Forms: α. 6–8 sommerset, 7– somerset. β. 6– summerset. [Alteration or corruption of somersaut: see prec.] = SOMERSAULT sb.
α. 1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, To Rdr. Desiring him to inspire my pen with some of his nimblest Pomados and Sommersets.
1598. Marston, Sco. Villanie, III. xi. 228. His very intellect Is naught but a curuetting Sommerset.
1626. Fletcher, Fair Maid of Inn, IV. i. Now I wil only make him break his neck in doing a sommerset.
1664. Cotton, Scarron., I. 590. Dance, run, and leap, frisk, and curvett, Tumble, and do the Sommerset.
1727. Gay, Fables, I. xl. The tumbler whirls the flip-flap round, With somersets he shakes the ground.
1778. Sketches for Tabernacle Frames, 26. He’ll … Throw Somersets, vault, caper, and curvet.
1806. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life, VII. lxxix. Amusing the company with an involuntary somerset.
1833. Ritchie, Wand. Loire, 233. One of those somersets—head over heels—which are common on the modern stage.
1874. Blackie, Self-Cult., 16. If there are … expert tumblers in the circus, let him not imagine that their supple somersets are mere idle tricks to amuse children.
fig. 1710. Acc. Death T. Whigg, 2. He fancy’d the World turn’d round with him, and that the Revolution was just about doing the Somerset.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. IV. ii. Remark … what somersets and contortions a dead Catholicism is making.
1871. H. Spencer, Princ. Psychol., VII. vi. (1872), II. 372. After a considerable amount of practice in throwing intellectual somersets.
β. 1591. in Lyly’s Wks. (1902), I. 442. Hee presently did cast himselfe downe, dooing a Summerset from the Ile into the water.
1670. Eachard, Cont. Clergy (1705), 21. As if they would turn over their heads, and shew you the double Summerset.
1675. [H. Nevile], Machiavelli’s Marr. Belphegor, Wks. 527. He [the devil] only gave him the Summerset once or twice, and shewed him two or three jugling tricks, and vanish’d.
1762. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, V. xxix. Springing into the air with a summerset, he turned him about like a windmill.
1816. Scott, Fam. Lett. (1894), I. xii. 362. Authors come to be regarded as tumblers, who are expected to go to church in a summerset.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xvi. 119. The summerset of this iceberg produced a commotion all over the lake.
1865. J. G. Holland, Plain Talk, iii. 101. The boys of the street turning summersets.
Hence Somerset v. a. intr. To somersault. Also with it. b. trans. To cause (a person) to turn a somersault.
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, 37. Then the sly sheepe-biter issued into the midst, and summer setted and fliptflapt it twenty times aboue ground, as light as a feather.
1812. Sporting Mag., XL. 132. Alexanders got his body on his hip, and somersetted him over his head.
1853. R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour, liii. 303. A pair of white breeches summerseting in the air with a horse underneath.
1874. Saxe, One-Legged Dancers, iv. He almost somerseted off the door-steps.
fig. 1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. IV. ii. In such extraordinary manner does dead Catholicism somerset and caper, skilfully galvanized.
