marchant

See also: Marchant

English

Noun

marchant (plural marchants)

Obsolete form of merchant.
- 1566, William Adlington, The Golden Asse‎:
  His wife (having invented a present shift) laughed on her husband, saying: What marchant I pray you have you brought home hither, to fetch away my tub for five pence, for which I poore woman that sit all day alone in my house have beene proffered so often seaven: […]
- 1575, “Apius and Virginia”, in Isaac Reed, Octavius Gilchrist, editors, A Select Collection of Old Plays, London: Septimus Prowett, published 1826, page 353:
  By Jove, master marchant, by sea or by land
  Would get but smale argent if I did not stand
  His very good master, I may say to you,
  When he hazards in hope what hap will insue.
- 1589, George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie‎, Book I, Chapter 14:
  Now by the chaunge of a vizard one man might play the king and the carter, the old nurse and the yong damsell, the marchant and the souldier or any other part he listed very conveniently.
- c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 217, column 2:
  Faith Gentlemen now I play a marchants part,
  And venture madly on a deſperate Mart.
- 1591, John Florio, Second Frutes to be gathered of twelve trees, of diverse but delightful tastes to the tongues of Italian and English:
  ‘What thinke you of this English, tel me I pray you.’ ‘It is a language that wyl do you good in England but passe Dover, it is woorth nothing.’ ‘Is it not used then in other countreyes?’ ‘No sir, with whom wyl you that they speake?’ ‘With English marchants.’ ‘English marchantes, when they are out of England, it liketh hem not, and they doo not speake it.
- 1592, Thomas Nash[e], Pierce Penilesse His Supplication to the Deuill. , London: [John Charlewood for] Richard Ihones, , →OCLC; republished as J[ohn] Payne Collier, editor, Pierce Penniless’s Supplication to the Devil. , London: for the Shakespeare Society, 1842, →OCLC, page 21:
  In an other corner, Mistris Minx, a marchants wife, that will eate no cherries, forsooth, but when they are at twentie shillings a pound, that lookes as simperingly as if she were besmeard, and iets it as gingerly as if she were dancing the canaries, […]
- 1594, Odet de la Noue, translated by Iosuah Silvester, The Profit of Imprisonment. A Paradox, VVritten in French by Odet de la Noue, Lord of Teligni, Being Prisoner in the Castle of Tournay., London: Peter Short, for Edward Blunt:
  The Marchant that returnes from ſome far forrain lands,
  Eſcaping dreadfull rocks and dangerous ſhelfs and ſands,
  When as he ſees his ſhip her home-hauen enter ſafe,
  Will he repine at God, and as offended chafe
  For being brought to ſoone home to his natiue ſoile,
  Free from all perills ſad that threaten ſaylor’s ſpoile?
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
  To whom they shewed, how those marchants were
  Arriv'd in place their bondslaves for to buy […].
- 1598, Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I.‎:
  The grasse and herbe doth fat sheepe in very short space, proued by English marchants which haue caried sheepe thither for fresh victuall and had them raised exceeding fat in lesse then three weekes.
- 1608, [Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas], “.] The Third Daie of the First VVeek.”, in Josuah Sylvester, transl., Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes , 3rd edition, London: Humfrey Lownes ], published 1611, →OCLC, page 73:
  You Marchant Mercers, and Monopolites,
  Gain-greedy Chap-men, periur'd Hypocrites,
  Diſſembling Broakers, made of all deceipts,
  VVho falſifie your Meaures and your VVeights,
  T' enrich you ſelues, and your vnthrifty Sons
  To Gentillize with proud poſſeſſions: […]
- 1916, The Windsor Magazine - Volume 44, page 353:
  "An' he bes free times as old as herself," he wailed, " an' ugly as a squid ! But he bes rich — rich as any marchant — an' for the bread an' the fixin's an' the gold she bes takin' 'im."