(Sir John or Mass-John), subs. (old).—A parson; spec. (B. E.) ‘a country Parson or Vicar’: see SKY-PILOT (GROSE). See JOHN.
1380. WICLIFFE, Works [E.E.T.S.], 192 [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 147. The priest SIR JOHN, becomes SIR JACKE … this change is unusual].
1426. Sir Jon Audlay [Percy Society: the title of a description of a priest].
c. 1350. The Tale of the Basyn [HAZLITT, Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England, III. 47].
| Hit is a preest, men callis SIR JOHN. | |
| Ibid. 49. | |
| SIR JOHN con wake, | |
| And nedis water he most make. |
d. 1555. LATIMER, Sermons [Century]. They hire a SIR JOHN, which hath better skill in playing at tables, or in keeping of a garden, than in God’s word.
1560. T. BECON, Prayers and Other Pieces (1844), 270. Hold up, SIR JOHN hold up; heave it [the Host] a little higher.
1570. W. LAMBARDE, A Perambulation of Kent, 253. A poore Chapell (serued with a single SYR IOHN, and destitute, both of Font and Churchyard).
1591. SPENSER, Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberds Tale, v. 390. But this good SIR did follow the plaine word.
1602. SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night, iv. 2. Make him believe you are SIR Thopas, the curate. Do it quickly.
c. 1609. FLETCHER, Monsieur Thomas, v. 2.
| Close by the Nunnery, there you shall find a Night-Priest, | |
| Little SIR Hugh, and he can say his Matrimony, | |
| Over without book. |
1633. JONSON, A Tale of a Tub, i. 1.
| Though SIR Hugh of Pancrace, | |
| Be hither come to Totten. |
1648. HERRICK, Hesperides, ‘The Tythe.’
| If children you have ten, SIR JOHN | |
| Won’t for his tenth part ask you one. |
1817. DRAKE, Shakspeare and His Times, i. 88. The language of our universities, which confers the designation of Dominus on those who have taken their first degree of bachelor of arts…. The word Dominus was naturally translated SIR; and, as almost every clergyman had taken his first degree, it became customary to apply the term to the lower class of the hierarchy.
