[UP- 7.]
1. The occasion of a woman’s first sitting up to receive company after a confinement. Obs. exc. dial. (Cf. UPSETTING vbl. sb. 2.)
1572. J. Jones, Bathes of Buckstone, 9 b. Some in forme of Cakes, as at weddings; some Rondes of Hogs, as at vpsittings.
1603. Dekker, Bachelor’s Banquet, C 3. It is your vpsitting, and a fortnight at the least since you were brought to bed.
1641. Brome, Joviall Crew, II. (1652), F 2 b. We will have such … A Christning; such up-sitting and Ghossipping!
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 12/2. This is a kind of dress which Women in Child-bed usually wear, when they are for Christnings, and up-sittings.
1746. Exmoor Scolding (E.D.S.), 24. ’Twas thee roil’st upon me up to Daraty Vogwill’s Upzitting.
1828–. in dialect glossaries (Yks., Som., Dev.).
† 2. The fact of sitting up again after an illness.
1646. Fuller, Wounded Consc., xix. 140. I must … rejoyce at thy upsitting, whom God hath raised from the bed of despaire.
1742. Richardson, Pamela, IV. 303. I am once more … enabled to dedicate to you the first Fruits of my Penmanship, on my Upsitting.
† 3. Sc. Inactivity, indifference. Obs.
1680. Stewart, in Howie, Cloud of Witnesses (1778), 74. The Lord hath rubbed shame on all our faces, because of many backslidings and upsitting in duty.
1709. Wodrow, Corr. (1842), I. 55. There is a remarkable upsitting among us in mutual freedom one with another.
4. S. African. The practice of sitting up during the night as a method of courtship. (After Du. opzitten.) Also attrib.
1863. W. C. Baldwin, Afr. Hunting, vi. 165. When two upsittings have been going on, at opposite corners of a large room. Ibid. And the upsitting business I consider about the best of their old customs.
1896. Westm. Gaz., 20 Jan., 1/3. The nocturnal courtship, or ‘upsitting.’
