1801.] Comments on Majon’s Supplement to Fohnfon’s Didionary.. 299 
-etymon is fredum, which, in the laws of 
the Lombards, fignifics the fine impofed 
for fedition. Seditious perfons were often) 
abetted by men of confequence, who paid 
the fine for them. Such employers were 
faid defredare, to fine for their underlings. 
Hence to defray always fignifies to bear 
the charges of another. 
Dilatante —One would attribute to the 
printer this ‘ymptom of illiterature, were 
not the word arranged before Dilatability. 
Read Dilettante. 
 Difvowel—This word, being regularly 
compounded of dis and bowel, is certainly 
good Englith, and fignifies, if one may 
repeat Mr. Mafon’s fomewhat coarfe de- 
finition, ** to gut.” Spenfer compares 
Rome to | 
A great oak dry and dead. 
Yet clad with reliques of fome trophies old, 
That half difbowel’d lies above the ground, 
Showing her wreathed roots. 
It is become the, more neceffary to re- 
mind Englith writers of the exiltence and 
Jegitimacy of this word, as Mr. Burke has 
vitioufly employed in iis ftead the word 
embowel, which is regularly compounded 
of zz and bowel, and fignifies jut the re- 
verle; as to embowel faufage-meat. ‘To 
difoowel is to take out bowels; to em- 
bowel is to put into bowels.; and to di/- 
embowel is to take out that which has been 
put mto bowels. 
Mr. Burke writes thus in his Reflec- 
tions : 
** In England we have not yet been com- 
pletely emboweiled of our naturakentrails.” 
He was probably mifled by the careleff- 
nefsof Dr. Johnfon, who defines emmbowel 
‘© to evifcerate ;°* in confequence of mif- 
underftanding three out of the four autho. 
rities adduced in his own DiGtionary. | 
Spenfer underftcod and ufed the word 
aright: 
He, with his dreadful inftrument of ire, 
Thought fure have pounded him to powder 
’ foft, . 
Or deep embowel’d in the earth entire. 
where ‘the meaning is ‘* put into the 
- bowels of the earth.”” 
_ _ In like manner the word is ufed by 
Shakefpeare : 
| Imbowell’d will I fee thee by and by 5 
Till then in blood by noble Percy lie. 
where the meaning is <* put into the bowels 
of the earth,’ “* buried ;”’ and certainly 
not, as Johnfon fuppofes,' ‘*exenterated :” 
Or fuch brutality Prince Henry was in- 
capaol:, 
In like manner, the word is ufed by 
Milton: 
4 The roar 
Embowell’d with outrageous noife the air, _ 
And all her entrails tore. 
where the noife is metaphorically defcribed 
as introducing itlelf izto the bowels of 
the air, and tearing them. } 
The paflage from Philips is quaint and ' 
unclear: -he talks of——‘* minerals that 
th’ embowell’d earth difplays’’—meaning, 
apparently, ‘* minerals which within its 
bowels the earth difplays.” The other 
pafiage from Shakefpeare I know net 
where to feek: if it occurred in Richard¥1. 
or Henry VIII. and related to the Lol- 
lards, or the Proteftlants, one might with 
propriety fay, . 
The fchools, 
Embowell’d of their doétrine, have left off 
The wholefome lore. 
meaning the f{chools, or univerfities, 
‘¢ which have received into their bowels 
the new doctrines.”? And thus every one 
of Dr. Johnfon’s cafes would be a prece- 
dent againft his definition. 
Difputable.—Difputable fienifies able to 
be difputed, -controvertible: it is vitioufly 
ufed tor di/putatious in the adduced paffage 
from As You LikeIt. Di&tionaries can- 
not be worfe employed than in preferving 
authorities for the abufe of words, without 
any accompanying afterifk of reprobation. 
The ufe of diffrain for confirain by Fair- 
fax, or of diftroubled for troubled by Spen- 
fer, is no lefs exceptionable. 
Dizzard.—Once it was very common 
to form perfonal fubftantives defcriptive 
of chara&ter by adding the fyllable ard, 
which probably comes from the Mcefo- 
Gothic Aairta, heart. Thus, trom wife, 
wifard ; dote, dotard; drunk, drunkard ; 
‘flug, fluggard ; dull, dullard. This word 
is of the fame clafs, and is formed from 
dizzy; it: means therefore one dizzy of 
‘heart, or, as we now fay, giddy-headed. 
Dolphinet.—A dolphinet is a {mall dol- 
phin; if the female be fmaller than the 
male in this clafs of animals, the paflage 
from Spenfer is fufficiently juftifiable. 
Duette.—Why not adopt the ufual 
fpelling duet. Duette is of no language, 
neither Italian, nor French, nor Englith, 
Earne.—Why fhould this fpel/ (as 
fchool-children fay, and, E think, rightly,’ 
for mode of fpelling) be authorized? It is 
likely tobé miftaken for the verb earn, “to 
gain by labor.’? It is far lefs ufwal than 
jeara, . And it is ‘lefs analogous than 
Qq2 Jean; 
