[L. via a road or way.]
Several senses of the word (by itself or with Latin adjs.), which are recorded in earlier and copied in later Dictionaries, appear to have had no real currency in English.
1. Via Lactea, the Milky Way.
1615. [see MILKY WAY 1].
a. 1635. Sibbes, Breathing after God (1639), 144. As we say of the Via lactea, or Milky way in the heavens,… it is nothing but a deale of light from a company of little starres, that makes a glorious lustre.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., I. Milky-way or Via Lactea, the Galaxy, is a broad white Path or Track, encompassing the whole Heavens.
1786. M. Cutler, in Life, etc. (1888), II. 238. In the via lactea he found the whitish appearance completely resolved into a glorious multitude of stars of all possible sizes.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), XIII. 267. He found that the via lactea and nebulæ consisted of a collection of fixed stars.
1802. O. Gregory, Treat. Astron., 42. The Via Lactea, Galaxy, or Milky Way, may also be reckoned under the head of constellations.
1840. T. Dick, Sidereal Heavens, 185. This mighty zone … is sometimes termed … the Via Lactea, but more frequently … the Milky Way, from its resemblance to the whiteness of milk.
transf. a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, London, II. (1662), 208. Sir Thomas More was … born in Milkstreet, London (the brightest Star that ever shined in that Via lactea).
2. A way or road; a highway. Also fig.
1787. J. Williams (A. Pasquin), Childr. Thespis, II. (1792), 157. ’Tis but few little years since the charms of his voice Made … thousands rejoice;… And by walking approv’d thro the Thespian via, Tho’ a slave to the tribes, prov’d the Drama’s Messiah.
1909. W. J. Don, in A. Reid, Regality of Kirriemuir, xxiii. 301. It was no mere track, but a substantial via, 20 feet wide, and bounded by fossæ or ditches.
3. Via media, a middle way; an intermediate course or state. Hence via-medialism (see quot. 1881).
1845. Ford, Handbk. Spain, I. 168. The whole nation … is divided into two classes—… bigoted Romanists or Infidels; there is no via media.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt, Introd. I. 5. They were kept safely in the via media of indifference.
1881. Church Times, XIX. 128. Via-medialism, then, signifies a scheme whereof one party is asked to believe a little more, and the other a little less than what they conceive to be true.
1886. Mrs. Lynn Linton, Paston Carew, xxxiv. There was no via media, seeing that money was not to be found.
