‘decline’ seems to be used of the advance of age only in I. ii. 78 and O. I. iii. 265.
‘slack’ in ‘if when they chanced to slack you,’ II. iv. 248, has no exact parallel in Shakespeare, but recalls ‘they slack their duties,’ O. IV. iii. 88.
‘allowance’ (=authorisation), I. iv. 228, is used thus only in K.L., O. I. i. 128, and two places in Hamlet and Henry VIII.'
‘besort,’ vb., I. iv. 272, does not occur elsewhere, but ‘besort,’ sb., occurs in O. I. iii. 239 and nowhere else.
Edmund’s ‘Look, sir, I bleed,’ II. i. 43, sounds like an echo of Iago’s ‘I bleed, sir, but not killed,’ O. V. ii. 288.
‘potential,’ II. i. 78, appears only here, in O. I. ii. 13, and in the Lover’s Complaint (which, I think, is certainly not an early poem).
‘poise’ in ‘occasions of some poise,’ II. i. 122, is exactly like ‘poise’ in ‘full of poise and difficult weight,’ O. III. iii. 82, and not exactly like ‘poise’ in the three other places where it occurs.
‘conjunct,’ used only in II. ii. 125 (Q), V. i. 12, recalls ‘conjunctive,’ used only in H. IV. vii. 14, O. I. iii. 374 (F).
‘grime,’ vb., used only in II. iii. 9, recalls ‘begrime,’ used only in O. III. iii. 387 and Lucrece.
‘unbonneted,’ III. i. 14, appears only here and in O. I. ii. 23.
‘delicate,’ III. iv. 12, IV. iii. 15, IV. vi. 188, is not a rare word with Shakespeare; he uses it about thirty times in his plays. But it is worth notice that it occurs six times in O.
‘commit,’ used intr. for ‘commit adultery,’ appears only in III. iv. 83, but cf. the famous iteration in O. IV. i. 72 f.
‘stand in hard cure,’ III. vi. 107, seems to have no parallel except O. II. i. 51, ‘stand in bold cure.’
‘secure’=make careless, IV. i. 22, appears only here and in O. I. iii. 10 and (not quite the same sense) Tim. II. ii. 185.
Albany’s ‘perforce must wither,’ IV. ii. 35, recalls Othello’s ‘It must needs wither,’ V. ii. 15.
‘deficient,’ IV. vi. 23, occurs only here and in O. I. iii. 63.
‘the safer sense,’ IV. vi. 81, recalls ‘my blood begins my safer guides to rules,’ O. II. iii. 205.
‘fitchew,’ IV. vi. 124, is used only here, in O. IV. i. 150, and in T.C. V. i. 67 (where it has not the same significance).
Lear’s ‘I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion I would have made them skip,’ V. iii. 276, recalls Othello’s ‘I have seen the day, That with this little arm and this good sword,’ etc., V. ii. 261.
The fact that more than half of the above occur in the first two Acts of King Lear may possibly be significant: for the
