May game
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English
[edit]Noun
[edit]- (now chiefly historical) An entertainment held as part of the spring celebrations in May, especially on May Day. [from 16th c.]
- (now chiefly Somerset, Devon, Cornwall) An object of ridicule; a laughingstock. [from 16th c.]
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- ‘Ah, my deare Lord! what sight is this?’ quoth she, / ‘What May-game hath misfortune made of you?’
References
[edit]- Joseph Wright, editor (1903), “MAY-GAME”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume IV (M–Q), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC.