malcontent (malkontent)

and n. [Formerly also male content; I speak not much: yet in my little Talk Much vanity and many Lies do walk; I wish too-earnest, and too-oft (in fine) For others Fortunes, male - content with mine. Sylvester, tr. of Du Bartas's Weeks, ii., The Lawe. Nicholas Durant i us, a Knight of Malta, sirnamed Villa gag non, in the yeere 1555 ( male content with his estate at home) sayled into Francia Antarctica. Purchas , Pilgrimage, p. 837. II. n. A discontented person; specifically, a discontented subject of government; one who murmurs at the laws and administration, or who manifests his di atisfaction by overt acts, as in sedition or insurrection. He that wrote the Satyr of Piers Ploughman seemed to haue bene a malcontent of that time, and therefore bent himselfe wholy to taxe the disorders of that age. Putten ham, Arte of Eng. Poesie, p. 50. In Connecticut and New Hampshire the body of the people rose in support of government, and obliged the malcontents to go to their homes. Jefferson, Correspondence, II. 70.