insinew

English

Etymology

From in- +‎ sinew.

Verb

insinew (third-person singular simple present insinews, present participle insinewing, simple past and past participle insinewed)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To strengthen with, or as if with, sinews; to innerve; to invigorate.
   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i], page 90:

     All members of our Cauſe, both here, and hence, / That are inſinewed to this Action.

   • 1824, T[homas] Jeffery Llewelyn Prichard, “The Land beneath the Sea”, in Welsh Minstrelsy: Containing The Land beneath the Sea; or, Cantrev Y Gwaelod, A Poem, in three Cantos […], John and H. L. Hunt, Canto II, page 80:

     Oh ye floods! oh ye floods! of the ever-rolling deep, / The breath of God insinews ye, and awful is your sweep, […]

   • 1869 July 1, “Remember Solferino”, in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia: William W. Harding, page 4:

     The treacherous peace which followed it gave to Prussia a theatre for military achievement, an opportunity and an ally; […] strengthened her in in territory, population and wealth, and insinewed her for the future with the prestige and preparation needful for a great military State.

Further reading

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “insinew, v.”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.