Meanings
plural endwares
- EarlyEssexModernNorthwesternrareA hamlet or township; a small settlement or locality.
To John my son my messuage with the lands free and copy in an endware called Beaseleye End in Wethersfield.
2000 [1599], “JOHN OVERED senior of Shalford clothier, 28 Oct. 1599 (685)”, in F.G. Emmison, editor, Essex wills: the Bishop of London's Commissary Court, 1596-1603 (Essex Record Office Publication; 143), Essex Record Office, →ISBN, page 1362 more examples
To the poor people 6s. 8d. to be paid to the churchwardens to distribute to 40 of the poorest householders at their discretion, only 'this endware to be none of them' [sic].
1994 [1570/1], “WILLIAM HAISTLER of Finchingfield, 2 Feb. 1570/1 (418)”, in F.G. Emmison, editor, Essex wills: the Bishop of London's Commissary Court, 1569-1578 (Essex Record Office Publication; 127), Essex Record Office, →ISBN, page 90Yet herin I will commẽde manye of the monaſticall votaries, eſpeciallye Monkes, foꝛ that they were authors of many goodly boꝛowes and endwares, neare vnto their dwellinges, although otherwyſe they pꝛetended to be men ſeparated from the woꝛld.
1577, William Harrison, “An Historicall Description of the Islande of Britayne, […]”, in The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Harrison, →OCLC, folio 82, verso, column 1
Origin
- Old English*endeware
- Middle English*endeware
- Englishendware
Inherited from Middle English *endeware, from Old English *endeware (literally “village people”), from ende (“end, extremity”) + -ware (“inhabitants”), metonymically extended from the inhabitants of a settlement to the settlement itself. Compare endship for a similar formation.
More words from Middle English, Old English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
endware. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/endware
“endware.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/endware. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “endware,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/endware.
Source: endware on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.