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As a coordinating conjunction; expressing two elements to be taken together or in addition to each other.
Used simply to connect two noun phrases, adjectives or adverbs.
c. 1430 (reprinted 1888), Thomas Austin, ed., Two Fifteenth-century Cookery-books. Harleian ms. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. ms. 4016 (ab. 1450), with Extracts from Ashmole ms. 1429, Laud ms. 553, & Douce ms. 55 , London: N. Trübner & Co. for the Early English Text Society, volume I, OCLC374760, page 11:
Soupes dorye. — Take gode almaunde mylke caste þher-to Safroun an Salt
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], Persuasion; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion., volume (please specify |volume=III or IV), London: John Murray,, 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC:
as for Mrs. Smith, she had claims of various kinds to recommend her quickly and permanently.
2011 November 5, Mark Townsend, The Guardian:
‘The UKBA has some serious explaining to do if it is routinely carrying out such abusive and unlawful inspections.’
Used to connect certain numbers: connecting units when they precede tens (not dated); connecting tens and units to hundreds, thousands etc. (now often omitted in US); to connect fractions to wholes.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
In Chicago these latter were receiving, for the most part, eighteen and a half cents an hour, and the unions wished to make this the general wage for the next year.
The word "capable" occurs in Mr. Fisher's Bill, and rightly, because our mental and physical capacities are infinitely varied.
2008 January 29, The Guardian:
President Pervez Musharraf is undoubtedly sincere in his belief that he, and he alone, can save Pakistan from the twin perils of terrorism and anarchy.
Introducing the continuation of narration from a previous understood point; also used alone as a question: ‘and so what?’.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps[…].
1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall,, published October 1861, →OCLC:
‘You take it smoothly now,’ said I, ‘but you were very serious last night, when you swore it was Death.’ ‘And so I swear it is Death,’ said he, putting his pipe back in his mouth[…].
‘And, Vera,’ added Mrs. Durmot, turning to her sixteen-year-old niece, ‘be careful what colour ribbon you wear in your hair[…].’
(now dialectal or somewhat colloquial) Used to connect two verbs where the second is dependent on the first: ‘to’. Used especially after come, go and try.
c.1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :
As they will set an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs.
(mathematics,logic) Connecting two well-formed formulas to create a new well-formed formula that requires it to only be true when both of the two formulas are true.
Usage notes
Usage notes
Beginning a sentence with and or other coordinating conjunctions is considered incorrect by classical grammarians arguing that a coordinating conjunction at the start of a sentence has nothing to connect, but use of the word in this way is very common. The practice will be found in literature from Anglo-Saxon times onwards, especially as an aid to continuity in narrative and dialogue. The OED provides examples from the 9th century to the 19th century, including one from Shakespeare’s King John: “Arthur. Must you with hot Irons, burne out both mine eyes? Hubert. Young boy, I must. Arthur. And will you? Hubert. And I will.” It is also used for other rhetorical purposes, especially to denote surprise
(O John! and you have seen him! And are you really going?—1884 in OED)
and sometimes just to introduce an improvised afterthought
(I’m going to swim. And don’t you dare watch—G. Butler, 1983)
It is, however, poor style to separate short statements into separate sentences when no special effect is needed: I opened the door and I looked into the room (not *I opened the door. And I looked into the room). Combining sentences or starting with in addition or moreover is preferred in formal writing.
And is often omitted for contextual effects of various kinds, especially between sequences of descriptive adjectives which can be separated by commas or simply by spaces
(The teeming jerrybuilt dun-coloured traffic-ridden deafening city—Penelope Lively, 1987)
In U.S. financial contexts such as cheque writing, and is often proscribed within full dollar amounts, reserved for use before the cent value. For instance, $150 is written "one hundred fifty", whereas "one hundred and fifty" is arguably ambiguously and could be taken to mean $100.50 instead. Some schools go so far as to teach that and literally means a decimal point, although a standard writing would at least denote the fractional dollar value as hundredths, e.g. with "/xx".
^ Starostin, Sergei, Dybo, Anna, Mudrak, Oleg (2003) “*Ānt”, in Etymological dictionary of the Altaic languages (Handbuch der Orientalistik; VIII.8), Leiden, New York, Köln: E.J. Brill
Ac þe ilke / þet zuereþ hidousliche be god / oþer by his halȝen / and him to-breȝþ / and zayþ him sclondres / þet ne byeþ naȝt to zigge: þe ilke zeneȝeþ dyadliche […]
But one who / hideously swears by God / or by his emissaries / and who tears him apart / while saying to him lies / that shouldn't be said: they sin grievously.
Whan that Auerill wt his shoures soote / The droghte of march hath ꝑced to the roote / And bathed euery veyne in swich lycour / Of which v̄tu engendred is the flour[…]
When that April, with its sweet showers / Has pierced March's drought to the root / And bathed every vein in fluid such that / with its power, the flower is made
c.800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 31b23
in bélrai .i. is and atá gním tengad isind huiliu labramar-ni
of speech, i.e. the action of the tongue is in it, in all that we say
c.850-875, Turin Glosses and Scholia on St Mark, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 484–94, Tur. 110c
Ba bés leusom do·bertis dá boc leu dochum tempuil, ⁊ no·léicthe indala n‑ái fon díthrub co pecad in popuil, ⁊ do·bertis maldachta foir, ⁊ n⟨o⟩·oircthe didiu and ó popul tar cenn a pecthae ind aile.
It was a custom with them that two he-goats were brought by them to the temple, and one of the two of them was let go to the wilderness with the sin of the people, and curses were put upon him, and thereupon the other was slain there by the people for their sins.
c.800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 4a27
Is and didiu for·téit spiritus ar n-énirti-ni in tain bes n-inun accobor lenn .i. la corp et anim et la spirut.
So it is then that the spirit helps our weakness when we have the same desire, to wit, body and soul and spirit.
1867, “THE WEDDEEN O BALLYMORE”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, page 93:
"steoute and straung,"
stout and strong;
References
Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 49