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empair

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Verb

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empair (third-person singular simple present empairs, present participle empairing, simple past and past participle empaired)

  1. Obsolete form of impair.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene:
      Who when their powres empair'd through labour long, With due repast they had recured well, And that weak captive wight now wexed strong, Them lift no longer there at leisure dwell, But forward fare, as their adventures fell:
    • 1841, The School Of Abuse, Containing A Pleasant Invective Against Poets:
      Therefore, he that wil avoyde the open shame of privie sinne, the common plague of priavate offences, the greate wrackes of little rockes, the sure disease of uncertaine causes, must set hande to the sterne, and eye to his steppes to shun the occason as neere as he can; neither running to bushes for renting his clothes, nor rent his clothes for emparing his thrift, nor walke upon yse for taking of a fall, nor take a fall for brusing himselfe, nor go to Theaters for beeing allured, nor once bee allured for feare of abuse.
    • 1966, Winston Churchill, Marlborough, His Life and Times, page 868:
      ...it is impossible for me to express the real concern I have had on the account of this barbarous libel, when I am emparing my health, and venturing every thing for the good of my Country.
  2. (obsolete) To match, pair up, or combine.
    • 1767, James Ferguson, Tables and Tracts, Relative to Several Arts and Sciences, page 270:
      A Table for emparing the English Foot with Foreign measures, in English.
    • 1878, The Carolina Medical Journal - Volumes 1-2, page 368:
      In emparing the above analysis with that of the Extract of Malt, of the German Pbarmacopoea, as given by Hager, that has been so generally received by the profession, I find it to substantially agree with that article.
    • 1893, Michel de Montaigne, George Saintsbury, The Essays of Montaigne Done Into English, page 408:
      The elements we enjoy are altered: Metals likewise, yea golde must be empaired with some other stuffe to make it fit for our service.

Derived terms

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Anagrams

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