Middle English

Verb

fōrgreithen (third-person singular simple present forgreitheth, present participle forgreithende, simple past and past participle forgreithed)

1. To get ready beforehand; to prepare.
   • c. 1400, Psalm 20:12 [now 21:12], in the Northern Verse Psalter (Surtees Psalter) [British Library, Cotton Vespasian D.7 manuscript]; published in Joseph Stevenson, editor, Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter: Now First Printed from Manuscripts in the British Museum, volume I, London: J. B. Nichols and Son, Parliament Street; William Pickering, Piccadilly; Edinburgh: Laing and Forbes, 1843, OCLC 832497574, page 59:

     For set am hindward saltou swa, / And in þair levynges for-graiþe lickam of þa.

     Therefore shalt thou make them turn their back, / when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them. [Bible (Authorized Version).]

Alternative forms

• for-greithen
• fore-greithen, foregreithen
• forgraith

Derived terms

• forgreithing

References

• “fōr(e-greithen, v.”, in MED Online, University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2016-10-18.