Talk:faint
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Do we have an attribution for "Faint heart ne'er won fair lady"? Googling tells me it's "an old proverb". JillianE 14:21, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
And let us mind, faint heart ne'er wan A lady fair. Wha does the utmost that he can Will whyles do mair. - Robert Burns - To Dr. Blackjack SemperBlotto 14:28, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
- I added the sopurce to the quote in the entry. looks nice. (Thank you!). JillianE 19:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Why is the verb designated as of a distinct etymology, when that etymology refers to the adjectival use in the first etymology?
- Because etymology refers to all details of how a word came to be, and those details are clearly different because one of the words is an adjective and the other is a verb. A verb being derived from the adjective is a part of the verb's etymology, but not part of the adjective's etymology. It would be an omission to pretend that the verb and adjective have the exact same history right up to the present. —Rua (mew) 15:03, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
Missing transitive sense?[edit]
Chambers 1908 has a transitive sense: "(rare) to render faint". Couldn't find it by searching Google Books. Equinox ◑ 15:51, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Does fainting fit deserve its own entry? --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:31, 31 October 2020 (UTC)