a. and sb. Forms: see FORLESE. [pa. pple. of FORLESE.] A. adj.
† 1. Lost, not to be found. Obs.: see the vb.
1587. Harrison, England, II. ix. (1877), I. 190. To the end they should lie no more in corners as forlorne books, and vnknowne.
† 2. Morally lost; abandoned, depraved. Obs.
1154. O. E. Chron., an. 1137. Hi [the lawless barons in Stephen’s time] weron al forcursæd, & forsworen & forloren.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 546. Miȝti men, and fiȝti, [and] for-loren.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 25074 (Cott.).
| Þe quick þe godmen er and chosen, | |
| þe ded þe wick þat ar for-losen. |
1578. Gude & Godlie Ballates, 30. The Forlorne Sone, as it is writtin in the xv. Chapter of Luk.
1598. Drayton, Heroic. Ep., xvi. 53.
| He that’s in all the Worlds blacke sinnes forlorne, | |
| Is carelesse now how oft he be forsworne. |
1683. Apol. Prot. France, ii. 20. They hire forlorn Wretches to go to the Sermons of the Protestant Ministers, and to depose before a Magistrate, that the Ministers said, that the Church of Rome was idolatrous, or that the Faithful are persecuted, that they spake ill of the Virgin Mary, or of the King.
† 3. ‘Lost,’ ruined, doomed to destruction. Obs.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Frankl. T., 309.
| Lord Phebus, cast thy merciable eye | |
| On wrecche Aurilie, which that am for-lorne. |
c. 1440. Hylton, Scala Perf. (W. de W., 1494), I. xxxviii. Whan thou art brought so lowe by traueyle in temptacion that the thynketh none helpe ne no comforte, but as thou were a forloor man, yet stonde stefly in hope & pray god, & sothly thou shalt sodenly sprynge vp as the day sterre in gladnes of hert.
1554. Traves, in Strype, Eccl. Mem., III. App. xxxiii. 88. Despair not, thowgh al in hast it be not repayed, as thowgh ye were a man forlore.
1696. Tate & Brady, Ps. vi. 1.
| Thy dreadful Anger, Lord, restrain, | |
| And spare a Wretch forlorn; | |
| Correct me not in thy fierce Wrath, | |
| Too heavy to be born. |
1719. Young, Busiris, V. i.
| What urge these forlorn Rebels in Excuse | |
| For chusing Ruin? |
† b. Forlorn boys (= Fr. enfants perdus), fellows, etc.: men who perform their duty at the imminent risk of their life. Forlorn fort: one held at extreme risk. See also FORLORN HOPE.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., III. 1137/2. Sent fortie or fiftie forlorne boies with swords and targets to view and assaie the breach.
1598. Barret, Theor. Warres, II. i. 17. If the place be obscure, and full of couert, he shall set abroad certaine forlorne Sentinels without the Word, single, and if occasion require, double; a shot and a pyke, to giue knowledge of the alarme.
1618. Bolton, Florus (1636), 137. Some new band of forlorne fellowes appeared not.
1700. S. L., trans. C. Fryke’s Voy. E. Ind., 298. We were order’d by our Governor to march to a Forlorn Fort call’d Caudingelle, six Leagues from Galture.
c. Desperate, hopeless.
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turks, 591. In euerie place was heard the lamentation of women and children, euerie thing shewed the heauinesse of the time, and seemed as altogither lost and forlorne.
1710. Berkeley, Princ. Hum. Knowl., Introd. Wks. 1871, I. 137. Having wandered through many intricate mazes, we find ourselves just where we were, or, which is worse, sit down in a forlorn scepticism.
1791. Boswell, Johnson, an. 1732. In the forlorn state of his circumstances, he accepted of an offer to be employed as usher in the school of Market-Bosworth.
1836. W. Irving, Astoria, II. iii. 27–8. Having seen these three adventurous bands depart upon their forlorn expeditions.
1874. Morley, Compromise (1886), 8. Their lands have been the home of great and forlorn causes, though they could not always follow the transcendental flights of their foreign allies and champions.
4. Of persons or places: Abandoned, forsaken, deserted; left alone, desolate.
1535. Goodly Primer, Ps. cii. (1834), 120. I am like an ostrich of the wilderness: and made like an owl in an old forlorn house.
1559. Mirr. Mag., Dk. Clarence, xvii.
| This made my father in law to fret and fume, | |
| To stamp and stare, and call mee false forsworne, | |
| And at the length with all his power, presume | |
| To help king Henry, vtterly forlorne. |
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., VIII. (1626), 152.
| Whither fly’st thou? leauing me for-lore, | |
| That conquest-crown’d thee? |
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 180.
| Seest thou yon dreary Plain, forlorn and wilde, | |
| The seat of desolation, voyd of light, | |
| Save what the glimmering of these livid flames | |
| Casts pale and dreadful? |
1704. Pope, Autumn, 21.
| Thus, far from Delia, to the winds I mourn; | |
| Alike unheard, unpity’d, and forlorn. |
1726. Shelvocke, Voy. round World (1757), 79. Dreading an accident in so forlorn a place, I gave over the attempt, and immediately stood out to sea again.
1814. Cary, Dante, Inf., XXX. 16.
| Then did Hecuba, | |
| A wretch forlorn and captive, when she saw | |
| Polyxena first slaughter’d, and her son, | |
| Her Polydorus, on the wild sea-beach | |
| Next met the mourner’s view, then reft of sense | |
| Did she run barking even as a dog. |
1819. Hood, Eugene Aram, x.
| Or horrid stabs in groves forlorn, | |
| And murders done in caves. |
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., lx.
| The little village looks forlorn; | |
| She sighs amid her narrow days, | |
| Moving about the household ways, | |
| In that dark house where she was born. |
1863. F. Locker-Lampson, Lond. Lyrics, Reply to Invit. Rome, ii.
| Perhaps you think your Love forlore | |
| Should pine unless her slave be with her; | |
| Of course you’re fond of Rome, and more— | |
| Of course you’d like to coax me thither! |
b. Const. of, † from: Forsaken by (a person); bereft, destitute, or stripped of (a thing).
c. 1150. Departing Soul’s Addr. Body, 5.
| Lutherliche eart thu forloren | |
| from al that thu lufedest. |
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., April, 1.
| Tell me good Hobbinoll, what garres thee greete? | |
| What? hath some Wolfe thy tender Lambes ytorne? | |
| Or is thy Bagpype broke, that soundes so sweete? | |
| Or art thou of thy loued lasse forlorne? |
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 921.
| Forlorn of thee, | |
| Whither shall I betake me, where subsist? |
1697. Dryden, Iliad, I., Fables (1700), 208.
| The good old Man, forlorn of human Aid, | |
| For Vengeance to his heav’nly Patron pray’d: | |
| The Godhead gave a favourable Ear, | |
| And granted all to him he held so dear. |
1798. Coleridge, Anc. Mar., VII. xxv.
| He went like one that hath been stunned, | |
| And is of sense forlorn: | |
| A sadder and a wiser man | |
| He rose the morrow morn. |
1832. Tennyson, Œnone, 15.
| Mournful Œnone wandering forlorn | |
| Of Paris, once her playmate. |
1870. Rossetti, Love’s Nocturn, ii.
| Vaporous, unaccountable, | |
| Dreamland lies forlorn of light, | |
| Hollow like a breathing shell. |
5. In pitiful condition, wretched.
1581. T. Watson, Centurie of Loue, xiii. (Arb.), 49.
| With sounde of harpe Thales did make recure | |
| Of such as lay with pestilence forlorne. |
a. 1628. F. Greville, Alaham, IV. iii.
| Celica. If ought be quicke in me, moue it with scorne: | |
| Nothing can come amisse to thoughts forlorne. |
1724. R. Welton, 18 Disc., 454. They saw so great a man in so forlorne a plight.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., II. xli. 549. When he passed with a small and sordid retinue through the streets of Constantinople, his forlorn appearance excited the amazement and compassion of the people.
1866. Miss Mulock, Noble Life, xii. Ay, be it the forlornest bodily tabernacle in which immortal soul ever dwelt.
b. Of a wretched appearance, meager.
1588. Shaks., Tit. A., II. iii. 94.
| The Trees, though Sommer, yet forlorne and leane, | |
| Ore-come with Mosse, and balefull Misselto. |
1875. F. Hall, Early Traveling Experiences in India, in Lippincott’s Mag., XV. March, 338/2. They could provide forlorn pullets, certainly from the same farmyard with the lean kine of Egypt.
† B. sb. Obs.
1. A forlorn person.
c. 1506. Dunbar, Littill Interlud, 165.
| Sen scho is gane, the Gret Forlore | |
| Of Babylon. |
1593. Shaks. 3 Hen. VI., III. iii. 26.
| That Henry, sole possessor of my Loue, | |
| Is, of a King, become a banisht man, | |
| And forc’d to liue in Scotland a Forlorne. |
1710. Steele, Tatler, No. 210, 10 Aug., ¶ 6. [An old maid writes] I am surrounded with both, tho’ at present a Forlorn.
1814. Forgery, II. ii. There, poor forlorns, divide the little there.
2. Short for FORLORN HOPE; a body of troops detached to the front, a front line, vanguard. Also pl., the men forming a forlorn hope.
1645. Cromwell, Lett. to Lenthall, 14 Sept. Captain Ireton, with a forlorn of Colonel Rich’s regiment, interposing with his Horse between the Enemy’s Horse and Colonel Hammond, received a shot with two pistol-bullets, which broke his arm.
1677. W. Hubbard, Narrative, II. (1865), 181. It pleased God at one time to bring the forlorn of our forces upon a party of the enemy, who espying the English, presently fled away into the woods.
1688. J. S., Art of War, 54. The General must send his Forlorns to post themselves on the highest places.
1702. C. Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, II. App. (1852), 187. Four companies of these were drawn out as forlorns, whom, on every side, the enemy fires at.
1724. De Foe, Mem. Cavalier (1840), 287. I caused the troops to halt, and rode up to the forlorn, to view the countenance of the enemy.
transf. and fig. 1647–8. Joseph Beaumont, Psyche, IV. cxliii.
| Next these, a large Brigade was marshallèd, | |
| For whose forlorn first march’d the hardy Boar. |
1655. Gurnall, Chr. in Arm., Introd. i. (1689), 5/1. The Fearful are in the Forlorn of those that march for Hell, Rev. 21.
1666. Lond. Gaz., No. 68/4. 12 or 14 as the Vauntguard or Forlorn of their Fleet.
1680. R. L’Estrange, Season. Mem. Liberties Press & Pulpit, 4. Only now and then there started out a Party upon the Forelorn, to make Discoveries, and try the Temper of the Government.
1681. Crowne, Thyestes, V. Dram. Wks. 1873, II. 70.
| ’Tis said, sometimes they’ll impudently stand | |
| A flight of beams from the forlorn of day. |
1674. Dryden, Epil. Open. New Ho., 10. Criticks … Who … still charge first, the true forlorn of wit.
