trothplight

English edit

Etymology edit

Noun edit

trothplight (plural trothplights)

(obsolete) The act of pledging one's troth; betrothal.
- c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
  My Wife's a Holy-Horse, deserues a Name
  As ranke as any Flax-Wench, that puts to
  Before her troth-plight: say't, and iustify't.

Verb edit

trothplight (third-person singular simple present trothplights, present participle trothplighting, simple past and past participle trothplighted or trothplight)

(obsolete) To betroth.
- 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
  It is certaine Corporall, that he is marryed to
  Nell Quickly, and certainly she did you wrong, for you
  were troth-plight to her

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “trothplight”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)