worse (wers)

compar. [I. compar. worse, We will deal worse with thee than with them. Gen. xix. 9. He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere, Ill-faced, worse bodied, shapele everywhere. Shak., C. of E., iv. 2. 20. O Master May berry! before your servant to dance a Lancashire hornpipe! it shews worse to me than dancing does to a deaf man that sees not the fiddles. Dekker and Webster , Northward Ho, i. 3. 2. In a le or lower degree; le . Thou shalt serve me if I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee. Shak., Lear, i. 4. 44. 3. Le favorably or agreeably. Then this they take worse than his working of miracles, or his working upon the Sabbath, That he would say that God was his Father. Donne , Sermons, xviii. 4. With more severity, intensity, etc.; in a greater degree. That honorable grief lodged here which burns Worse than tears drown. Shak ., W. T., ii. 1. 112. worset (wers), v. [ wersen , wursen , worsen , wyrsian , become worse, wyrsa , worse: see worse , a.] I. in trans . To become worse. Werihede, thet maketh thane man weri and worsi uram daye to daye. Ayenbite of Inwyt (E. E. T. S.), p. 33. II. trans. To worst; put to disadvantage; discomfit. Weapons more violent, when next we meet, May serve to better us, and worse our foes. Milton, P. L., vi. 440. IMG:content-2579.png:[blocks in formation] It is still Episcopacie that before all our eyes worsens and sluggs the most learned and seeming religious of our Ministers. Milton , Reformation in Eng., i. The working-men are left to foolish devices, and keep worsening themselves; the best heads among them forsake their born comrades, and go in for a house with a high door-step and a bra knocker. George Eliot , Felix Holt, v. 2. To obtain advantage of. Southey . [Rare.] worser (wer'sèr), a . and adv . [ le er ), due to the fact that worse (like le ) is not obviously a compar. form.] An old and redundant comparative of worse . I cannot hate thee worser than I do. Shak . , A. and C., ii. 5. 90. Fools! they their worser Thraldom still retain'd! Cowley, Davideis, ii. J. Baillie . Thou 'rt worser than a hog.