[weakened from AND.]
1. = AND, B. (L. et.)
In this sense the weak form an appears soon after 1100, and is not uncommon in ME., esp. northern, but very rare after 1500, till it reappears in modern times in the representation of dialect speech, in which it is printed an’ with the apostrophe, recognizing the dropped letter. But and is almost always so pronounced in conversation, and even in reading, though this is conventionally considered a fault.
1154. O. E. Chron. (Laud. MS.), an. 1135. Mone an sterres abuten him at middæi.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 647. Of Noe siðen an is ðre sunen.
c. 1400. Apol. for Loll., 15. Charitable pacience of þe martir, an vnriȝtwisnes of þe persewar.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, VI. 2328. Be sent from your seluon … An aioynet to þis Jorney.
c. 1449. Pecock, Repr., II. ii. 140. An whi not thanne?
1606. G. W[oodcocke], Hist. Justine, 39. Up an down in euery corner.
1859. Tennyson, North. Farmer, 2. Doctor’s abean an’ agoan.
2. = AND, C. = if. (L. si.) arch. and dial.
In this sense an, an’, is rare bef. 1600, when it appears occasionally in the dramatists, esp. before it, as an’ ’t please you, an’ ’t were, etc. As the prec. sense was not at this time written an, modern writers have made a conventional distinction between the two forms, an’ for ‘and,’ L. et, being dialectal or illiterate, but an’ or an for ‘and,’ L. si, archaic, or even literary. Except in an’ ’t, an is found only once in the 1st Folio of Shakespeare (see below); but modern editors substitute it for the full and usual in Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Dialectally the two senses are alike an’; the intensified and if, an if, common in 17th c., remains in the s.w. dial. as nif.
[a. 1300. Havelok, 2861. And thou will my conseil tro.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Doctor’s T., 86. Now kepe hem wel, for and [v.r. if] ye wil ye can.]
1542. Boorde, Dyetary, viii. (1870), 246. An nede shall compell a man to slepe.
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., V. ii. 584. There, an ’t shall please you. Ibid., V. ii. 232. Nay then two treyes, an if you grow so nice.
1687. T. Brown, Saints in Uproar, Wks. 1730, I. 74. An’t please your highness.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, II. ii. (1840), 154. If an she be a rebel.
1775. Sheridan, Rivals, III. iv. An’ we’ve any luck.
1817. Coleridge, Sib. Leaves (1862), 273. But an if this will not do.
1821. Combe (Dr. Syntax), Search of Wife, 1. An’ please your Reverence, here we are.
1859. Tennyson, Gar. & Lyn., 251. But an it please thee not.
