[f. FAST v.2 + -ING1.]
1. The action of the vb. FAST; abstinence from food; an instance of this.
c. 1175. Lamb. Hom., 207. Ich bide þe … bi his eadi festunge iþe wildernesse.
c. 1250. Old Kentish Serm., in O. E. Misc., 28. Si Mirre signefiet uastinge.
1340. Ayenb., 33. Be uestinges and be wakinges.
1480. Caxton, Chron. Eng., ccix. 191. He was so feble for his moch fastyng that he was dede almost.
1579. Fulke, Heskins’ Parl., 530. Although fasting for merite bee iustly punishable by statute, yet godly and Christian fasting is not cleane exiled out of our Church.
1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., V. viii. 388. Even fasting it self is meat and drink to him, whilest others behold it.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, viii. Corporal punishment, fasting, and other tortures and terrors.
1873. W. K. Sullivan, O’Curry’s Anct. Irish, I. Introd., 283. A Trosca or fasting was made by the plaintiff going to the defendant’s house, and remaining there for a certain time … before making his distress.
† 2. A season of abstinence from food, a fast.
1382. Wyclif, Acts xxvii. 9. And whanne now seylinge was not sykir, for that fasting passide, Poul coumfortide hem.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., IX. iii. (1495), 347. The fastynge of springynge tyme is the fyrst weke of Lente.
1483. Caxton, G. de la Tour, A vj b. The fastynges that she had kept.
1656. Artif. Handsom., 81. He bids the Jewes, even in their fastings, to use it.
3. attrib., as fasting-weeds; fasting-spittle, the saliva that is in the mouth before one’s fast is broken. Also FASTING-DAY.
1460–70. Bk. Quintessence, 19. Mortifie it wiþ fastynge spotil.
1607. Topsell, Serpents (1653), 607. If the fasting spittle of a Man fall into the jaws of a Serpent, he certainly dyeth thereof.
1648. Herrick, Hesper., Fairie Temple, 104.
| Their Holy Oyle, their Fasting-Spittle, | |
| Their sacred Salt here, not a little. |
1654. Trapp, Comm. Esther, v. 1. She laid aside her fasting-weeds, and put on her best.
1818. Art Preserv. Feet, 146. The principle upon which it acts has been known to be successfully employed with respect to warts, by rubbing them with fasting spittle.
