Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To take hold of; seize.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Preterit and past participle of hend.
- noun Grasp.
- noun Opportunity or occasion seized.
- To seize; snatch; catch; grasp; take.
- To take; receive.
- To throw.
- To plow up the bottom of (a furrow).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb obsolete To seize; to lay hold on; to catch; to get.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb obsolete To take hold of, to
grasp . - verb obsolete To take away, carry off.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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It will tale down everything you hent in North America.
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It will tale down everything you hent in North America.
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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
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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.
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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.
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“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.
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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.
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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?
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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
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Then he hent in hand two stones and went round about the city, beating his breast with the stones and crying
qroqqa commented on the word hent
"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.
November 21, 2008