[Ads-l] Subject: "gauding", 1799 -- a remarkable survival

[Joel Berson]

Neat -- a 200-year postdating.  The sense I get from this use of v.2 is "wasting time in idle play (jesting, merrymaking)", rather than attending to her work.  (Idleness was perhaps the second most significant sin to pride.)

Initially I thought of "gaud, v.1", sense 2: "To ornament, adorn, make showy" (a la "gaudy, adj.2", sense 3.a), but in the context of the job description I discarded it.


Joel


      From: George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Thursday, December 8, 2016 8:15 PM
 Subject: [ADS-L] Subject: "gauding", 1799 -- a remarkable survival
   
[I tried sending this with an image of the newspaper advertisement as an
attachment, but it was rejected.]

        Wanted to purchase,

A NEGRO Woman, without Children, to do the work of a small family, where
their washing is put out: a sober, steady, cleanly, and good natured Woman;
a tolerable good cook, and one not inclined to gauding.  One of such a
description will find a good place by applying at no. 161 Pearl-street,
where a fair trial will be expected before the price is paid.    F  One
from the Country would be preferred.

        New-York Gazette and General Advertiser (New York, New York) May
1, 1799, p. 3, col. 2



gaud, *v.2*

*Etymology: *? < Old French *gaudir* to rejoice, jest; or perhaps < gaud
*n.2* <http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:3578/view/Entry/77099#eid3272308>



  *intr.* To make merry; to sport, jest; to scoff (*at*).

1532  T. More *Confut. Tyndale* in *Wks.* 366/2  And yf [the battle]
walke on your syde then [you] gawde and glory.

1563  *2nd Tome Homelyes* Cert. Places Holy Script. i, in J. Griffiths *Two
Bks. Homilies* (1859) ii. 373  More reasonable it were for vain man to
learn and reverence the form of God's words, than to gaud at them to his
damnation.

1566  W. Painter *Palace of Pleasure* I. xxxii. f. 64,  In carpinge
gaudinge and iestinge at yonge gentlemen, and specially olde men.

1570  P. Levens *Manipulus Vocabulorum* sig. Dii/2,  To Gaude
scoffe, *scommari,
nugari*.

1579  T. North tr. Plutarch *Liues* 562  He was sporting and gauding with
his familiars.


​GAT​


-- 
George A. Thompson
The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

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