1. A fighting-man, warrior, soldier. In early use chiefly Sc.; now rare.
In Minot’s Poems, x. 9, Ritson and Hall print ‘weremen’ as an emendation of the MS. reading ‘werkmen.’
1456. Sir G. Haye, Law Arms (S.T.S.), 162. And gif innocent folk takis scathe, than, in sik opyn weris, the prince na the were men may nocht … set remede.
c. 1470. Henry, Wallace, IV. 256. Wallace commaundede thai suld na wermen saiff.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, X. xiv. 151. Syne on that weyrman ruschit he in teyn.
1547. J. Harrison, Exhort. Scottes, a iij b. How the countrey hath been ouer runne … by our awne warremen.
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., V. ii. 666. The sweet War-man is dead and rotten.
1591. 2nd Pt. Troub. Raigne K. John (1611), 97. Backe warremen, backe.
1797. T. Dibdin, Snug Little Island, 17.
| Then a very great war-man, call’d BILLY the Norman, | |
| Cried d—n it, I never lik’d my land. |
1831. Scott, Cast. Dang., ix. You will command at least twenty war-men, with bow and spear.
1864. R. F. Burton, Dahome, I. 48. I detected several warmen privily borrowing from their neighbours.
1911. G. K. Chesterton, Ballad of White Horse, 104.
| Meeting may be of war-men, | |
| Where the best war-man wins; | |
| But all this carrion a man shoots | |
| Before the fight begins. |
b. U.S. One whose voice is for war. Cf. WAR-DOG, war-hawk.
1814. Columbian Centinel, 11 June, 2/4, in A. Matthews Uncle Sam (1908), 28.
† 2. A man-of-war, warship. Sc. Obs.
1546. Burgh Rec. Edin. (1871), II. 123. The pryses takin be the Cristopher … to the nummer of sex weirman.
