or leisure, scrabbling, &c., subs. phr. (old).—See quots.

1

  1546.  HEYWOOD, Proverbs [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 504. SCARBOROUGH WARNING (the blow before the word) is found in page 76].

2

  1557.  HEYWOOD, Old Ballad [Harleian Miscellany (PARK), X. 258].

        This term, SCARBOROW WARNING, grew (some say)
  By hasty hanging, for rank robbry theare.

3

  1580.  TUSSER, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, x. 28, 22 [E.D.S.].

        Be suretie seldome (but neuer for much)
  for feare of purse penniles hanging by such:
Or SKARBOROW WARNING, as ill I beleeue,
  when (sir I arest yee) gets hold of thy sleeue.

4

  1582.  STANYHURST, Æneis, iv. 621. Al they the lyke poste haste dyd make, with SCARBORO SCRABBLING.

5

  1589.  PUTTENHAM, Art of English Poesie, B. iii. c. SKARBOROW WARNING, for a sodaine commandement, allowing no respect or delay to bethinke a man of his business.

6

  1591.  HARINGTON, Ariosto, xxxiv. 22.

        They tooke them to a fort, with such small treasure,
As in so SCARBROW WARNING they had leasure.

7

  1593.  G. HARVEY, Pierce’s Supererogation [GROSART, Works, ii. 225]. He meaneth not to come vpon me with a cowardly stratageme of SCARBOROUGH WARNING.

8

  1603.  T. MATTHEW, Letter Jan. I received a message from my lord chamberlaine, that it was his majesty’s pleasure that I should preach before him upon Sunday next; which SCARBOROUGH WARNING did not only perplex me, but so puzzel me.

9

  1616.  JOHN CHAMBERLAIN, Letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, 25 May, in The Court and Times of James the First, I. 406. I now write upon SCARBOROUGH WARNING.

10

  1670.  RAY, Proverbs, 263 [NARES]. This proverb took its original from Thomas Stafford, who in the reign of Queen Mary, A. 1557, with a small company seizd on SCARBOROUGH Castle (utterly destitute of provision for resistance) before the townsmen had the least notice of his approach. [This is taken from FULLER’S Worthies: cf. STAFFORD LAW and see quots. 1546 and 1557 which show the phrase in earlier use.]

11

  1787.  GROSE, A Provincial Glossary, etc. (1811), 94. A SCARBOROUGH WARNING. That is, none at all, but a sudden surprise.

12

  1843.  HALLIWELL, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, etc., s.v. SCARBOROUGH … SCARBOROUGH LEISURE, no leisure at all.

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