Also bennet. [A word of difficult history. In the sense of ‘stiff-grass’ or ‘grass-stalk’ (in which alone the variant bennet occurs), it appears to be the representative of OE. beonet-, found as a frequent element in proper names, as Bronet-léah Bentley (see Index to Cod. Dipl. ævi Saxon.). These names do not show the meaning; but beonet:—earlier *binut (with eo as u- umlaut of i), in OS. binet (Schade), is phonetically identical with OHG. binuȥ, MHG. bineȥ, binȥ (str. masc.), mod.G. binse ‘rush, reed, stout grass growing in wet places’:—WGer. *binut, of unknown etymology. But distinct instances of this sense are not found before the 15th c., while the sense of ‘grassy field or surface’ is common in northern writers from the earliest appearance of northern literature. Whether this is the same word is uncertain: it is possible enough that the pl. bents was used for a place where ‘bents’ grew (cf. local names like Totley Bents near Sheffield) and that this led to the use of the sing. bent as ‘open grassy place.’ They are here united provisionally.]
I. 1. A name given to grass of a reedy or rush-like habit, or which has persistent stiff or rigid stems; also to various grass-like reeds, rushes, sedges, and other plants.
Britten and Holland, Plant-n. give a long list of grasses and other plants, to which the name, either simply or with attribute, is locally applied: by the seashore it very generally means the Sea Reed Grass, Psamma or Ammophila arenaria, but also Carex arenaria, Elymus arenaria, Triticum junceum, according to locality; on northern moorlands often Juncus squarrosus, but also Nardus stricta, etc.; in some pastoral and hay districts Cynosurus cristatus (‘Hendon Bent’), Agrostis vulgaris; in other localities, Phalaris arundinacea, Scirpas lacustris, or other marsh-grasses, bulrushes, reeds or sedges: in Chester and Wiltshire, the name is even given to the common heath and ling, perhaps because they grow on bents: cf. ‘heath.’
a. sing. ‘bent’; plural ‘bents.’
c. 1425. in Wr.-Wülcker, Voc., 644. Hoc gramen, a bent.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, ccxcix. 98 b. Use no olde Ryshes nor Bentes in the house.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 216. Rushes or bents.
1625. Bacon, Gardens, Ess. (Arb.), 558. The dust of a Bent.
1783. Cowper, Task, V. 22. The bents, And coarser grass, upspearing o’er the rest.
1834. Mudie, Brit. Birds (1841), I. 293. The nest is formed of bents, or other plants growing near the sea.
a. 1847. Mrs. Sherwood, Visit Grandpapa, 21. His foot caught in a bent, and he fell.
1864. Sir F. Palgrave, Norm. & Eng., IV. 6. The bents and sedges where the ox could not feed were excluded from the ox gang. [cf. sense 5.]
b. collectively. Cf. grass.
1570. Levins, Manip., 66. Bent, smal rushes, iuncus.
1580. North, Plutarch (1676), 366. He … couered him with a great deal of Reed and Bent.
1778. Lightfoot, Flora Scot., I. 107. Arundo arenaria, Sea Reed-Grass, Anglis. Bent, Scotis. Muran, Gaulis.
1791. Newte, Tour Eng. & Scot., 152. It had been the custom to pull up the bent, a long spiry grass near the shore.
1795. Burke, Th. on Scarcity, Wks. VII. 406. The rye-grass, or coarse bent, suffered more than the clover.
1848. W. Gardiner, Flora Forfar., 194. It [Ammophila arundina] is termed Bent, and … is valuable in binding the loose sand.
1882. Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, IX. iii. 463. There is a considerable ascent over ground rough with bent (Nardus stricta).
† c. in pl. A bundle of reed-grass. Obs.
1597. Gerard, Herbal, I. iii. (1633), 6. I take this last to be the grasse with which we in London do usually adorn our chimneys … and we commonly call the bundle of it handsomely made up for our use by the name of Bents.
2. The stiff flower-stalk of grasses. (In this sense bennet prevails in the southern counties.)
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1586), 45. The time of cutting of it [grass] is when the Bent beginneth to fade and waxe stiffe, and before it wither.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 273. It hath certain little husks or cods hanging by small bents.
1752. Lisle, Husb., 308. The grass will not grow afresh, unless the dying bennets be cut off. (Gloss.) Bennets, bents, Spiry grass running to seed.
1881. Jefferies, Wood Magic, 1. Then he drew forth a bennet from its sheath.
b. ‘Applied usually to the old stalks of various grasses.’ Britten and Holland.
1827. Keble, Chr. Y., 20 Sund. Trin. ii. Through withered bents.
1848. Kingsley, Saint’s Trag., II. vii. 7. Mow the dry bents down.
1866. Treas. Bot., 135. Bents, a common country name for the dried stalks or culms of various grasses occurring in pastures.
c. The stalks and seeding heads of two species of Plantain (Plantago major and lanceolata); in East Yorkshire, the dry stalks of Hypochæris radicata. Britten and Holland.
1612. Chapman, Widows T., in Dodsley, VI. 192. As a mower sweeps off the heads of bents.
1655. Moufet & Bennet, Health’s Improv. (1746), 173. [Birds] that feed upon good Corn, Bents, or wholesome Seeds.
3. In English Botany, the name of the genus Agrostis. More fully Bent-grass: see III.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 186. Many species of Bent (Agrostis), particularly the Rhode Island Bent (Agrostis interrupta).
1838. Loudon, Encycl. Plants, s.v. Agrostis, A. vulgaris … is the most common and earliest of the bents.
4. Star or Stool Bent, Juncus squarrosus, Psamma arenaria; Sweet Bent, Luzula campestris; Way Bent, Hordeum murinum; White, or Wire Bent, Nardus stricta.
1597. Gerard, Herball (1633), 73. Wilde barley, called … after old English writers, Way Bennet.
1620. Markham, Farew. Husb., II. xix. (1668), 103. These mats should rather be made of dry white bents, then of flags and bulrush.
II. 5. A place covered with grass, as opposed to a wood; a bare field, a grassy plain, unenclosed pasture-land, a heath. Of northern origin. In ME. the stock poetic word for ‘the field’ (of battle), L. campus, due partly at least to its alliteration with battle, bicker, bide, brush, busk, bleed, bold, bale, etc. Used by some modern poets.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., B. 1675. As best, byte on þe bent of braken & erbes.
c. 1360. Song of Merci, in E. E. P. (1862), 118. Lyouns raumpyng vppon bente.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, IV. 1192. Bothe batels on bent brusshet to-gedur.
1420. Siege Rouen, in Archæol., XXI. 51. Buschys, brerys, and bowys they brent, They made hyt bare as evyr was bent.
a. 1500. Chevy Chase, 11. Bomen byckarte vppone the bent with ther browd Aros cleare.
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot. (1858), I. 152. Thre litill battellis buskit on the bent.
a. 1552. Leland, Brit. Coll., I. 232. They mette at a bent by Bourne at a ridge ende a litle from Ludlow.
1552. Lyndesay, Dreme, 919. We saw a boustius berne cum ouir ye bent.
1664. Floddan F., ix. 84. [Three lords] Upon the bent did breathlesse bide.
1808. Scott, Marm., IX. xxv. Since Marmion saw that martial scene Upon the bent so brown.
1858. Kingsley, Ode N. E. Wind, 32. On by holt and headland, Over heath and bent.
b. To flee, go, take to the bent: to escape to the moors or the open country, e.g., to avoid danger, creditors, etc.
c. 1450. Henryson, Lyon & Mous, xxxv. And he start up annone, And thankit them; syn to the Bent is gane.
1725. Ramsay, Gentle Sheph., I. ii. Wi’ gloomin’ brow, the laird seeks in his rent; It’s no to gie; your merchant’s to the bent.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, II. 259. Take the bent, Mr, Rashleigh. Make ae pair o’ legs worth twa pair o’ hands.
6. ? A hill-side, rising ground, slope, brae. (Perhaps because these were the localities naturally left in permanent pasture; but the sense is doubtful. Only in southern writers. (Cf. next word.)
c. 1386. Chaucer, Knt.’s T., 1123. And downward on an hil under a bent, Ther stood the tempul of Marz armypotent.
c. 1475[?]. Sqr. lowe Degree, 65, in Hazl., E. P. P., II. 25. In to that arber wolde he go, And vnder a bente he layde hym lowe.
1600. Fairfax, Tasso, XX. ix. 365. To the left wing, spred vnderneath the bent Of the steepe hill.
1870. Morris, Earthly Par., I. I. 320. Worn out, he fell beneath a woody bent. Ibid. (1876), Sigurd, I. 19. They came to the topmost of a certain grassy bent.
III. Comb. chiefly attrib., as bent-mat, -rope, -stalk. Also bent-grass = BENT (sense 1), esp. in Eng. Bot. the genus Agrostis; bent-land, land covered with stiff grass, reeds, etc.; bent-star [ON. störr, gen. starar, Sw. starr ‘bent-grass, carex’], the Sea Bent or Sea Reed Grass (Psamma arenaria): cf. sense 4.
1778. Lightfoot, Flora Scot., I. 93. Agrostis canina, Brown *Bent-grass.
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm. (1858), 458. Tufts of the bent-grass (Arundo arenaria, common here, as in all sandy wastes).
1884. Weekly Times, 19 Sept., 5/2. Planting bent grass along the sea-shore to check the drifting by the Sands.
1883. Birmingh. Weekly Post, 1/5. A ‘Golf Club’ which … wields its clubs on the sandy *bentlands near Bawdsey Ferry, close by.
1615. Markham, Eng. Housew., II. vii. (1668), 163. *Bent Mats, where one bent or straw is laid by another, and so woven together with a good strong pack-thread.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., II. 144. Slender *bent-stalks topt with feathery down.
1822. J. Platts, Bk. Curios., 523. Known to the Highlanders by the name of muran, and to the English by that of *bent-star.
