[f. prec. sb.]
† 1. intr. To frisk or run wild as a colt (usually implying wantonness). Obs. rare.
1596. Spenser, State Irel., Wks. (Globe), 611/2. Shooke of theyr bridels, and began to colt anew, more licentiously then before.
1746. Exmoor Scolding (E. D. S.), 30. A colting Hobby-horse [said of a woman].
† 2. trans. To befool, cheat, ‘take in.’ Obs.
1580. North, Plutarch (1676), 728. There was Cicero finely colted, as old as he was, by a young man.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. ii. 39. Thou ly’st, thou art not colted, thou art vncolted.
1616. Beaum. & Fl., Little Fr. Lawyer, II. i. Am I thus colted?
1618. Fletcher, Loyal Subj., III. i. What, are we bob’d thus still, colted and carted?
† 3. (See quot.)
1611. Shaks., Cymb., II. iv. 133. She hath bin colted by him.
† 4. Of bees: To throw off a ‘colt’ or third swarm. Obs.
1750. W. Ellis, Mod. Husbandman, III. ii. 115.
5. trans. To beat with a ‘colt’ (see COLT sb. 5)
1732. Derby Mercury, I. No. 21, 3/1. A Parcel of Nailers, thinking themselves injured by a poor young Fellow,… seizing him, colted him up to Kilmainham.
1836. Marryat, Midsh. Easy, xii. He colted me for half an hour.
6. intr. To fall or ‘cave’ in, as a bank of earth to collapse, give way. dial. (Cf. COLSH, v.)
[There is perhaps some association between CALVE and colt thus used.]
1679. Plot, Staffordsh. (1686), 133. If the coal be full of rifts, it is so much the more apt to colt in upon the Workmen. Ibid., 306. It [some earth] so suddenly coped or colted down upon him, that being on every side inviron’d with it, he could not return, insomuch that all people concluded him smotherd.
1884. R. Lawson, Upton-on-Severn Wds., Colt, to fall in, as the side of a grave or pit.
