neck verse

English

Noun

neck verse (plural neck verses)

1. The verse formerly read to entitle a party to the benefit of clergy, said to be the first verse of the fifty-first Psalm, "Miserere mei," etc.
   • 1619, Samuell Hieron, “The Worth of the Water of Life. Dauids Longing, and Dauids Loue. The Good Fight. [II. Tim[othy] 4. 7.]”, in The Sermons of Master Samuell Hieron, […], London: […] Iohn Beale [and John Legatt printer to the Uniuersitie of Cambridge for Thomas Man, Ioyce Macham, Cantrell Legge, and Simon Waterson], published 1620, →OCLC, pages 222–223:

     I haue ſeene a pardon giuen to a man vpon the gallovves, but vvho ſo emboldeneth himſelfe thereuypon, perhaps the rope may be his hire: it is not good to put it vpon the Pſalme of Miſerere, and the neck-verſe, for ſometime he prooues no clarke.

   • 1805, Walter Scott, “(please specify the page)”, in The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, London: […] [James Ballantyne] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], and A[rchibald] Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:

     Letter or line know I never a one,
     Were't my neck-verse at Hairibee

   • 1897, Stanley John Weyman, chapter I, in Shrewsbury:

     For having learned to read, but never to write, beyond, that is, the trifle of her maiden name, she valued scholarship both by that she had, and that she had not; and in the year after I was breeched, prevailed on my father who, for his part, good man, never advanced beyond the Neck Verse, to bind me to the ancient Grammar School at Bishop's Stortford, then kept by a Mr. G----.

2. (by extension) A verse or saying, the utterance of which decides one's fate; a shibboleth.
   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):

     These words, "bread and cheese," were their neck verse or shibboleth to distinguish them; all pronouncing "broad and cause," being presently put to death.