a. and sb. Obs. Forms: 4 almaun, 5 -ayn, 6–7 -an(e, 4–8 -ain, (7–8 almond). [a. OFr. aleman (mod. allemand), a. Ger. alaman.]
A. adj. German.
1549. Compl. Scotl., 66. Thai dancit al cristyn mennis dance,… the alman haye.
1586. T. B., La Primaudaye’s Fr. Acad., I. 84. The emperor Frederike the II spake the Morisco, Almaigne, Italian, and French toong.
1587. Holinshed, Scot. Chron., I. 3. Towards the Almaine Sea … Scotland hath the Mers.
c. 1590. Marlowe, Faustus, I. 123. Almain rutters with their horsemen’s staves.
1665. Manley, trans. Grotius’s L. Country Wars, 907. The Netherlanders belonged no more to the Almain Empire than the French did.
B. sb. 1. A German.
c. 1314. Guy Warw., 70. The Almains ben ouer come.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 1165. Þe almauns seweden sadly.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIX. ix. (1495), 869. Whitysshe colour in Almayns, Duchemen.
1594. Blundevil, Exerc., III. II. vi. (ed. 7), 382. The Spanish and the high Almaines.
1635. Pagitt, Christianogr., I. iii. (1636), 141. The Armenians did gladly receive the Almans.
1698. Life Bl. Prince, in Harl. Misc. (1793), 51. Not only French, but Almains, Dutch.
2. A kind of dance. Hence Almain-leap.
1549. [See Alman haye under A].
1584. Peele, Arraignm. Paris, II. ii. 28. Knights in armour, treading a warlike almain.
1611. Cotgr., s.v. Saut, Trois pas, & vn saut, The Almond leape.
1616. B. Jonson, Devil is an Ass, I. i. (N.). And take his almain-leap into a custard.
a. 1634. Chapman, Alphonsus, Plays (1873), III. 238. An Almain and an upspring, that is all.
a. 1701. Sedley, Bellamira, V. i. Wks. 1766, 179. I will leap the half almond with you.
3. A species of dance-music in slow time, afterwards included as one of the movements of the Suite.
1597. T. Morley, Introd. Mus., 181. The Alman is a more heauie [measure] then this.
1651. Playford (title), A Musicall Banquet … The second [Part] a Collection of New and Choyce Allmans, Corants, and Sarabands, for one Treble and Basse Viol.
1676. Shadwell, Virtuoso, III. (1720), I. 362. To play, first a grave pavin or almain.
1882. Shorthouse, J. Inglesant, II. liii. 14. Sweet dance music, such as Pavins, Almains.
¶ In senses 2 and 3 now written ALLEMANDE.
