Forms: 1 font, fant, 2–6 funt(e, Orm. funnt (4 fant), 4–7 fount(e, (4 founȝt, fownte), 5–6 fonte, 2– font. [OE. font, fant, ad. Eccl. Lat. font-em or fontes (baptismi), lit. ‘fountain’ or ‘fountains (of baptism),’ a specific use of L. font-em, fons: see FOUNT. In ME. the compound FONT-STONE had the same sense. In sense 3 it may be regarded as a different word, a var. of FOUNT, refashioned after the Lat. etymon.
Cf. also F. fonts pl. (OF. fonce), Pr. font, Pg. and OSp. fonte (mod.Sp. fuente), It. fonte, of same meaning. Prob. by adoption from Eng., the word appears early in other Teut. langs.: OFris. font, funt, MDu. vonte (mod.Du. in comb. doopvont, from doop baptism), ON. funt-r (Sw. funt, dopfunt, Da. font, dobfont).]
1. A receptacle, usually of stone, for the water used in the sacrament of baptism. Also, font of baptism, baptismal font. To stand at font for (a person): to be sponsor to.
c. 1000. Canons Ælfric, xxxvi. Ne do man nænne ele to þam fante.
c. 1175. Cott. Hom., 241. Ælc cristen man anon se stepð up of þe funte wer he ifulled his.
a. 1225. St. Marher., 1–2. Euch ifulhet in font oþe almihti federes nome.
c. 1380. Sir Ferumb., 548. Y-vollid on þe haly fant.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys (Roxb.), 111.
| That crystnyd I was in a funt of stoon | |
| Of a prest, & Caprasius clepyd was I. |
1523. Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. ccccii. 698. They brake downe all the howse, and brake downe the fownte wherin the erle was christned.
1611. Coryat, Crudities, 35. A Font of baptisme, made of porphyrie stone, which was also bestowed on that Church by the said King, who after hee had conquered Poitiers brought it therehence to this Church.
a. 1658. Cleveland, To T. C., 13.
| A Snail-crawl’d Bottom? A gray Bark | |
| That stood at Font for Noah’s Ark? |
1756–7. trans. Keysler’s Trav. (1760), 490. The large marble font is divided by four partitions, which shews, that formerly baptism was here performed by immersion.
1865. Kingsley, Herew. (1866), I. Prelude, 8. Ethelred the Unready, Ethelred Evil-counsel, advised himself to fulfil his name, and the curse which Dunstan had pronounced against him at the baptismal font.
b. pl. (with singular sense). rare. (Cf. Fr. fonts, Eccl. Lat. fontes a font.)
The pl. has been explained as referring to the compound fonts of several basins found in some early baptisteries. But prob. fontes baptismi, originally meant only ‘the fountains (i.e., the waters) of baptism,’ the application as the name of the vessel being secondary.
1877. J. D. Chambers, Divine Worship, 186. Proceed down the South side of the Church to the Fonts at the West end of the Nave.
2. transf. a. A receptacle for holy water. b. The reservoir for oil in a lamp.
1542–5. Brinkelow, Lament. (1874), 100–1. The wyne wyll waxe sower and stincke, as doth their holy water in the founte by longe kepinge; whiche hath bene the destruction and deth of innumerable childern.
1644. Ord. Parlt., in Vestry Bks. (Surtees), 322–3. Noe Copes, Surplices, Supersticious Vestments, Roods or Rood-lofts or Holy water Fonts, to be any more used.
1872. O. Shipley, Gloss. Eccl. Terms, Holy Water Font.
1891. Sale Catal. Glass Wks., Stourbridge, Two hundred and fifty-five lamp fonts.
3. = FOUNT. Now only poet.
1611. Coryat, Crudities, 26. The fairest garden for length of delectable walkes that euer I saw, but for variety of delicate fonts and springes.
1658. J. Jones, Ovid’s Ibis, and Ded. On Parnasse hill rose the Nectarian Font.
1735. Somerville, The Chace, III. 342.
| Adown | |
| His tortur’d Sides, the crimson Torrents roll | |
| From many a gaping Font. |
c. 1750. Shenstone, Elegies, i. 45.
| Where with ŒNONE thou hast worn the day, | |
| Near fount or stream, in meditation, rove. |
1878. B. Taylor, Deukalion, IV. ii.
| The oriel drops rose-leaves, and the font | |
| Bubbling and brightening with an inward life, | |
| Spins up in silver, tinkling as it falls. |
4. attrib. and Comb., as font-cloth, -cover, -taper, -vat; also font-name, (one’s) baptismal name; † font-wife, ? a woman appointed to collect donations at baptisms.
1553. Inv., in Trans. Essex Archæol. Soc. (1884), 10. Itm a *ffownte clothe & a clothe to laye before women, and a pillowe for them to knele on.
1885. R. W. Dixon, Hist. Ch. Eng., III. 450. An incalculable mass of rare and precious furniture was carried to destruction. Chalices, crosses and candlesticks: vestments, copes and surplices: tunicles, towels and banners: censers and holy-water pots: with pixes paxes: font-cloths with altar-cloths: bells: sanctus bells, sacring bells, lynch bells: cruets and chrismatories: all rolled together to the mint, to the King’s jeweller in the Tower, to the King’s wardrobe.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Hartfordshire, II. (1662), 20. There is a mystery more then I can fathome in the changing of his name: Seeing his own font-name was a Papal one; Yet he preferred rather to be Adrian the fourth, then Nicholas the third.
1679. Burnet, Hist. Ref. (1865), I. 150, note. It seems unlikely that he [Bonner] alone in the grace should be written by his font-name, when all the others were by their surname.
1519. in W. L. Nash, Churchw. Acc. St. Giles, Reading (Camden), 5. For the wax and makyng of the Pascall, ii standerds and the *ffont taper iijs.
c. 1000. in Thorpe, Ags. Hom., II. 268. Hæðen cild … bið ȝebroht synfull … to ðam *fant-fæte.
c. 1220. Bestiary, 108.
| Naked [he] falleð in ðe funt-fat, | |
| and cumeð ut al newe. |
1569. Churchw. Acc. Stanford, in Antiquary, XVII. April (1888), 169/2. Eliza yat the wyeffe of John yat the yongr gent and Elenor Sauere were chossin *fount wyeffs this yer, but the gatheryd nothing this yer.
