pa. pple. and ppl. a.
1. Beaten or buffeted by wind and rain; that has been exposed to severe weather.
c. 1560. T. Mowntayne, in Narratives Reform. (Camden), 210. Thence to Colchester, and there toke shypynge, thynkynge to have gone ynto Seland,… but we were so whether-beatyn that of force we were glad to returne bake agayn.
1563. Golding, Cæsar, IV. (1565), 102 b. Most of our shyps were thus broosed and weatherbeaten.
1589. Greene, Menaphon (Arb.), 32. To rest our wearie and weather-beaten bones.
1632. J. Hayward, trans. Biondi’s Eromena, 16. The galleys of Sardegna being (by a great tempest) wether-beaten and driven to that shore.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., VI. § 137. The King’s harassed, weatherbeaten, and half-starved troops.
1722. Croxall, Fables Æsop, xli. 76. The Sun … darted his warm sultry Beams upon the Head of the poor weather-beaten Traveller.
1830. J. G. Strutt, Sylva Brit., 141. It becomes harder and tougher in proportion as it is weather-beaten.
1882. ‘Ouida,’ Bimbi, 98. The tall old houses are weather-beaten into the most delicious hues.
1904. Daily Chron., 16 July, 9/2. Another weather-beaten pigeon sought rest on the brigantine Jantyre.
fig. or in fig. context. 1621. T. Williamson, trans. Goulart’s Wise Vieillard, 22. At that time when Saint Cyprian liued, the whole world was iudged to be very much weather-beaten.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, II. xxxvii. 94. Mean time Jerusalem was a poore weather-beaten kingdome.
1668. Bp. E. Hopkins, Van. World, Wks. (1710), 19. If honourable, we are but raised above others to be the more weather-beaten.
2. As adj., expressing the result.
a. Of things: Worn, defaced or damaged by exposure to the weather.
a. 1547. Surrey, Eccles. iii. 12. Auncient walls to race,… and of their wether beten stones, to buylde some new deuyse.
1593. Norden, Spec. Brit., Midsx., 38. Pancras Church standeth all alone … old and wetherbeaten.
1608. Machin, Dumb Knt., I. B 3. Orators wiues shortly will bee knowne like images on water staires, euer in one wetherbeaten suite.
a. 1618. Ralegh, Royal Navy, 27. They make their Ocum … of old seere and weather-beaten ropes.
1697. Lond. Gaz., No. 3260/4. Wearing a Weather-beaten Periwig.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, i. A very small and weather-beaten old cow’s-skin trunk.
1860. Whyte-Melville, Mkt. Harb., xii. Under the weather-beaten winkers and shabby harness of a four-horse waggon.
b. Of persons, their countenances, etc.: Bronzed, coarsened, toughened, hardened by exposure to all kinds of weather.
1530. Palsgr., 844/1. Weather beaten, as men be that have lyen in the felde or see.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., I. 175/1. Harold answered, that they were not priests, but wether-beaten and hardie souldiers.
1607. Dekker, Knt.’s Conjur., ii. D 1 b. Neither they, nor the weather-beatenst Cosmographicall Starre catcher of em all.
1662. Hibbert, Syntagma Theol., II. 144. Such was his undoubted resolution, that neither their great words, nor their high looks could daunt him, Weather-beaten-souldier (as I may so speak) in Christianity.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1780), A aa 2, s.v. Emmariné, Matelot emmariné, a case-hardened or weather-beaten tar; a veteran sailor.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 5 May (1815), 63. An old man, with a wooden leg and a weather-beaten face.
1853. Kingsley, Hypatia, xviii. 209. The scarred and weatherbeaten features of the old warrior.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xv. III. 613. Two weatherbeaten old seamen who had risen from being cabin boys to be Admirals.
Similarly † Weather-beat (dial. -bet) ppl. a. Also † Weather-beat v. trans. rare–0. † Weather-beating vbl. sb.
1586. [? J. Case], Praise Mus., vi. 75. Alas what pleasure could they take at the whippe and ploughtaile in so often and vncessant labours, such bitter weatherbeatings.
1598. Florio, Sbattere,… to thrash, to wetherbeate.
1615. Chapman, Odyss., VI. 193. [Ulysses] So wet, so weather-beate.
1621. T. Granger, Expos. Eccles. xii. 3. 319. The teeth … standing like weather-beate stakes,… falling out one after another.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills, IV. 198. The Devil he was so Weather-beat, He was forc’d to take to a Tree.
1886. S. W. Lincs. Gloss., Weather-bet, weather-beaten.
