Forms: 6–8 enterance, 6–7 enter-, entraunce, 6– entrance; also 6 intraunce. [a. OF. entrance, f. entrer to ENTER: see -ANCE.]
1. The action of coming or going in.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., III. i. 93. I will answer you with gate and entrance, but we are preuented.
1612. Enchirid. Med., 154. The dose is … to bee taken at the entrance into bed.
1628. Prynne, Cens. Cozens, 38. He hath prescribed vs a short Eiaculation … at our entrance into the Church.
1720. De Foe, Capt. Singleton, vi. (1840), 100. In the very first entrance of the waste, we were exceedingly discouraged.
1791. Mrs. Radcliffe, Rom. Forest, i. La Motte was interrupted by the entrance of the ruffian.
1839. G. P. R. James, Louis XIV., II. 286. To witness the entrance of the Royal party.
b. spec. The coming of an actor upon the stage.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., II. vii. 141. They haue their Exits and their Entrances.
1679. Dryden, Tr. & Cr., Pref. A iiij b. After an Entrance or two he lets ’em [Pandarus and Thersites] fall.
1681–6. J. Scott, Chr. Life (1747), III. vii. 193. Appearing and acting upon the Stage without either Entrance or Exit.
1874. Morley, Compromise (1886), 126. Progress would mean something more than mere entrances and exits on the theatre of office.
c. Eccl. [transl. Gr. εἴσοδος] Great and Little Entrance: in the Eastern Church, the bringing in respectively of the elements and of the gospels, in the eucharistic service.
1855. P. Freeman, Princ. Divine Service, I. 147.
1859. Neale, Liturgies S. Mark, etc. Introd. p. xv.
1876. Dict. Christ. Antiq., s.v.
† d. Words spoken, or ceremonies observed, on entering. Obs.
1683. Temple, Mem., Wks. 1731, I. 396. I wou’d leave him there after the first Entrances were past.
2. fig.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 1 b. After my entraunce to religyon, consyderynge to what I had bounde myselfe.
1535. Coverdale, Wisdom vii. 6. All men then haue one intraunce unto life, & one goinge out in like maner.
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, II. 399. This gave occasion to young David … to make a famous entrance into publike notice of the people.
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 1, ¶ 2. Wishing that ceremonial modes of entrance [before the publick] had been anciently established.
1888. Spectator, 28 April, 562/2. A measure for facilitating the entrance of Life-Peers into the House of Lords.
b. esp. The entering into or upon (office, duties, etc.). † Formerly also absol. accession (of a sovereign, etc.).
1559. Hethe, in Strype, Ann. Ref., I. App. vi. 8. Paul the IVth of that name … ever since his first Entraunce into Peter’s Chayre.
1612. Woodall, Surg. Mate (1655), Ep. Salut. A iv. In the year of the great Plague at the first entrance of King James of blessed memorie.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., I. (1843), I. 8/2. Before they made an entrance upon more solemn debates.
1649. Selden, Laws Eng., I. xvi. (1739), 30. Kings furthermore bound themselves (at their entrance into the Throne) hereunto by an Oath.
1709. Strype, Ann. Ref., I. xiii. 175. Not long from the beginning of the Queen’s Entrance upon her Government, Crucifixes were so distasteful to the People, that [etc.].
Mod. The oath required to be taken by magistrates at entrance into office.
† c. ‘Intellectual ingress’ (J.); initiation. Obs.
1612. Brinsley, Lud. Lit., viii. 107. To attaine to make a more easie entrance, to that purity of the Latine tongue.
1625. Bacon, Ess. Trav. (Arb.), 521. He that trauaileth into a Country, before he hath some Entrance into the Language, goeth to Schoole, and not to Trauaile.
d. Short for entrance fee, money.
1681. W. Robertson, Phraseol. Gen. (1693), 539. An entrance into a school or entrance money.
1702. Lond. Gaz., No. 3807/4. To pay a Guinea and a half Entrance 4 Days before they Run. Ibid. (1713), No. 5131/4. Subscribers to pay One Guinea Entrance.
3. Power, right or opportunity of entering; admission. lit. and fig.
1576. Fleming, Panoplie Ep., ¶ 3. It was my happie chance to have entrance into a goodly Gardene plotte.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. iv. 6. A Porter … Cald Malvenu, who entrance none denide.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, III. § 1 (1723), 132. The Fissures whereinto it can get Admission or Enterance.
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 124. The Nail (unless it have good entrance) will start aside. Ibid., 224. To find how so great a Dy should have Entrance at a small Hole.
1798. Southey, St. Patrick’s Purgatory, 29. The gates of Paradise unclose, Free entrance there is given.
1838. Lytton, Leila, II. i. 17. I have your royal word, sire, for free entrance and safe egress.
1849. G. P. R. James, Woodman, vii. He retired a step or two to give him entrance.
fig. 1576. Fleming, Panoplie Ep., 281. Upon these premisses, I see entraunce to this plaine conclusion.
1602. Davison, in Farr, S. P. Eliz. (1845), II. 323. That my cries may entraunce gayne.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, II. iii. IV. xviii. Gods lovely life hath there no enterance.
1722. Sewel, Hist. Quakers (1795), I. 35. All these reasons found little entrance with priests, magistrates and others.
† 4. a. The beginning or commencement (of a course or period of time). b. The first part, the opening words (of a chapter or book). Obs.
a. 1549. Coverdale, Erasm. Par. Philip. i. 5. Euer synce the fyrst entraunce of your profession, euen vnto this daye.
1621. Lady M. Wroth, Urania, 545. This is scarce the enterance, what will be the successe?
1639. Saltmarsh, Pract. Policie, 70. I know no better Policy in the preface or entrance upon a designe, then [etc.].
1658. Ussher, Ann., I. 1. Upon the entrance of the night.
1693. Evelyn, De la Quint. Compl. Gard., I. 32. At the entrance of the Spring.
b. 1553. Latimer, Serm. Lord’s Prayer (1562), 1 b. The entrance is this; Cum oratis, dicite, Pater noster, qui es in cœlis.
1638. Chillingw., Relig. Prot., I. iv. § 43. 212. Adde to this place, the entrance to his History of the Acts of the Apostles.
1697. Potter, Antiq. Greece, III. xi. (1715), 100. As we learn from the very Entrance of the first Iliad, where he speaks of Achilles’s Anger.
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. 219. This was observed in the entrance of the last chapter.
5. concr. That by which anything is entered, whether open or closed; a door, gate, avenue, passage; the mouth (of a river). Also, the point at which anything enters or is entered.
1535. Coverdale, Ezek. xl. 38. A chambre also, whose intraunce was at the dore pilers.
1553. Eden, Treat. New Ind. (Arb.), 26. At the entraunce at the great desert.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., III. iii. 38. Achilles stands i’th entrance of his Tent.
1652. Needham, trans. Selden’s Mare Cl., 33. The more Northerly enterance of Nilus … served instead of Bounds to the South part of the Land of Israel.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (ed. 3), I. 69. I made up the Entrance, which till now I had left open.
a. 1849. Sir R. Wilson, Life (1869), I. iii. 140. We were beating off the harbour’s entrance.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. § 8. 60. We determined the velocity with which the glacier is forced through the entrance of the trunk valley at Trélaporte.
1879. Harlan, Eyesight, iii. 38. This blind spot is at the entrance of the optic nerve.
fig. 1535. Coverdale, Ecclus. i. 5. The euerlastinge commaundementes, are the intraunce of her [wyszdome].
c. 1592. Marlowe, Jew of Malta, V. ii. And now, as entrance to our safety, To prison with the Governor.
1605. Camden, Rem., 17. That these were the fowre entraunces into the church.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 270. The very entrance into eternal horror.
6. Naut. The part of a ship that comes first (in the water); ‘the bow of a vessel, or form of the fore-body under the load-water line’ (Adm. Smyth).
1781. Nelson, 24 Aug., in Nicolas, Disp. (1845), I. 43. She [the Albemarle] has a bold entrance, and clean run.
1869. Sir E. J. Reed, Shipbuild., v. 85. In ships which have a very fine entrance the breasthook plates are not run right forward to the stem.
† 7. The action of entering (something) in a record; concr. an entry. Obs. (cf. ENTRY).
1588. Mellis, Briefe Instr., D iiij. The enterance of these parcels.
1620. J. Wilkinson, Of Courts Baron, 190. The bailife … delivers to the Sherife a copie of the entrance of the court when the cause was removed thus.
8. attrib., as entrance-fee, -hall, -lodge, -money, -road, -way.
1844. Mem. Babylonian P’cess, II. 4. I paid her *entrance fee.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), I. i. 52. The children of those who could afford the small entrance fees were apprenticed to trades, the rest were apprenticed to agriculture.
1841. Orderson, Creoleana, xi. 111. He found his master seated in the *entrance-hall.
1864. Pusey, Lect. Daniel, viii. 501. Thereon follows eternal life, to which death is the entrance-hall.
1881. Miss Braddon, Asphodel, I. 290. Nobody ever saw a man at an *entrance lodge.
1681. W. Robertson, Phraseol. Gen. (1693), 539. *Entrance money, which Schollars paid to the Master at their first coming to school.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple, v. And, as for entrance money, why I think I must not charge you more than a couple of guineas.
1833. Brewster, Nat. Magic, iii. 45. Driving up the *entrance-road to the house.
1883. H. H. Kane, in Harper’s Mag., Nov., 945/1. The *entranceway looked dirty.
