endware

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.

• (Early Modern) IPA^(key): /ˈɛndˌwæːr/

endware (plural endwares)

1. (Early Modern, northwestern Essex, rare) A hamlet or township; a small settlement or locality.
   • 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 90:

     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].

   • 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:

     Yet 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.

   • 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 136:

     To John my son my messuage with the lands free and copy in an endware called Beaseleye End in Wethersfield.

• “Essex: end of the road for an Old English Suffix?”, in Philoloblog‎^[1] (blog), 13 April 2016, archived from the original on 21 November 2023