Wiktionary

forspeak

English edit

WOTD – 23 January 2017

Pronunciation edit

 
A woodcut of witches using a cauldron

Etymology 1 edit

From Middle English forspeken (“to bewitch”), from Old English forspecan, forsprecan (“to speak in vain; to speak amiss; to denounce; to deny”); analysable as for- +‎ speak.

Verb edit

forspeak (third-person singular simple present forspeaks, present participle forspeaking, simple past forspoke or (archaic) forspake, past participle forspoken)

  1. (transitive, dialectal, Northern England and Scotland) To injure or cause bad luck through immoderate praise or flattery; to affect with the curse of an evil tongue, which brings ill luck upon all objects of its praise.
  2. (transitive, obsolete) To bewitch, to charm.
    • [1617?], Thomas Campian [i.e. Thomas Campion], “So Tyr’d are All My Thoughts”, in The Third and Fovrth Booke of Ayres, London: Thomas Snodham, →OCLC, cantus V:
      How are my powres fore-spoke? what strange distaste is this?
    • 1619, “The Examination of Anne Baker of Bottesford in the County of Leicester Spinster", in The Wonderfvl Discoverie of the Witchcrafts of Margaret and Phillip[a] Flower, Daughters of Joan Flower neere Beuer Castle: Executed at Lincolne, March 11. 1618, London: […] I. Barnes, […], OCLC 613937578; republished in A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts, Relating to Witchcraft in the Counties of Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Lincoln, between the Years 1618 and 1664, London: John Russell Smith, 1838, OCLC 24439978, page 15:
      This Examinat confesseth that shee came to Ioane Gylles house, her Child being sicke, and that shee intreated this Examinat to look on the Child, and to tell her whether it was forspoken or no, and this Examinat said it was forspoken; but when the said Child died she cannot tell.
    • 1658 (first performed 1623), William Rowley; Thomas Dekker; John Ford, The Witch of Edmonton, London: Printed by J. Cottrel for Edward Blackmore [...], Act II, scene i, OCLC 606668964; republished in William Gifford and Alexander Dyce, editors, The Works of John Ford, volume III, new edition, London: James Toovey, 1869, OCLC 468932337, pages 196–197:
      Some call me witch, / And being ignorant of myself, they go / About to teach me how to be one; urging / That my bad tongue—by their bad usage made so— / Forspeaks their cattle, doth bewitch their corn, / Themselves, their servants, and their babes at nurse.
    • 1835, James Baillie Fraser, “An Alarm”, in The Highland Smugglers. [...] In Three Volumes, volume II, Philadelphia, Pa.: E[dward] L[awrence] Carey & A[braham] Hart, →OCLC, page 115:
      "Dinna forespeak them, woman! dinna forespeak them!" said the man with a dark frown, and with equal earnestness, but with a tinge of superstitious alarm in his voice and manner. "They wud fain hae your good word, an' no your evil tongue with them; and so come, good wife, tell us what ken ye—what's biding them?—come, what have they to do?"
    • 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in 16th and 17th Century England, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, OCLC 71368859; republished as Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-century England, London: Folio Society, 2012, OCLC 805007047, page 180:
      Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the cunning man’s medical dealings was his readiness to diagnose a supernatural cause for the patient’s malady by saying that he was haunted by an evil spirit, a ghost, or ‘fairy’, or that he had been ‘overlooked’, ‘forspoken’, or, in plainer language, bewitched. Thus if any inhabitant of mid-sixteenth-century Maidstone suspected that he had been forspoken, he would go off for advice to one Kiterell, a sorcerer who lived at Bethersden, and specialised in such things: [...]
  3. (transitive, obsolete) To forbid, to prohibit; to oppose. [15th–19th c.]
  4. (transitive, obsolete) To say bad things about; to slander.
Usage notes edit

Not to be confused with forespeak (“to foretell, to predict”).

Alternative forms edit
Derived terms edit

Etymology 2 edit

See forespeak.

Verb edit

forspeak (third-person singular simple present forspeaks, present participle forspeaking, simple past forspoke or (archaic) forspake, past participle forspoken)

  1. (transitive, obsolete) Alternative spelling of forespeak
    • 1640, James Harrington, transl., The Vjth Booke of Vergills Eneads; quoted in Caroline Bicks, “Stealing the Seal: Baptizing Women and the Mark of Kingship”, in Midwiving Subjects in Shakespeare’s England (Women and Gender in the Early Modern World), Abingdon, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2017, →ISBN, page 153:
      The same Henry of Ritchmond (after Henry the seavnth) I know not by what provydence or prophecy forsaw that his sonne Henry was not lyke to please god so well to have the kingdome established in his posterytye and thearfore matched his eldest Dawghter into Skotland thearby as yt wear forspeaking a happy conjunction of thease two noble realms [...]

Anagrams edit

Scots edit

Etymology edit

From Middle English forspeken (“to bewitch”), from Old English forsprecan (“to speak in vain; to speak amiss; to denounce; to deny”).

Verb edit

tae forspeak

  1. To bewitch or cast a spell over, especially using flattery or undue praise; to seduce.
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