Corner sb.1. World English Historical Dictionary

Corner sb.1. World English Historical Dictionary Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Slice Contents Key Bibliographic Record Murray’s New English Dictionary. 1893, rev. 2025. Corner sb.1 Forms: 4 querner, quarner(e, 4–5 cornere, cornyer(e, 5 cornare, korner, 6 cornar, 3– corner. [ME. corner, a. AF. corner = OF. cornier masc., corniere, cornere fem.:—late L. type *cornārium, pl. *cornāria, f. cornū horn: in med.L. cornerium, corneria.]

1   I.  generally.

2   1.  The meeting-place of converging sides or edges (e.g., of the walls of a building, the sides of a box), forming an angular extremity or projection.

3 [1292.  Britton, I. xxiii. § 14. Un escu a iiii. corners.]

4 a. 1300.  Cursor M., 21663 (Cott.). O four corner [v.r. querner, quarnere] þe arche was made.

5 1340.  Ayenb., 124. Þe uour tours ine þe uour cornyeres of þe house.

6 1382.  Wyclif, Ps. cxvii[i]. 22. The … hed of the corner.

7 c. 1450.  Mirour Saluacioun, 227. Sett vp the cornare of the wall.

8 1480.  Caxton, Chron. Eng., ccxv. 202. The iiij cornyers of the table.

9 a. 1500[?].  Langforde, Med. fol. 2 b, in Lay Folks’ Mass-Bk. 179. After to go to þe Ryght cornar of þe Avter And þen after to goo to þe Lefte end of the Avter.

10 1530.  Palsgr., 209/1. Corner of the eye, coing doeyl.

11 1632.  Lithgow, Trav., IX. (1682), 367.        An Isle [Sicilia] with Corners three, out braves the Main, From whence the name Trinacry it doth gain.

12 1774.  Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), III. 91. Under the corners of the mouth.

13 1842.  Tennyson, Will Waterproof, 236. Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread The corners of thine eyes.

14 1860.  Tyndall, Glac., II. § 10. 279. The corner of a window.

15   † b.  An angle (in Geometry). Obs.

16 1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. vii. (1495), 113. A corner is the towche and metynge of two lynes.

17 1551.  Recorde, Pathw. Knowl., I. def., The square angle, whiche is commonly named a right corner.

18   c.  fig. (Cf. ANGLE sb. 6, quot. 1850.)

19 1766.  Fordyce, Serm. Yng. Wom. (ed. 4), I. i. 22. Such society … rubs off the corners that give many of our sex an ungracious roughness.

20 1841–4.  Emerson, Ess., Manners, Wks. (Bohn), I. 213. Fashion … hates corners and sharp points of character.

21   † d.  Corner of the people: a prince or chief, a ‘corner-stone of the state.’ (A Hebraism.)

22 1382.  Wyclif, Judg. xx. 2. Alle the corneres of puplis [Vulg. anguli populorum] and alle the lynages of Yrael. Ibid., 1 Sam. xiv. 38. Aplieth hidir all the corners of the puple.

23 1560.  Bible (Genev.), Isa. xix. 13. They haue deceiued Egypt, euen the corners of the tribes thereof [1609 Douay, the corner of the peoples thereof].

24   e.  Within the four corners of (a document): (emphatic for) within the limits or scope of its contents.

25 1874.  Morley, Compromise (1886), 37–8. The spirit of the Church is eternally entombed within the four corners of acts of parliament.

26   II.  A salient or projecting angle.

27   2.  The place where two streets meet.

28 1382.  Wyclif, Matt. vi. 5. As ypocritis, the whiche stondynge louen to preye in … corners of streetis, that thei be seen of men.

29 1391.  Mem. Ripon (1882), I. 150. In Annesgate super le Corner ibidem.

30 1475.  in Ripon Ch. Acts, 246. Super angulum vocatum Skelgate corner.

31 1593.  Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., IV. vii. 145. With these borne before vs … will we ride through the streets, & at euery Corner haue them kisse.

32 1611.  Bible, Prov. vii. 12. Now is shee without, now in the streetes, and lieth in waite at euery corner.

33 1879.  Miss Braddon, Cloven Foot, xvi. At the corner of Long Acre.

34   b.  To turn the corner: to pass round a corner into another road, street, etc.; to pass round the corner of a race-course, esp. the last corner before the finish; fig. to pass a critical point or stage. So also to go or come round the corner. To cut off a corner: to take a short cut, so as not to go round a corner.

35 1687.  Congreve, Old Bach., I. v. I see he has turned the corner, and goes another way.

36 1796.  Pegge, Anonym. (1809), 375. That expression which I heard in the country…, He has turn’d the corner, i. e. gone away, so as no more to be seen [= he is dead].

37 1807.  J. Johnson, Orient. Voy., 54. They make most excellent drivers, and think nothing of turning short corners.

38 1844.  Dickens, Mar. Chuz., ii. ‘You’re round the corner now,’ cried Miss Pecksniff. Ibid. (1852), Bleak Ho., iii. We went round the corner.

39 1862.  Trollope, Orley F., I. 13 (Hoppe). Those trumpery presents were very well while he was struggling for bare bread, but now he had turned the corner he could afford [etc.].

40 1876.  Blackmore, Cripps, xxxii. 215. For the present, this young man (although he certainly had turned the corner) lay still in a very precarious state.

41 1872.  Jenkinson, Guide Eng. Lakes (1879), 189. Tourists, in their anxiety to cut off a corner, are sometimes induced to cross the valley.

42   c.  Sporting slang. The corner: Tattersall’s betting-rooms; formerly situated near Hyde Park Corner.

43 1848.  Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, x. He is a regular attendant at the Corner.

44 1874.  G. A. Lawrence, Hagarene, v. (Farmer). She heard how—without … making any demonstration at the Corner—the cream of the long odds against the Pirate had been skimmed.

45   3.  An angular extremity at the junction of the sides or edges of anything; an angular projection, as a point of land running out into the sea.

46 a. 1330.  Otuel, 1591. A corner of otuweles scheld He gurde out amidde þe feld.

47 c. 1340.  Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 1185. A corner of þe cortyn he caȝt vp a lyttel.

48 1553.  Eden, Treat. Newe Ind. (Arb.), 32. He discouered a corner or poynt of the sayd mayne land.

49 1563.  Fulke, Meteors (1640), 54 b. The fashion of hayle is sometine round … for falling from high, the corners are worne away.

50 1611.  Bible, Lev. xix. 27. Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou marre the corners of thy beard.

51 1712.  E. Hatton, Merch. Mag., 230/1. Creek.… A crooked Shoar, where two Corners of Land extend themselves into the Sea at some small distance.

52 1752.  Johnson, Rambler, No. 200, ¶ 7. Covered with a cloth, of which Prospero ordered his servant to lift up a corner.

53   4.  A corner piece broken off or remaining as a fragment.

54 1881.  A. Leslie, trans. Nordenskiöld’s Voy. Vega, I. 304–5. Their stock of provisions consisted of only a small barrel of bread, a sack of corners and fragments of ship biscuit, [etc.].

55   III.  A retreating hollow angle.

56   5.  The comparatively small space included between sides or edges at their meeting-place; esp. between the sides of a room or building.

57   To put in the corner, lit. as a punishment for a child; † to put to a corner, to set aside, displace from precedency.

58 1382.  Wyclif, Prov. xxv. 24. Betere is to sitte in a corner of a roof.

59 c. 1384.  Chaucer, H. Fame, III. 1052. I herde a grete noyse with alle In a corner of the halle.

60 1447.  Bokenham, Seyntys (Roxb.), 21. An huge dragoun … Sodeynly from a corner dede apere Of the presoun.

61 a. 1533.  Ld. Berners, Huon, liii. 179. To be mated in ye corner [of the chessboard].

62 1602.  Shaks., Ham., IV. ii. 19. He keepes them like an Ape in the corner of his iaw.

63 1605.  Bp. Hall, Medit. & Vows, I. § 34. The heart of man is … so infinite in desire, that the round Globe of the world cannot fill the three corners of it.

64 1784.  Cowper, Task, V. 27. The cattle mourn in corners where the fence Screens them.

65 17[?].  Foord, Suppl. Dec., 464 (Jam.). After his father’s decease, he entered in his dwelling house, and … put her to a corner.

66 1886.  J. Payn, Luck of Darrells, xxxvii. He allowed himself to be metaphorically whipped and put in a corner.

67   b.  To drive into a corner: to force into a difficult position from which there is no escape; to drive into straits; to put in a ‘fix’ or in a ‘tight place.’

68 [1526.  Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 121. All … carnall temptacyons … ben suppressed, and in maner dryuen to a corner.]

69 1548.  Hall, Chron., 47. To the intent that his armie should not bee included in a streight or driven to a corner.

70 1611.  Cotgr., Angler, to shut vp in a corner, bring into a strait.

71 1861.  Geo. Eliot, Silas M., vii. ‘I don’t want to act the constable,’ said the farrier, driven into a corner by this merciless reasoning.

72 1869.  Trollope, He knew, etc. xxxvi. (1878), 201. He had been driven into a corner by the pertinacious ingenuity of Miss French.

73   6.  transf. A small, out-of-the-way, secluded place, that escapes notice or intrusion; ‘a secret or remote place’ (J.). Done in a corner: done privily or covertly. Hole and corner: see HOLE.

74 1382.  Wyclif, Acts xxvi. 26. Forsoth nether in a corner is ouȝt of these thingis don.

75 a. 1400[?].  Morte Arth., 1640. Lokez the contree be clere, the corners are large.

76 1535.  Coverdale, Jer. ii. 34. Not in corners and holes only, but openly in all these places.

77 1538.  Starkey, England, I. i. 6. Ryches hepyd in cornerys, neuer applyd to the vse of other.

78 1856.  A. Day, Eng. Secretary, I. (1625), 44. There was … no brothel-house but he haunted, no odde corner but he knew.

79 1649.  Bp. Hall, Cases Consc., IV. viii. 475. Whatever private contract may be transacted in corners betwixt the parties.

80 1714.  Pope, Epil. Rowe’s J. Shore, 18. In some close corner of the soul, they sin.

81 1875.  Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), II. 199. The theory throws some degree of light upon a dark corner of the human mind.

82 1889.  Jessopp, Coming of Friars, iii. 160. Such things were not done in a corner.

83   b.  fig.

84 1836.  J. Halley, in Life (1842), 58. I have hit on a new plan of redeeming an odd corner of time.

85 1862.  Stanley, Jew. Ch. (1877), I. xiii. 336. Those quiet corners of history which are the green spots of all time.

86   c.  To keep a corner: to reserve a small place.

87 1514.  Barclay, Cyt. & Uplondyshm. (Percy Soc.), p. xlii. Softe man, and spare thou a corner of thy belly.

88 1604.  Shaks., Oth., III. iii. 272. I had rather be a Toad … Then keepe a corner in the thing I loue For others vses.

89 1713.  Steele, Englishman, No. 48. 312. Malefactors at an Execution … preserve as it were a Corner of their Souls for the reception of Pity.

90 1771.  Goldsm., Haunch of Venison, 100. ‘What the de’il, mon, a pasty!’ re-echoed the Scot; ‘Though splitting, I’ll still keep a corner for that.’

91   7.  Any part whatsoever, even the smallest, most distant or secluded (as no corner, every corner).

92 1526.  Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 131 b. It shall leaue no corner of our soules … vnserched.

93 1576.  Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 416. All mystes and fogges of ignoraunce, may be driven away out of all the corners of this kingdome.

94 1614.  Bp. Hall, Recoll. Treat., 821. All the world was theirs, scarce any corner ours.

95 1667.  Milton, P. L., IV. 529. But first with narrow search I must walk round This Garden, and no corner leave unspi’d.

96 1681.  Dryden, Span. Fryar, I. Wks. 1717, V. 175 (J.).        I turn’d, and try’d each Corner of my Bed, To find if Sleep were there, but Sleep was lost.

97 1849.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 219–20. There was no corner of the kingdom in which the effect was not felt.

98 1886.  H. Conway, Living or Dead, xiv. My friend must have seen every nook and corner in the house.

99   8.  An extremity or end of the earth; a region, quarter; a direction or quarter from which the wind blows (obs.).

100 1535.  Coverdale, Ps. xciv. 4. In his honde are all ye corners of the earth. Ibid., Isa. xi. 12. He shal … gather together … the outcastes of Iuda from the foure corners of ye worlde.

101 1583.  Stocker, Civ. Warres Lowe C., II. 64 a. The Souldiers helde a councell for their wages, whiche was promised them … or els be brought into a better corner.

102 1599.  Shaks., Much Ado, II. iii. 103. Sits the winde in that corner? Ibid. (1611), Cymb., II. iv. 28. Windes of all the Corners kiss’d your Sailes, To make your vessell nimble.

103 1651.  Hobbes, Leviath., II. xxvii. 155. In this corner of the world.

104 1654.  Gayton, Pleas. Notes, II. ii. 39. Physitians from the four corners are called.

105 1691.  Ray, Creation, I. (1704), 96. The Wind lying in that Corner at least three quarters of the Year.

106 1724.  Swift, Drapier’s Lett., iv. We are perfectly safe from that Corner.

107 1725.  De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 18. We … were carried away with a continued storm of wind, from the same corner, or near it.

108 1870.  Max Müller, Sc. Relig. (1873), 159. We find the ancient worship of the Aryan race carried to all the corners of the earth.

109   IV.  Elliptical and technical uses.

110   9.  A corner-dish for the table.

111 1824.  Miss Ferrier, Inher., I. xiv. 96. She never would marry any man who couldn’t give her silver tureens and corners. Ibid., xlviii. 333. Her silver corners were very handsome.

112   10.  A cap or guard used to protect the corner of anything; the leather covering of the corner of a half-bound book.

113   11.  Bookbinding. A triangular tool used in gold or blind tooling.

114   12.  U.S. A mark placed at the angle of a tract which has been surveyed. Cf. corner-tree in 16.

115 1872.  De Vere, Americanisms, 173. We have frequently heard the old surveyors along the Ohio say that they often met with his [Col. Crawford’s] corners. Ibid., 172 Every tract of land blazed by a claimant … [is] defined by what the surveyors call the corners.

116   13.  Games. a. Association Football. (In full corner-kick.) A free kick from the corner of the field obtained by the opposite side when a player sends the ball over his own goal-line.

117 1887.  Sporting Life, 28 March, 4/5. Two corner kicks fell to them in quick succession. Ibid. Forty minutes from the start, a corner fell to the Preston men.

118 1888.  Badminton Libr., Athletics, 340. If a player kick the ball over his own goal line, the opposite side have a ‘corner-kick.’

119   † b.  Whist. (See quot.)

120 a. 1825.  Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Corner, a point in a rubber at whist. We say we play sixpences or a shilling a corner, not sixpenny or shilling points.

121 1824.  Scott, St. Ronan’s, xxxix. If, on any extraordinary occasion, he ventured sixpence a corner at whist.

122   c.  Four corners, a game: see FOUR.

123   14.  Comm. A speculative operation in which a combination or syndicate buy up the whole of any stock in the market, or the whole available supply of any commodity, so as to drive speculative sellers into a corner, by rendering them unable to fulfil their engagements except by buying of the combination of corner-men at their own price. (Of U.S. origin.)

124   Sometimes applied to any combination to raise the price of an article by securing a monopoly; this is a development in which the primary meaning is lost sight of.

125 1857.  Hunt’s Merch. Mag. (N. Y.), July, XXXVII. 135. When a party is made up to buy a large amount of stock, a larger … than is known to be at the time on the market, it is called a corner…. Having inflated the market … they make a sudden call for several thousand shares of stock on their buyer’s option, and then there comes a sharp time among the sellers, who are generally all short. This creates an active demand, and the clique sell their cash stock to the bears or shorts, who purchase at high rates for delivery at much lower prices to the very parties selling it.

126 1868.  Chicago Tribune, 1 Oct., 2/2. (heading) The Corner on Corn.

127 1877.  R. Giffen, Stock Exch. Securities, 49. It [a ‘corner’] is a counter-rig to which a rig for the fall is liable.

128 1881.  Daily News, 14 Sept., 2/6. The league of spinners now being formed in Manchester and Oldham to checkmate the Liverpool ‘corner.’

129 1883.  The American, VI. 164. ‘Corners’ in railroad stocks or iron rails.

130 1889.  Sat. Rev., 5 Oct., 377. The cotton corner in Liverpool … collapsed on Monday last.

131   15.  attrib. and Comb. a. lit. (‘situated in or at a corner’), as corner-cupboard, -gate, -house, -pew, -piece, † -port (= gate), etc.

132 1535.  Coverdale, 2 Chron. xxvi. 9. And Osias buylded towres at Ierusalem vpon the cornerporte.

133 1601.  Holland, Pliny, I. 198. They make of yuory the very principals and corner posts of their houses.

134 1611.  Bible, 2 Kings xiv. 13. From the gate of Ephraim, vnto the corner gate.

135 1663.  Pepys, Diary, 3 May. Young Dawes, that sits in the new corner-pew in the church.

136 1687.  Congreve, Old Bach., V. xi. Walk to that corner-house.

137 1851.  Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., II. 147. In each cell I saw a pretty little corner cupboard.

138 1886.  Besant, Childr. Gibeon, II. x. He … stopped at a corner house.

139   b.  fig. (Chiefly with meaning ‘done in a corner’: see 6), as corner-contract, -meeting, etc.

140 1580.  Sidney, Arcadia, III. 350. Casting a kinde of corner-look upon him.

141 1585.  Abp. Sandys, Serm. (1841), 50. These corner contracts, without consent of parents.

142 1594.  Hooker, Eccl. Pol., Pref. § 8 (1632), 38. They had their secret corner-meetings.

143 1619.  W. Whateley, God’s Husb., ii. (1622), 44. Drag this corner-seeking … vice into the open view.

144 1651.  J. F[reake], Agrippa’s Occ. Philos., 165. With corner-whisperings from house to house.

145 a. 1670.  Hacket, Abp. Williams, I. (1692), 134. Our Corner-miching Priests.

146   16.  Special Comb.: corner-boy (in Ireland) = CORNER-MAN 2; corner-chisel, a chisel with two rectangular edges for cutting the corners of mortises; corner-cove (slang) = CORNER-MAN 2; corner-dish, a dish for the corner of the table; corner-drill, a drill used in places where there is not room to use the ordinary brace-handle; corner-kick (see 13); corner-lot (U.S.), a plot of ground (with its block of buildings) at the corner of two streets or roads, having a frontage to each; † corner-pie, ? a pie for the corner of the table; corner-piece, a piece (casting, tool, etc.) for strengthening or dealing with corners; corner pillar (Coachbuilding): see quot.; corner-plate, an iron angle-plate for protecting or strengthening the corners of anything; corner-punch, an angular punch for cleaning out corners; corner-saw, a saw for cutting off the corners of a block; corner-tile, a tile used for capping the hip of a roof, a hip-tile; corner-tooth (see quot.); corner-tree (U.S.), a tree that marks the corner of a surveyed tract. Also CORNER-CAP, -STONE, etc.

147 1882.  Standard, 7 Sept., 3/4. The Dublin loafers, or *‘corner boys,’ as they are called, are a most cowardly, treacherous, and savage class.

148 1886.  Dublin Daily Express 5 April. In the Petty Sessions, Robert Nolan and James Kinsella, two corner boys, were charged with having committed a violent and unprovoked assault.

149 1851.  Mayhew, Lond. Labour, IV. 445 (Farmer). ‘I mean by *corner-coves them sort of men who is always a standing at the corners of the streets and chaffing respectable folks a passing by.’

150 1796.  Mrs. Glasse, Cookery, v. 48. It is a pretty *corner-dish for dinner or supper.

151 1888.  Bryce, Amer. Commw., III. IV. lxxxi. 68. To keep a store in a *‘corner lot’ is the ambition of the keen-witted lad.

152 1638.  Sir W. Berkeley, Lost Lady (N.). A knights daughter … that has not one commendable quality, more then to make a *corner pye and a sallad.

153 1794.  W. Felton, Carriages, Gloss., *Corner Pillars, the corner framings of bodies.

154 1477.  Act 17 Edw. IV., c. 3. Roftile ou crestile *cornertile & guttertile.

155 1659.  Willsford, Archit., 17. The corner tyles have their upper angles acute, with pin-holes in them.

156 1726.  Neve, Builder’s Dict., Hip-Tyles, Corner-Tyles. These are to lie on the Hips, or Corners of Roofs.

157 1755.  Johnson, *Corner-teeth of a Horse are the four teeth between the middling teeth and the tushes; two above and two below, on each side of the jaw, which shoot when the horse is four years and a half old. Farrier’s Dict.

158 1889.  Farmer, Americanisms, *Corner-Trees.—Trees which mark the boundary lines of homesteads, claims, etc.

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