Bidding

vbl. sb. [f. BID v. + -ING¹.]

  1.  The offering of a price for an article; a bid.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 8819 (Gött.). Bot for na biding [v.r. beting, beding, profur] þat þai bide Ne miht þai do it stand in stede.

1685.  Lond. Gaz., No. 2050/4. The Bidder to advance 6d. per Gross upon each bidding.

1863.  Geo. Eliot, Romola (1880), I. I. i. 15. Let me have the bidding for that stained suit of yours, when you set up a better.

1878.  Black, Gr. Past., 310. He had listened to one or two of the biddings.

  † 2.  The action of asking pressingly, of begging or requesting; request, desire, entreaty. Obs.

a. 1225.  Ancr. R., 108. Er þen þet biddunge arere eni schaundle.

c. 1340.  Cursor M., 7131 (Trin.). Þat bruyd was of biddyng bolde, Sampson al þe soþe hir tolde.

1340.  Ayenb., 194. No þing ne is zuo diere y-boȝt; ase þet me heþ be biddinge.

  † 3.  The action of praying; prayer. Obs.

1297.  R. Glouc., 280. Þoru byddynge of Seyn Dunston, ys soule com to blys.

1340.  Ayenb., 219. Moyses ouercom amalec . be his holy biddinges.

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 35. Byddynge or praynge, oracio, deprecacio, supplicacio.

  4.  Invitation, summons.

a. 1810.  Tannahill, Kebbuckston Wed., Wks. 72.

1869.  Times, 18 Aug., 8/6. The Pope sent a bidding to the Patriarch of Constantinople…. The Patriarch returned a distinct refusal.

  attrib.  1863.  Miss Sewell, Chr. Names, II. 401. The beed-stick—bidding-stick, or summons to the muster.

  5.  A command, order, injunction. To sit any one’s bidding (Sc.): to neglect his order to go.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 3093. Þi biding wil we do ful fayn.

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XV. xxix. (1495), 499. By byddynge of his fader.

1526.  Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 34 b. I haue not founde the disobedyent to my byddynges.

1601.  Shaks., All’s Well, II. v. 93. I shall not breake your bidding, good my Lord.

1634.  Rutherford, Lett., xliii. (1862), I. 132. I would … swim through the water ere I sat His bidding.

1867.  Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. App. 790. Whatever Godwine did he did at the bidding of his lord.

  6.  Bidding of beads, beads-bidding; bidding of prayers, bidding prayer. As to these expressions there has been a series of curious misapprehensions. The original meaning down to the Reformation was ‘praying of prayers,’ i.e., saying of prayers, praying; cf. BID v. 7 e. From an early date in the Christian church, it was the custom to request the prayers of the faithful in behalf of certain persons and things; and in the 16th c., in England, forms of allocution or direction to the congregation, telling them whom and what to remember in ‘bidding their beads’ or ‘prayers’ were authoritatively put forth. As bid in the sense of ‘pray’ was now becoming obsolete, the meaning of the expression was forgotten after the Reformation, and bid taken in the sense of ‘order, direct,’ so that in the reign of Elizabeth the ‘bidding of prayers’ was applied to the allocution itself, as if = ‘the directing or injoining of prayers.’ With the later use of the vbl. sb. as a gerund directly governing an object, we have in the 17th c. ‘the form of bidding prayers’ or ‘prayer’ (= precationem hortandi); and later still, a misunderstanding of the grammatical construction in this phrase has given rise to the vulgar error of calling this exhortation to the people (in which ‘concionatores populum hortabuntur ut secum in precibus concurrat’ Sparrow, Collect. Articles, 1671) ‘the bidding-prayer,’ as if it were itself a kind of prayer qualified by the attribute ‘bidding.’

  c. 1175.  Lamb. Hom., 69. Þurh festing and þurh wacunge, and ec þurh ibodenes biddunge.

[1349.  in Coxe, Forms Bid. Prayer, 11. Ye shulle stonde up and bydde your bedys … Ye shull also bydde for the stat of Holy Cherche, etc.]

1535.  Act 27 Hen. VIII., xxv. In al … their sermons, collacions, biddinges of the beades.

1539.  Hilsey, Primer, An order and form of bydding by the Kynges Commandment. Ye sholl praye for the whole congregasion, etc.

1563.  Homilies, II. Idolatry (1859), 236. For the which [the cross] they pray in their beads bidding.

a. 1746.  Lewis, in Coxe, Forms Bid. Prayer, Pref. 12. Two ancient forms of bidding the bedes or praying the prayers on Sundays and Holydays 1349, 1483.

  c. 1550.  Injunct. Edw. VI., in R. Glouc. (Hearn), 624. The fourme of biddyng of the common prayers. Fyrst you shall pray for the whole congregatyon of the true chrysten and catholyke church of Chryste. And specyally for the churche of Englande and Irelande, etc.

1559.  Injunct., D iv. The fourme of bidding the prayers to be used generally in this uniforme sorte. Ye shall praye for Christs holy catholic church, etc.

1622.  Sparrow, Bk. Com. Prayer (1661), 257. This form of bidding Prayers is very ancient.

1680.  Old Puritan Detect., 5. A Form … of Bidding Prayer, wherein the Priest was not to speak to God, but only to the people, exhorting them to pray instantly for such and such persons and things.

1685.  Stillingfl., Orig. Brit., iv. 224. At the Bidding of Prayers, which was a direction for the People what to pray for in their private Devotions.

1732.  Neal, Hist. Purit., I. 49. The custom of bidding prayer, which is still in use in the Church, is a relick of Popery.

1782.  Priestley, Corrupt. Chr., II. VIII. 126. What they call bidding prayers, or an exhortation to pray for such and such things.

1885.  Oxford Univ. Cal., 31. The Form of Bidding Prayer before the Latin Sermons.

  1753.  Chambers, Cycl. Supp., We have a form of these bidding-prayers in the apostolical constitutions.

1840.  Coxe, Forms Bid. Prayer, Pref. A concise view of the history of the Bidding Prayer.

1879.  Wace, Bampt. Lect., vi. 157. The bidding prayer read at the commencement of these Lectures is but an echo of this ancient supplication.

1885.  Public Opin., 9 Jan., 36/2. That there should not be wanting, in the language of the bidding prayer, a due supply of fit persons qualified to discharge the functions of Royalty.