[f. FORE- pref. + SKIN sb.] The prepuce.
1535. Coverdale, Exod. iv. 25. Then toke Zipora a stone, and circumcyded the foreskynne of hir sonne, and touched his fete, and sayde: A bloudy brydegrome art thou vnto me.
1643. Milton, Divorce, II. vi. (1851), 77. That severe and rigorous knife not sparing the tender fore-skin of any male infant, to carve upon his flesh the mark of that strict and pure cov’nant wherinto he enter’d, might give us to understand enough against the fancie of dispencing.
1712. Swift, Wonderful Proph., Wks. 1755, III. I. 174. The time is at hand when the Free-thinkers of Great Britain shall he converted to Judaism: and the Sultan shall receive the Foreskins of Toland and Collins in a Box of Gold.
1804. Abernethy, Surg. Observ., 167. Sometimes, in a common gonorrhæa, the disease shifts its ground and attacks the foreskin, and sores form [printed from] about the orifice of this part.
1868. Chambers’ Encycl., III. 30. Circumcision (Lat. a cutting around), the cutting off the foreskin (præputium), a rite widely diffused among ancient and modern nations.
fig. 1535. Coverdale, Jer. iv. 4. Be circumcided in the Lorde, and cut awaye the foreskynne of youre hertes, all ye of Iuda, and all the indwellers of Ierusalem: that my indignacion breake not out like fyre, & kyndle, so that no man maye quench it, because of the wickednes of youre ymaginacions.
