[Ads-l] SET -- to cheat at dice

[Dan Goncharoff]

Is it possible this is an early use of the current meaning of "setting
dice"?

http://www.smartcraps.com/SmartCraps_theory.pdf

On Dec 16, 2016 5:53 PM, "Robin Hamilton" <robin.hamilton3 at virginmedia.com>
wrote:

> Roger Ascham uses the verb “set” twice in _Toxophilus_ (1545), in the
> context of
> dice, in a way which doesn't seem to be covered in any dictionary:
>
> "... so take vp the false, and if they be true dise, what shyfte wil they
> make
> to set the one of them with slyding, with cogging, with foysting, with
> coytinge
> as they call it. [19r]"
>
> "Than euery one of them setteth his shiftes abroche, some with false dise,
> some
> wyth settynge of dyse, some with hauinge outelandishe syluer coynes
> guylded ..."
>
> Here, Ascham seems to be pointing to either the manipulation or
> substitution of
> dice by sharpers, a sense not in the OED. The closest I can find is SET, v,
> Sense 14b: “b. absol. or intr. To put down a stake, lay money on (or at).
> Also
> fig. to give a challenge to. Obs. or arch.”, but this doesn't seem to be
> quite
> what Ascham has in mind.
>
> Any suggestions? What I'm inclined to think is that we have here an
> otherwise
> unrecorded special sense of “set” as part of Sharper's Jargon (along with
> “cog”
> and “foist” in their earliest senses).
>
> Robin Hamilton
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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