arch. Also woont(e, wonte, Sc. wount. [Early history and origin doubtful; perh. arose from a conflation of two synonymous constructions, it is my wone (WONE sb.) to..., and I am wont (WONT pa. pple.) to..., whence it is my wont to … (In view of the textual variants in the quot. from ‘Cursor Mundi,’ this must be considered a dubious instance.) Johnson marks this word as ‘out of use.’] Habitual or customary usage, custom, habit. Use and wont: see USE sb. 9 b; of († in) wont, customary, usual.
13[?]. Cursor M., 13693 (Gött.). For þiþer ȝode he ai vmstunt, Þar to prai ofte was his wont [other texts was he wont].
1530. Palsgr., 290/1. Wont or custome to an yvell thyng, amorse.
1543. Rental Bk. Cupar-Angus (1880), II. 24. Payand zeirly … the sowm of xxty bollis … with all … vther dew seruice, vse and wont.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VIII., 196 b. After our old wont, we came together vpon our othe in the churche of S. Maturyne.
1548. Geste, Agst. Priv. Masse, L iv. It was fyrst in wont that al the togethers assembled persones in ye church did communicat eche day.
1550. Latimer, Serm. preached at Stamford, B ij. They [sc. the Pharisees] wolde be ordred by olde wont, customes, forfathers.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., III. i. 2. ’Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man. Ibid. (1602), Ham., I. iv. 6. Then it drawes neere the season, Wherein the Spirit held his wont to walke.
1607. Beaum. & Fl., Woman Hater, III. iv. She shall come in a white wastcoat, And—… And perhaps torn stockings, she hath left her old wont else.
1667–8. Pepys, Diary, 10 March. As merry as that fellow Joyce could make us with his mad talking, after the old wont.
1818. Shelley, Julian & Maddalo, 13. A narrow space of level sand … Where ’twas our wont to ride.
1822. Scott, Nigel, xi. Her lodger … gave her, contrary to his wont, a signal to leave the room.
1848. Lowell, Fable for Critics, liii. His wont Is to say very sharp things and do very blunt.
1850. J. H. Newman, Serm. Var. Occas., xii. (1881), 199. His commemoration is of daily wont in this neighbourhood.
a. 1866. Whewell, in Life (1881), 563. Can I forget that this for thee too is Christmas, Christmas not as of wont—Christmas not of the earth?
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, I. 385. They were … liable beyond the common wont of mobs to sudden gusts of feeling and impulse.
1903. Times, 14 July, 11/2. Bosnian use and wont and Oriental ideas were taken into full consideration.
1906. Athenæum, 24 Nov., 665/2. The story is extravagant beyond the author’s wont.
transf. 1581. A. Hall, Iliad, VI. 118. My heart to alter from his wont it also doth disdaine.
1594. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., I. iii. § 5. When things naturall in that regard forget their ordinary naturall woont.
1637. C. Dow, Answ. to H. Burton, 128. Envy her selfe … would have lost her wont.
a. 1854. H. Reed, Lect. Brit. Poets, ix. (1857), 312. It is the wont of hollow things to echo.
b. in particularized use.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 135 b. Diogenes of a customable woonte auouched to bee a thynge muche more daungerous to falle in the handes of flaterers … then to lighte emong crowes.
1556. M. Parker, Psalter, lxxviii. 226. To theyr old wontes they dyd retyre, as sturdy bow in bent.
1612. T. Taylor, Comm. Titus iii. 3. 597. He is a foole still, he leaueth not his old wonts.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 1. Whoever … betakes himself to the scanning of bodies,… either as to their kinds of being or wonts of working.
1854. Syd. Dobell, Balder, xxiii. 103. She [sc. Morn] won of God That ever when she walketh in the world It shall be Eden: and around her come The happy wonts of early Paradise.
