oaf (of)

[Early mod. E. also ouphe, * auphe, aulf, an elf, Icel. alfr, an elf, = AS. alf, elf: see elf.] 1. In popular superstition, a changeling; a foolish or otherwise defective child left by fairies in the place of another carried off by them. The fairy left this aulf , And took away the other. Drayton, Nymphidia, 1. 79. Drowned Lovers (Child's Ballads, II. 179). 2. Adolt; an idiot; a blockhead; a simpleton. At the lo of a dear friend they will cry out, roar, and tear their hair, lamenting some months after, howling "0 Hone ." Burton , Anat. of Mel., p. 369. 02, oh (ō), n. [ Why should you fall into so deep an O ? Shak., R. and J., iii. 3. 90. With the like clamour, and confused 0, To the dread shock the desp'rate armies go. Drayton , Barons' Wars, ii. 35. 21. Same as hol. - The O's of Advent, the Advent Anthems, sung in the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches on the days next preceding Christmas, beginning with December 16th, as noted in the Book of Common Prayer. They are named from the initial O with which they all begin. Each contains a separate invocation: as, O Sapient i a (that is, O Wisdom), O Adonai (Lord), O Root of David, etc. -The O's of St. Bridget, or the Fifteen O's fifteen meditations on the Pa ion of Christ, composed by St. Bridget. Each begins with O Jesu or a similar invocation. They were included in several of the primers i ued in England shortly before the Reformation. See primer2. 03 (0), prep. [Also a (see a3); abbr. of on: see on.] An abbreviated form of on. Commonly written o'. Still you keep o' the windy side of the law. Shak ., T. N., iii. 4. 181.