Obs. Also 6 wayster. [Of obscure origin.]
1. A wooden sword or a foil used in sword-exercise and fencing.
1455. in Meyrick, Ant. Armour (1824), II. 144. Furst viij swerds and a long blade of a swerde made in wafters [read wasters] … for to lerne the king to play in his tendre age.
1541. Rutland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), IV. 313. For Bryngyng … of hiltes for the crosse wasters for my Lorde Roose, iiij d.
1561. T. Hoby, trans. Castiglione’s Courtyer, I. (1577), E 1 b. If going about to cast a dart, or holding in his hande a sworde or any other waster.
1600. Holland, Livy, XL. vi. 1063. Foule worke they made with their wodden wasters and headlesse pikes.
1621. Bp. Hall, Heaven upon Earth, § 11. Even as with woodden wasters we learne to play at the sharp.
a. 1661. Holyday, Juvenal (1673), 111. The fencer’s staffe or waster … was call’d rudis (as some think) because with such cudgels they practiz’d the rudiments of fencing, before they came in publick to fight at sharp.
2. A cudgel, staff, club.
1533. Heywood, John, Tyb & Sir John, A j b. Nought shulde preuayle me, nother staffe nor waster Within a whyle she wolde be my mayster.
1555. W. Watreman, Fardle Facions, App. 327. Let there bee giuen vnto hym by the commune Sergeaunt of the batte .xxxix. stripes with a waster.
1570. Foxe, A. & M. (ed. 2), I. 92/1. Verianus and Marcellianus … were beat with wasters or trunshons, after that [they] were hanged … vpon the gibbet.
1598. Stow, Surv. (1603), 96. The youthes of this Citie also haue vsed on holy dayes after Euening prayer, at their Maisters doores, to exercise their Wasters and Bucklers.
1611. J. Davies (Heref.), Sco. Folly (Grosart), 49/2. ‘A groning horse and grunting wife neuer failes their master’: Yes, if the master haue not life to ply them with the waster.
1615[?]. Lennard, trans. Charron’s Wisd. (? 1620), Pref. § 10 A 4. A wenke arme wanting power and skill well to welde a waster or staffe that is somewhat too heauy for it, wearieth it selfe and fainteth.
3. Fencing with a ‘waster’; single-stick, cudgel-play. Also pl. esp. in to play at wasters.
1519. Horman, Vulg., 281. Let vs pley at buckeler and at waster in feyre game. This waster [rudis] is not laufull.
1594. Selimus, 1812, in Greene’s Wks. (Grosart), XIV. 264. I thought my selfe as proper a fellow at wasters, as any in all our village.
1596. Nashe, Saffron-Walden, T 1. To see a Gillian draggell taile … play at wasters with a quil for the britches.
1630. Dekker, 2nd Pt. Honest Wh., D 3 b. If o’re husbands their wiues will needes be Masters, We men will haue a law to win’t at wasters.
1631. Gouge, God’s Arrows, III. § 11. 206. Such kind of recreations as … playing at wasters and foines.
1636. King & Queen’s Entert. Richmond (Bang), 11. And what can Richard doe, play a little at wasters, and make the blood … run about his vellowes eares at a Wake.
attrib. 1599–1600. [? G. Ruggle], Club Law, IV. i. To night is holy daye, and there will be waster play.
4. fig.
1615[?]. Lennard, Charron’s Wisd. (? 1620), § 10 A 3 b. Science or Learning is a very good and profitable staffe or waster.
1640. G. Abbott, Job Paraphr., 73. Be perswaded to lay downe the wasters, to give over reasoning the matter.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., I. iii. 8. Being unable to weild the intellectuall armes of reason, they are faine to betake themselves unto wasters and the blunter weapons of truth.
