v. [f. BE- + LACE v. and sb.]
1. trans. To border or adorn with lace. Usually in ppl. a. BELACED.
1648. Jos. Beaumont, Psyche, II. 48. How to belace and fringe soft love.
† 2. To streak, stripe. Obs.
1648. Earl Westmoreland, Otia Sacra (1879), 88. The Crimson streaks belace the Damaskt West.
† 3. To beat with stripes. Obs.
1736. Bailey, Belace, the same as to belabour.
1857. in Wright.
Belace v. ‘Sea Term. To fasten; as to belace a rope.’ Johnson. [This is found only in Dictionaries. It appeared first in Bailey’s folio, 1730, was retained by Dr. Johnson (who used a copy of that as the basis of his own work), and from him it has been perpetuated by later dictionaries. In Bailey it appears to be merely a mistake for BELAGE, q.v. Bailey’s 8vo of 1721 (like the earlier dictionaries of Phillips and Kersey) has ‘Belage, also Belay (Sea Term), to fasten any running Rope when it is haled, that it cannot run forth again.’ This the folio of 1730 splits up into ‘Belace (Sea Term), to fasten any Rope,’ and ‘Belay, to fasten any running Rope, so that when it is haled it cannot run out again.’ Thence Johnson’s Belace and Belay. But the 8vo editions of Bailey retained the original entry and took no notice of Belace, till after the appearance of Johnson’s Dictionary, when the editor of the edition of 1783 added the fictitious Belace from Johnson, while retaining Bailey’s original Belage or Belay.]
