English

Alternative forms

• aboundaunce (obsolete)

Noun

aboundance ‎(plural aboundances)

1. (obsolete) abundance
   • 1560, Peter Whitehorne, Machiavelli, Volume I:

     Some besieged, for to shew unto the enemie, that they have graine more then inough and for to make him to dispaire, that he cannot, by famin overcome theim, have caste breade oute of the gates, or geven a Bullocke graine to eate, and after have suffered the same to be taken, to the intent that kilde and founde full of graine, might shewe that aboundance, whiche they had not.

   • 1628, Samuel Ward, A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale:

     Violent affections have made the dumbe to finde a tongue; If it be lowe water the mille may stand; but aboundance of heart will set the wheeles on going What earnest discourses will unlearned Mariners make of their voiages?

   • 1853, Various, Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853:

     I formed this opinion from continually tracing what we call "braid Scotch" to its root, in Bosworth's, and other Saxon dictionaries; and I lately found this fact confirmed and accounted for in a passage of Verstegan, as follows:--He tells us that after the battle of Hastings Prince Edgar Atheling, with his sisters Margaret and Christian, retired into Scotland, where King Malcolm married the former of these ladies; and proceeds thus: "As now the English court, by reason of the aboundance of Normannes therein, became moste to speak French, so the Scottish court, because of the queen, and the many English that came with her, began to speak English; the which language, it would seem, King Malcolm himself had before that learned, and now, by reason of his queen, did more affecte it.