† 1. Faintness. Obs.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 13477 (Gött.).
| If þai turn ham þair wai, | |
| For þe faint sone faile sal þai. |
c. 1320. Sir Beues, 4195. Beues for ffeynt bere hym lowe.
c. 1430. Syr Gener. (Roxb.), 8817.
| Thre dais she nouthir ete nor drank, | |
| For pure feint right now she sank. |
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, cxx. 430. Huon … was sore wery for faynt, for the blude that he had loste.
a. 1541. Wyatt, Poetical Works (1861), 149, ‘Complaint of the Absence of His Love.’
| And if my hope sometime rise up by some redress, | |
| It stumbleth straight, for feeble faint, my fear hath such excess. |
1600. Holland, Livy, IV. xli. 165. Wearied with travaile, and faint of his woundes.
2. A swoon.
1808. Scott, Marmion, IV. xvi.
| So just an image of the Saint, | |
| Who propp’d the Virgin in her faint. |
1865. L. Oliphant, Piccadilly (1870), 280. In a dead faint.
1885. R. L. & F. Stevenson, Dynamiter, 45. The night fell, and found me still where he had laid me during my faint, my face buried in my hands, my soul drowned in the darkest apprehensions.
3. Comb. as † faint-fit = fainting-fit.
1795. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Pindariana, Wks. 1812, IV. 190.
| With Dick the Driver; likewise harmless Dick, | |
| Because he took from Susan’s lips a kiss; | |
| Because too Susan gave him up the bliss | |
| Without a scream, a faint-fit, or a kick. |
