vbl. sb. [f. WORD v. (or sb.) + -ING1.]
1. Speaking, talking, utterance. Obs. or arch.
1604. Dekker, Honest Wh., Wks. 1873, II. 62. The Senate will leave wording presently.
1625. Massinger, New Way, III. ii. Marrall. Pray you a word Sir. Greed. No wording now.
1819. Keats, Otho, II. i. Fine wording, Duke! but words could never yet Forestall the fates.
1849. Sears, Regeneration, III. i. (1859), 126. The wording and rewording of liturgies is not prayer.
1850. Bushnell, God in Christ, 159. They must have their reality to me in what they express when taken as the wording forth of God.
attrib. 1860. Swinburne, Queen-Mother, I. ii. All this wording-time I am not perfect where this wrong began.
† b. A saying, statement. Obs. rare.
1606. Warner, Alb. Eng., XIV. lxxxiii. 348. Old Wordings … prouing trew.
† 2. Angry or abusive speech; ‘having words’ (see WORD sb. 5). Obs.
1564. Child-Marriages, 129. In wordinge betwixe the mother of the said Isabell & the said Rafe, the said Rafe said to her, that ‘her doughter Isabell was a hoore and a thief.’
1594. O. B., Quest. Profit. Concern., 13. She termeth … his outfacing & wording at me, audacitie and manly boldnesse.
1614. Purchas, Pilgrimage, VIII. viii. (ed. 2), 780. They are great gamsters, their play like that of Dice: in which they carrie themselues very patiently without swearing or wording.
3. The action of putting or condition of being put into words; composition or expression in language (spoken or written), esp. in reference to the words used; mode of speech, form of words, phrasing.
1649. Milton, Eikon., iv. 36. Tis beleev’d this wording was above his known stile and Orthographie.
1654. R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 364. If constancy may be tainted with this selfishnesse (to use our new Wordings of old and general Actings).
1657. Heylin, Ecclesia Vind., Pref. c 1 b. The Directory which prescribes … the sense and scope … of the Prayers and other parts of publick Worship, doth in effect leave nothing to the Ministers spirit but the wording of it.
1687. Ld. Sunderland, in Magd. Coll. (O. H. S.), 169. His Majesty leaves the wording of it to you.
1718. Breval, Play is the Plot, II. i. 18. Take me Pen, Ink, and Paper, and write him a Letter of my Wording.
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. Introd. 7. Some forms necessary in the wording of last wills and testaments. Ibid., vi. 228. This is the form of the coronation oath, as it is now prescribed…: but the wording of it was changed at the revolution, because … the oath itself had been framed in doubtful words and expressions.
1818. Keats, Endym., V. 962. Things for which no wording can be found.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., xxxiv. I entreat the attention of the jury to the wording of this document.
1839. Hallam, Lit. Eur., IV. vii. § 43. His plain and manly sentences often give us pleasure by the wording alone.
1865. M. Arnold, Ess. Crit., x. (1875), 411. The clear thought which is … at the bottom of that troubled wording.
1882. Proctor, Fam. Science Studies, 43, note. I have altered the wording here and further on, in such a way as to avoid the use of technical expressions, but without altering the sense of the passage.
1913. Spectator, 26 July, 143/1. The meaning of the quotation is plain, though the wording is, to say the least, somewhat involved.
4. A set of written words, an inscription. rare.
1908. Times, 28 Jan., 4/6. Prosecute a man … for selling in a box … with … the well-known Havana indications, including the lock-label with the Spanish wording, cigars which were no doubt made in a locality much nearer to the City of Londan than was the island of Cuba.
So † Wording ppl. a. (a) consisting in (mere) words, verbal; (b) using many or empty words, wordy; (c) characterized by angry words, contentious, quarrelsome.
1601. Cornwallis, Ess., II. xxx. (1631), 48. Patrone of the vulgar whose wording favour … hath such an operation with mans frailtie.
1615. J. Stephens, Satyr. Ess., 315. It is probable she was begotten by some … Wording Poet, for she consists of as many fearefull sounds without science.
1682. Bunyan, Holy War, To Rdr. (1684), A 3 b. In Parleys, or in wording Jars.
