+abaco

Arithmetic. [ABACUS.] *a-back-ward, *a-bac-ward, adv. [Eng. aback; ward.] Aback, backward, to the rear. "Arthur thehte bine abacward." Layamon, ii. 419 ab-a-cot, ab-o-cocked, ab-o-cock-et. A spurious word which owes its origin to the fact that Hall, in his Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of York and Lancastre, wrongly transcribed the word by cocket (q.v.) from Fabyan, as bococket , or that his printer misread the manuscript and, joining the article to the substantive, produced the form abococket . Fleming corrected this form to abacot , and this error was perpetuated till its exposure in the Athenœum of Feb. 4, 1882