a. [LIGHT a.1]

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  1.  poet. = LIGHT-FOOTED. (Very common in 16th c.)

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c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 304/1. Lyght foote (MS. K. c. 1490 liht fotyd), levipes.

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1579.  Spenser, Sheph. Cal., June, 26. And lightfoote Nymphes can chace the lingring night.

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1580.  Sidney, Ps. XVIII. ix. To match with lightfoote staggs, he made my foote so light.

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1594.  Shaks., Rich. III., IV. iv. 440. Some light-foot friend post to ye Duke of Norfolk.

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1600.  Fairfax, Tasso, VI. xxxvi. 100. The victor spurr’d againe his light-foot stead.

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1832.  Tennyson, Œnone, 81. Light-foot Iris.

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1896.  A. E. Housman, Shropshire Lad, liv. By brooks too broad for leaping The lightfoot boys are laid.

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  fig.  1624.  Quarles, Sion’s Elegies, Poems (1717), 391. Hours, chac’d with lightfoot-minutes, end.

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1877.  Swinburne, Songs bef. Sunrise, Prelude, 185. By rose-hung river and light-foot rill.

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1880.  Miss Broughton, Second Thoughts, II. III. x. 275. The lightfoot hours dance by.

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  † 2.  quasi-sb. A name for the hare, and the deer. Obs.

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a. 1325.  Names of Hare, in Rel. Ant., I. 134. He shal seien on oreisoun In the worshipe of the hare … The liȝt-fot, the fernsittere.

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15[?].  Kinge & Miller, 85, in Furnivall, Percy Folio (1868), II. 151. ‘Wiffe’ quoth the Miller, ‘feitch me forth lightfoote, that wee of his sweetnesse a litle may taste.’ A faire venson pasty shee feiched forth presentlye.

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1815.  Sporting Mag., XLV. 169. If light-foot elude the snare, not less than half a dozen of Chanticleer’s family can compensate for the disappointment.

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