a. and sb. Also 7 -aque, -ack, [ad. L. Syriacus = Gr. Συριακός, f. Syria, Συρία. Cf. F. syriaque, It., Pg. syriaco, Sp. siriaco.]

1

  A.  adj. Of or pertaining to Syria: only of or in reference to the language (see B.); written in Syriac; writing, or versed, in Syriac.

2

1602.  T. Fitzherbert, Apol., 49. As wel in the Greeke text, as in the Siriac and Caldie.

3

1635.  Pagitt, Christianogr., I. iii. (1636), 157. The Syriaque tongue, which is composed of the Hebrew, Chalde, Arabique and Greeke tongues.

4

1659.  Bp. Walton, Consid. Considered, ix. 179. Some Syriack Copies of the New Testament.

5

1683.  Moxon, Mech. Exerc., Printing, ii. ¶ 2. Some Bodies with … the Greek, the Hebrew, and the Syriack Face.

6

1781.  Gibbon, Decl. & F., xxxiii. (1787), III. 350, note. Two Syriac writers … place the resurrection of the Seven Sleepers in the year 736 (A.D. 425), or 748 (A.D. 437), of the æra of the Seleucides.

7

1867.  Lady Herbert, Cradle L., iii. 101. A very curious old Syriac copy of the Four Gospels.

8

1895.  J. R. Harris, Hermas in Arcadia, etc. (1896), 45. We have not been in the habit of either studying or trusting Syriac writers in the degree they deserve.

9

  B.  sb. The ancient Semitic language of Syria; formerly in wide use, = ARAMAIC; now, the form of Aramaic used by Syrian Christians, in which the Peshito version of the Bible is written.

10

1611.  Bible, Dan. ii. 4. Then spake the Caldeans to the King in Syriacke.

11

c. 1645.  Howell, Lett. (1650), II. 93. Out of that intermixture of Hebrew and Chaldee resulted a third language call’d to this day the Syriac, which also, after the time of our Saviour, began to be more adulterated by admission of Greek, Roman, and Arabic.

12

1668.  Wilkins, Real Char., 5. Those passages in the Gospel, which are said to be in the Hebrew tongue, as Talitha Kumi,… are properly Syriac.

13

1780.  Cowper, Progr. Err., 499. If stubborn Greek refuse to be his friend, Hebrew or Syriac shall be forc’d to bend.

14

1781.  Gibbon, Decl. & F., xxxiii. (1787), III. 350, note. The narrative [of the Seven Sleepers] which was translated from the Syriac by the care of Gregory of Tours.

15

1867.  Whitney, Lang. & Study of Lang., viii. 298. The ancient Syriac is still the sacred dialect of the feeble bodies of Christians in Asia which represent the Syriac church.

16

1899.  F. C. Burkitt, Early Chr. outside Roman Emp., 16. The Syriac-speaking subjects of the Christianised Empire.

17

  b.  A or the Syriac version (of the Bible).

18

1644.  Milton, Areop. (Arb.), 45. As for the burning of those Ephesian books…, tis reply’d the books were magick, the Syriack so renders them.

19

1692.  W. Marshall, Gospel Myst. Sanctif., x. (1780), 169. The Spirit itself … beareth our spirits witness, as the Syriac and vulgar Latin render it.

20

1910.  Expositor, May, 396. The Latin Vulgate, the two Syriacs, the Gothic.

21

  † c.  A printers’ type of a Syriac letter or character. Obs. rare.

22

1670.  R. Scott, Lett. to Fell, in Hart, Cent. Typogr. Oxf. (1900), 156. Ye printer … giues mee notice yt they ca[nnot] goe on wth ye notes vntill they haue cast a Syriack.

23

  Hence Syriacism = SYRIASM; Syriacist, a Syriac scholar; Syriacize v. trans., to turn or translate into Syriac.

24

1645.  Milton, Tetrach., Wks. 1851, IV. 237. The New Testament … hath nothing neer so many Atticisms as Hebraisms, and Syriacisms.

25

1848.  Bagster’s Anal. Heb. Conc., 31. By a Syriacism, the suffixes are sometimes attached, without a union vowel.

26

1863.  Liddon, Some Words for God, i. (1865), 5. The words actually uttered by our Lord upon the cross, and which He took from a Syriacized version of Ps. xxii.

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