's a flock of geese, and ducks among,* Am*ot, contracted from am not. Without absolutely justifying this form, it may be said to compare favourably with the southern atn% Anent, prep, opposite to ; over against ; in opposition to ; in compa- rison with, &c. : an expressive and very common word, which should , be retained in the language. A cricket-ball in a line with the wicket is anent it ; when one man works in company with another, he works anent him ; a lass striving to rival a lady in the ftishion dresses anent her, &c. In Scotland it means concerning, but has not that sense here. Aran (pronounced arrin), a spider in general : no doubt from the Latin, aranea. Bay says it is used only for a larger kind of spider, but I have heard nothing to justify this distinction. In old authors it is found as araine and aranee. See HaUiwelVs Dictionary of Archaisms^ &c. In Ghivin Douglas's Prologue to the 12th ^neid of Yirgil the word occurs in a modified form, as derived from the Greek (lines 169—172) : ' In comeris and oleir fenystaris of glass Full bissely aragne wevand was^ To kn^t hir nettis and hir wobbys sle, Tharwith to caucht the myghe and litill fie.* See Skeafs Specimens of English Literature, p. 132. Aranwebt (pronounced arrtnwebs), cobwebs. Ark, a chest used for meal, horse-corn, deeds, &c. Arrandsmittle, infectious, or poisonous : and the word arrandpouton is used as well * It is foolish to let Ihe children go there, for it is arrandsmiftle,* i. e. the disease is highly infectious. See Smittle. The word arrand is not unlikely, as has oeen suggested, the same as arrant, as in arrant knave, which is the more probable as the letters d and t are frequently interchanged. See Letters D and T. Dr.
