Also 7–8 loan; Sc. 4– lane, 6– lain, (9 north. dial. leane, lene). [Aphetic f. ALONE. Cf. a lone written for al one in the MSS. of R. Brunne, Handl. Synne, 2517.]
1. Of persons, their condition, situation, etc.: Having no fellows or companions; without company; solitary. Chiefly poet. and rhetorical.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XVI. 20. I … laye longe in a lone dreme.
1530. Palsgr., 317/2. Lone onely, seul.
1616. Bullokar, Eng. Expos., Lone,… single or solitarie.
1622. Mabbe, trans. Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf., II. 337. I was not a lone man in this my afflictions, but had many fellowes that suffered the like torment.
1740. Shenstone, Judgm. Hercules, 335. When I have on those pathless wilds appear’d And the lone wand’rer with my presence cheer’d.
1747. Smollett, Regicide, II. iv. (1777), 34. With not one friend his sorrows to divide, And chear his lone distress?
1764. Goldsm., Trav., 51. As some lone miser, visiting his store.
1814. Sporting Mag., XLIII. 261. I found myself a lone man, much at a loss.
1837. Disraeli, Venetia, I. vii. 33. She felt for this lone child.
1863. Woolner, My Beautiful Lady, 109. Dim in lowlands far Lone marsh-birds winged their misty flight.
1882. ‘Ouida,’ Maremma, I. 248. We trusted an old lone creature.
1901. Blackw. Mag., June, 785/2. Two lone Englishmen in the same house not on speaking terms, whilst death was stalking about taking victims all round us.
b. To play, hold a lone hand: in Quadrille and Euchre, to play against all the other players, or against the opposite side without help from one’s own. Hence lone hand, lone player are used = a person playing such a game.
1799. Mrs. J. West, Tale of Times, I. 217. Sir Simon … was remarkably partial to holding a lone-hand [at quadrille].
1830. R. Hardie, Hoyle made Familiar, 37. [Quadrille.] When playing against a lone hand, never lead a king, unless you have the queen.
1886. Euchre: how to play it, 41. Suppose a player, being four, and his adversaries nothing, plays a lone hand and makes his five tricks. Ibid., 108. Lone Hand, a hand so strong in trumps alone, or in trumps, guarded by high cards of a lay suit, that it will probably win five tricks if its holder plays alone. Lone player, the one playing without his partner.
fig. c. 1890. A. Murdoch, Yoshiwara Episode, etc., 81. I wasn’t playing a lone hand in that game, and so I just allowed I wouldn’t marry that girl just then.
1901. Contemp. Rev., Dec., 863. I am going to play a lone-hand, and intend being my own Commandant and Veldt Cornet and everything else.
c. Having a feeling of loneliness; lonesome.
a. 1839. Praed, Poems (1864), II. 84. When the lone heart, in that long strife, Shall cling unconsciously to life. Ibid., 382. And there my fond mother Sits pensive and lone.
1845. Hood, Last Man, xxxiv. I never felt so lone.
1858. Lytton, What will He do? I. xii. I’ll rather stay with you, Grandy, you’ll be so lone.
2. Unmarried; single or widowed. Now only of women, with mock-pathetic reference to sense 1.
1548. Udall, Erasm. Par. Luke xviii. 1–8. I am a poore wedowe and alone woman destitute of frendes.
1588. M. Kyffin, Terence, Andriæ, II. iii. E ij b. This Glycerie is a lone woman.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., II. i. 35. A 100. Marke is a long one, for a poore lone woman to beare.
1611. W. Sclater, Key (1629), 128. That is but necessarie for a master of a familie, that is superfluous for a lone man.
1642. Title Collect. Records (T.). Queen Elizabeth being a lone woman, and having few friends, refusing to marry.
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Lone-woman, a woman unmarried or without a male protector.
1847. Halliwell, s.v., Lone-man, a man living unmarried by himself.
1859. Helps, Friends in C., Ser. II. I. i. 55. Men highly-placed little know … what a trouble it is for lone women [to estimate their incomes].
3. Standing apart from others of its kind; isolated. Formerly esp. in phr. lone house (sometimes hyphened).
1667. Wood, Life, 1 Sept. (O. H. S.), II. 143. This Cooper’s hill is a lone-house.
1717. Pope, Lett. to Misses Blount, 13 Sept. No Lone-house in Wales, with a Mountain and Rookery, is more contemplative than this Court.
1722. De Foe, Plague (1840), 180. In a single, or, as we call it, a lone house.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., I. iii. (1869), I. 18. In the lone cottages of the Highlands.
1813. Sketches Charac. (ed. 2), I. 138. ’Twas a lone house, in a garden, with walls round it.
1819. Sporting Mag., IV. 274. A little lone public-house, about a mile from our village.
1850. Scoresby, Cheever’s Whaleman’s Adv., viii. (1859), 112. Dragging the lone boat quite out of sight from the mast-head.
1853. M. Arnold, Scholar-Gipsy, vi. At some lone ale-house in the Berkshire moors.
4. poet. Of places: Lonely; unfrequented, uninhabited.
1712–4. Pope, Rape Lock, IV. 154. Oh had I rather unadmir’d remain’d In some lone isle, or distant Northern land. Ibid. (1727), Eloisa, 141. In these lone walls … Thy eyes diffus’d a reconciling ray.
1795. Burns, Song, ‘Their groves o’ sweet myrtles.’ Far dearer to me yon lone glen o’ green breckan.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., I. i. In lone Glenartney’s hazel shade.
1864. Browning, Dîs Aliter Visum, vii. We stepped O’er the lone stone fence.
† 5. Only, sole. Obs.
1602. 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass., II. ii. 613. Ile make it my lone request, that he wold be good to a scholler.
6. predicatively and quasi-adv.
† a. = ALONE; by myself, itself [etc.]. Obs.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage, Descr. India (1864), 156. Floris enterd lone as it were for businesse.
c. 1817. Hogg, Tales & Sk., IV. 29. She carefully avoided meeting him lone, though often and earnestly urged to it.
b. Sc. and north. dial. with pronoun prefixed, as my lane = by myself. (Cf. ALONE 3.)
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, xxii. (Laurentius), 521. Þe crystine … Lowand god of al his lane.
a. 1584. Montgomerie, Cherrie & Slae, 678. How Hope and Curage tuik the man And led him all thair lanis. Ibid. (a. 1600), Misc. Poems, iii. 33. And ladds vploips to lordships all thair lains.
1631. Rutherford, Lett., xiv. (1862), I. 67. He had many against Him and compeared His lone in the fields against them all.
1725. Ramsay, Gentle Sheph., II. iii. When Bessy Freetock’s chuffy-cheeked wean … cou’dna stand its lane.
1788. Burns, Lett. to J. Tennant, 21. My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin’.
1894. Crockett, Raiders, 134. Can ye no let an auld man dee his lane?
7. Comb. (adverbial and parasynthetic).
1809–10. Coleridge, Friend (1865), 215. Those loud-tongued adulators, the mob, overpowered the lone-whispered denunciations of conscience.
1887. G. Meredith, Ballads & Poems, 141. Lycophron, this breathless, this lone-laid.
1896. Westm. Gaz., 15 Dec., 4/3. A man who could trust himself lone-handed in mid-ocean in such a craft.
