mastiff

plural mastiffs · archaic plural mastives · alternative Mastiff

1. One of an old breed of powerful, deep-chested, and smooth-coated dogs, used chiefly as watchdogs and guard dogs.

   Soon as Ulyſſes near th’encloſure drew, / With open mouths the furious maſtives flew: […]

   1725, Homer, “Book XIV”, in [Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume III, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC, page 233

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   At which time, they wryte that Demoſthenes told the people of Athens, the fable of the ſheepe and woulues, how that the woulues came on a time, and willed the ſheepe, if they woulde haue peace with them, to deliuer them their maſtiues that kept them.

   1579, Plutarke of Chæronea [i.e., Plutarch], “The Life of Demosthenes”, in Thomas North, transl., The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romaines, […], London: […] Richard Field, →OCLC, page 908

   As ſaluage Bull, whom two fierce maſtiues bayt, / When rancour doth with rage him once engore, / Forgets with wary warde them to awayt, / But with his dreadfull hornes them driues afore, / Or flings aloft or treades downe in the flore, / Breathing out wrath, and bellowing diſdaine, / That all the foreſt quakes to heare him rore: […]

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 302

   They fill’d the Capitoll, and Pompei’s Circke: / Where, like ſo many Maſtiues, biting ſtones, / As if his Statues novv vvere ſenſitiue / Of their vvild fury, firſt they teare them dovvne: / Then faſtning ropes, drag them along the ſtreetes, […]

   1603 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, Seianus His Fall, London: […] G[eorge] Elld, for Thomas Thorpe, published 1605, →OCLC, Act V, signature [M4], verso

   Avaunt, you curs! Be thy mouth or black or white, Tooth that poisons if it bite; Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim, Hound or spaniel, brach or him.

   c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vi]

   The conquering foe they soon assail’d; / First Trulla stav’d, and Cerdon tail’d, / Until their Mastives loos’d their hold: / And yet alas! do what they could, / The worsted Bear came off with store / Of bloudy wounds, but all before.

   1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]. Canto III.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC, page 63

plural Mastiffs

1. Alternative letter-case form of mastiff.