ppl. a. [pa. pple. of FORSAKE v.] In senses of the verb.
1. Deserted, left solitary or desolate.
c. 1305. Pilate, 238, in E. E. P. (1862), 117. He … caste hit wiþoute þe toun among olde walles forsake.
1388. Wyclif, Ps. lxii[i]. 3. In a lond forsakun with out wei, and with out water.
c. 1430. Lydg., Venus-Mass, in Lay Folks Mass Bk. (1879), Notes, 395. Me semeth amonges all I am on of the most for-sake.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. iii. 3.
| Yet she most faithfull Ladie all this while | |
| Forsaken, wofull, solitarie mayd | |
| Farre from all peoples prease, as in exile, | |
| In wildernesse and wastfull deserts strayd. |
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, II. (1634), 532. It is very strange, that during two hundred and fourescore years, this banished Nation retained their name, their ancient customes, language, hatred of Sparta, and love of their forsaken Country; with a desire to return unto it.
1791. Mrs. Radcliffe, Rom. Forest, ii. This apparently forsaken edifice might be a place of refuge to banditti.
1871. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), IV. xviii. 218. Their forsaken state was not owing to any oppression on the part of the King’s officers, but to fires and other ordinary accidents of human life.
† b. Of words: Disused, obsolete. Obs.
1612. Brerewood, Lang. & Relig., vi. 52–3. The Articles of League, betwixt the people of Rome and of Carthage, made presently after the expulsion of the Kings from Rome, could very hardly in his time be understood, by reason of the old forsaken words, by any of the best skilled Antiquaries in Rome.
† 2. Morally abandoned. Also absol. Obs.
1572. Satir. Poems Reform., xxx. 206.
| Bot, quhair the iust dois ioyne thame with forsakin, | |
| Be war thay get not wickit Acabs takin. |
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. xlii. § 13. That Doctrine concerning the Deity of Christ, which ‘Satanasius’ (for so it pleased those impious forsaken miscreants to speak) hath in this memorable Creed explained.
Hence Forsakenly adv.; Forsakenness.
1591. Harington, Orl. Fur., XXXII. xlvii.
| The collour of her bases was almost, | |
| Like to the falling whitish leaues and drie, | |
| Which when the moisture of the branch is lost, | |
| Forsakenly about the tree doth lye. |
1621. Lady M. Wroth, Urania, 93. Were all your desired meetings for this, to make me the more miserably end with neglectiue forsakennesse?
1840. Carlyle, Heroes (1858), 252. So could the Hero [Dante], in his forsakenness, in his extreme need, still say to himself: ‘Follow thou thy star, thou shalt not fail of a glorious haven!’
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., I. xvii. Tragedies of the copse or hedge-row, where the helpless drag wounded wings forsakenly, and streak the shadowed moss with the red moment-hand of their own death.
