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WAFT,
to bear along through air or water. (E.) 'Neither was it
thought that they should get any passage at all, till the ships at Middleborough
were returned... by the force whereof they might be the more strongly wafted
ouer;' Hackluyt's Voyages, i. 175. Shak. has it in several senses;
(1) to beckon, as by a wave of the hand, Merch. Ven. v. 11; Timon, i. I. 70; (2)
to turn quickly, Wint. Tale, i. 2. 372; (3) to carry or send over the sea, K.
John, ii. 73, 2 Hen. VI, iv. I. 114, 116; 3 Hen. VI, iii. 3. 253; v. 7.
41. He also has waftage, passage by water, Com. Errors, iv.
I. 95; wafture (old edd. wafter), the waving of the hand, a
gesture, Jul. Cæs. ii. I. 246. We must also note, that Shak. has
waft both for the pt. t. and pp.; see Merch. Ven. v. II; K. John, ii.
73. [Rich. cites waft as a pt. t., occurring in Gamelyn, 785, but
the best MSS. have fast; so that this is nothing to the point.]
β.
The word waft is not old, and does not occur in M. E.; it seems to be nothing
but a variant of wave, used as a verb, formed by taking the pt. t. waved
(corrupted to waft by rapid pronunciation), as the infinitive mood of a new
verb. This is by no means an isolated case; by precisely the same
process we have mod. E. hoist, due to hoised, pt. t. of Tudor Eng.
hoise, and
mod. E. graft, due to graffed, pt. t. of Tudor Eng. graff; while Spenser
actually writes waift and weft instead of Waif, q.v. By way of
proof, we should notice the exact equivalence of waved and waft in the following
passages. 'Yet towardes night a great sort [number of people] came
doune to the water-side, and waued us on shoare [beckoned us ashore] with a
white flag;' Hackluyt's Voyages, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 34 (also on p.
33). 'And waft [beckoned] her love To come again to Carthage;' Merch.
Ven. v. II. And again, we must particularly note Lowland Sc. waff,
to wave, shake, fluctuate, and as a sb., a hasty motion, the act of waving, a
signal made by waving (Jamieson); this is merely the Northern form of wave. In Gawain Douglas's translation of Virgil (Æneid, i. 319), we
have, in the edition of 1839, 'With wynd waving hir haris lowsit of tres,' where
another edition (cited by Wedgwood) has waffing. So also, in
Barbour's Bruce, ix. 245, xi. 193, 513, we have the forms vafand, vaffand,
wawand, all meaning 'waving,' with reference to banners waving in the
wind. γ. We thus see that waft is due to waft or
waved, pt. t. of
waff or wave; cf. Icel. váfa, to swing, vibrate, and see further under
Wave. ¶ This is the right explanation; the reference to Swed.
vefta,
which only means to fan, to winnow, is unnecessary, though this word is
certainly allied, being a secondary formation from the base vaf-, to wave, as
seen in Icel. váfa (above), and in vafra, vafla, to waver.
Der.
waft-age, waft-ure, as above; waft, sb., waft-er.
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