Obs. Forms: 5 ferremen(t, 5–7 ferrament, (ferment). [a. OF. ferrement, ad. L. ferrĀment-um implement of iron, after which the word was refashioned. Cf. FARREMENT.] In pl. Articles of iron; iron instruments or tools; irons, shackles; iron fittings, ironwork.
a. 1440. Found. St. Bartholomew’s, 37. Hym-self so chargid with ferramentys and Iryns.
1446. Yatton Churchw. Acc. (Somerset Rec. Soc.), 84. It. payd for ferments to the stepyl wyndowys of Jon Smyth at the streme … viis. xd.
1474. Caxton, Chesse, III. v. (1860), G vj. The fferremens and Instrumentis that hangen on the gurdel. Ibid. (1489), Faytes of A., II. xxiii. 137. Cartes with ferrementes for to carie the roddes for the engins. Ibid., II. xxxv. 153. With grete mastes armed aboue wyth sharp ferrementes.
1597. Lowe, Chirurg., I. ii. (1634), 9. How many kinds of ferraments ought the Chyrurgion commonly to carry with him?
c. 1640. J. Smyth, Lives Berkeleys (1883), II. 66. The ferments of iron in the windows, hingyngs for doares and windows, gutters and condutes of lead, aswell upon the houses as under the earth, they brake and beare away.
1660. Charac. Italy, 34. Their Bergamasque hanging up in the third Chamber of the Grand Dogues Gallery; being an Invention to lock up female frailty; an irrefragable Argument of the Italian Jealousie, with which inhumane constraint they do so persecute and prosecute their Consorts back and belly, and so cramp them hip and thigh, that if a poor despicable Crab-louse should chance to be cloyster’d up within these ferraments, he hath not room to breath, and what would become of the poor Flea should it be his fate to be thus confined?
