sb. and a. Hist. Also West-Saxon. [f. WEST a. + SAXON sb. and a., after OE. West-seaxan pl.]

1

  A.  sb. 1. pl. The division of the Saxons in England occupying the area south of the Thames and westward from Surrey and Sussex; also sing. an individual belonging to this group or area.

2

1387.  Trevisa, Higden, VI. 403. Plegmundus … ordeyned … fyve [bishops] to þe lond of Giweysys, þat beeþ West Saxons.

3

1432–50.  trans. Higden, VII. 99. Edmunde Irensyde … subduede to hym the Westesaxons anoon.

4

1513.  Bradshaw, St. Werburge, I. 155. The thyrde [realm] was West Saxons, famous and myghty.

5

1596.  Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., I. 232. Aidan winnis the feild vpon the Pechtis and Westsaxonis.

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a. 1643.  Baker, Chron. (1653), 7. The third Kingdome of the Heptarchie, was of the West Saxons.

7

1714.  Addison, Spect., No. 569, ¶ 1. I was the other Day with honest Will. Funnell the West Saxon.

8

1728.  Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Money, Ina King of the West-Saxons.

9

1781.  Gibbon, Decl. & F., xxxviii. (1787), III. 618, note. Cerdic, the West Saxon.

10

1877.  Tennyson, Harold, IV. i. Thou art but a West-Saxon: we are Danes!

11

  2.  The dialect of Old English used by the West Saxons.

12

1844.  Garnett, in Proc. Phil. Soc., II. 17. The plural … totally unknown in West-Saxon. Ibid., 18. The discrepancies from the ordinary West-Saxon are specified.

13

1876.  Sweet, Ags. Reader, p. xii. The West Saxon of the eleventh century differs in many respects from that of Alfred’s reign.

14

1893.  A. C. Champneys, Hist. English, 85. Northumbrian retains some very ancient forms not found in West Saxon.

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  B.  adj. Of or pertaining to, characteristic of, the West Saxons or their speech.

16

1570.  Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1576), 20. Kent was vnited by king Egbert … vnto the Westsaxon Kingdome,… and … gouerned after the Westsaxon law.

17

1670.  Milton, Hist. Brit., III. 121. Before the West-Saxon Kingdome.

18

1842.  Penny Cycl., XXII. 231/2. During the West Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, and Anglo-Danish dynasties.

19

1848.  Latham, Eng. Lang. (ed. 2), 91. The Psalter also exhibits this West-Saxon form.

20

1876.  Sweet, Ags. Reader, p. xii. The old Northumbrian poems were also copied in the West Saxon dialect.

21

1893.  A. C. Champneys, Hist. English, 86. The Southern or West Saxon plural, -aþ.

22

  Hence † West-Saxonry, the kingdom of the West Saxons.

23

1650.  Elderfield, Civil Right of Tythes, x. 70. Kenulph King of West-Saxon-rie.

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