Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. Obsolete To take hold of; seize.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To seize; snatch; catch; grasp; take.
- To take; receive.
- To throw.
- To plow up the bottom of (a furrow).
- n. Grasp.
- n. Opportunity or occasion seized.
- n. Preterit and past participle of hend.
Wiktionary
- v. obsolete To take hold of, to grasp.
- v. obsolete To take away, carry off.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To seize; to lay hold on; to catch; to get.
Etymologies
- Old English hentan, of uncertain origin. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English henten, from Old English hentan. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“It will tale down everything you hent in North America.”
“So Khalifah hent the five dinars in hand and went away, rejoicing, and gazing and marvelling at the gold and saying, Glory be to God! There is not with the Caliph of”
“I for a long time, but at last I awoke from my heedlessness and, returning to my senses, I found my wealth had become unwealth and my condition ill-conditioned and all I once hent had left my hand.”
“So, as soon as light was seen and morn appeared with its shine and sheen, took horse the hosts twain and shouted their slogans amain and bared the brand and hent lance in hand and in ranks took stand.”
“So the headsmen put his hand to her back, to take her; but the King cried out at him and cast at him somewhat he hent in hand, which had well-nigh killed him, saying, O dog, how durst thou show ruth to those with whom I am wroth?”
“Then he hent in hand two stones and went round about the city, beating his breast with the stones and crying”
““I was once in debt to the full amount of three hundred thousand gold pieces; 402 and, being distressed thereby, I sold all that was behind me and what was before me and all I hent in hand, but I could collect no more than an hundred thousand dinars” — And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.”
“So saying, he hent in hand a stick 190 and flourishing it thrice in the air, was about to come down with it upon the lame ape, when the creature cried out for mercy and said to him, I conjure thee, by”
“So they hent him by the hand and thrust him out; and I took the lute and sang over again the songs of my own composing which the damsel had sung.”
“And whilst each one hent bunch in hand, the gardener brought the wine-service and setting it before them, on a tray of porcelain arabesqued with red gold, recited these two couplets,”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hent’.
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phrontistery - h
from phrontistery.info
habanera, habergeon, habilable, habilatory, habile, habiliment, habilitate, habromania, hachure, hackle, hackney, hadal and 568 more...
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Unusual words for Words With Friends
A list of words that WWF recognizes as valid - most are unusual words; some are simply high-scoring.
botel, slipe, jeu, chub, chubs, cote, mure, tittle, dev, loo, hoke, helo and 357 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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Activated Phonemes
This list was generated by first taking a letter from the alphabet, or any of the initial cluster set of phonesthemes compiled by the ingenious Benjamin Shisler) and then sticking one of the suffix...
bing, ding, ging, jing, ling, ming, king, ping, ring, sing, ting, wing and 189 more...
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words i learned from scrabble
vigs, prate, adoze, kain, kane, vealy, yawp, cep, jute, nerolis, voe, jow and 29 more...
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Nightwood
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, 1936. Because of her profuse style, my usual practice of quoting entire sentences would have the copyright police chasing me round the city waving truncheons.
schlagsahne, knife-clean, mannerliness, dragon's-blood, groined, thumber, boggish, gimp-legged, carpet-thick, pricked-eared, somnambule, cutwater and 23 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hent.
qroqqa "Did not Periander think fit to lie with his wife Melissa after she had already gone hent to heaven?"
—Djuna Barnes, Nightwood
past tense and past participle of 'hent' = "take, snatch, carry off". The line is from Bishop Jeremy Taylor, (mis)quoted by the drunken Irish doctor, who by the way would be left out entirely from my director's cut version of Nightwood, reducing it by a third and probably eviscerating it to the point of pointlessness from the author's point of view, but still.
What Taylor actually said (in his Sermon XVII was: 'If it be otherwise, the man enjoys a wife as Periander did his dead Melissa, by an unnatural union, neither pleasing nor holy, useless to all the purposes of society, and dead to content.'
Periander, tyrant of Corinth, was accounted one of the Seven Sages, but killed his wife on false suspicion of infidelity, and was rumoured to have made it up to her afterwards in a non-socially-approved way. Nov 21, 2008