in the plays of the period. There is no reason to suppose that the term was derived from the notorious Abigail Hill, better known as Mrs. Masham, a poor relative of the Duchess of Marlborough, by whom she was introduced to a subordinate place about the person of Queen Anne; nor will the contention that it was first established in public usage by Dean Swift, who employed it in a letter to Stella, hold good; although likely enough he caused it to take deeper root than before. The terms on which he was with the Mashams rendered him the last person in the world likely to have used such a term, unless it had been so long in familiar use as to be deprived of all appearance of personal allusion to them.
1663. T. Killigrew, Parson's Wedding, II., vi. in Dodsley, O.P. (1780), xi., 425. [In this play, a waiting woman is termed an Abigail.]
1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, book XI., ch. ii. The mistress was no sooner in bed than the maid prepared to follow her example. She began to make many apologies to her sister Abigail for leaving her alone in so horrid a place as an inn.
1858. G. Eliot, Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story, ch. iii. The next morning, Mrs. Sharp, then a blooming Abigail of three-and-thirty, entered her lady's private room.
It has been stated that Old English writers used the word Abigail to signify a termagant woman, and also a female bigamist, but there is no evidence to support these views. It may be mentioned that the French use the word in the popular English sense. Awaiting woman was also formerly called a comb-brush (q.v.).
Ablewhackets, also Abelwhackets, Abelwackets, subs. (nautical).--[From able (uncertain, perhaps alluding to able seaman) + whack]. A game of cards played by sailors, in which the loser receives a whack or blow with a knotted handkerchief for every game (or point) he loses. Smyth, in his Sailor's Word Book [1867], says it is very popular with horny-fisted salts. It is quoted by Grose as far back as 1785, but Clark Russell, in Sailor's Language [1883], refers to it as obsolete.
Abound, v. (American).--To be prominent; en évidence.
1873. Evening Standard, 28 January. When we are told of a professed wit more than usually abounding at an evening party, there is no temptation to recruit our dictionaries from the English manufactured in the United States.
About East, adv. phr. (American).--To the frontiersman or pioneer, the Eastern or New England States are typical of all that he cherishes most and loves best. The vicissitudes of his rough Western life, the toil and hardships he has undergone while battling with nature and building up a new habitation far from the old homestead, all predispose him to turn with longing eyes and undying, though quaintly exaggerated love to the East--the home of his fathers. A famous Yankee character (Major Jack Downing) makes use of the expression that he would 'Go East of sunrise any day to see sich[**such??] a place.' Everybody and everything connected with the East, i.e., his native land, is commendable. To his mind they cannot be surpassed--hence the things he would
