> as lemmas

c1390 G. Chaucer Nun's Priest's Tale 4242 Mordre wol out that se we day by day.

a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Gött.) 1084 (MED) For-þi men sais into þis tyde, Is no man þat murthir [a1400 Fairf. deþ; a1400 Trin. Cambr. murþere] may hide.

a1450 (c1435) J. Lydgate Life SS. Edmund & Fremund (Harl.) 225 in C. Horstmann Altengl. Legenden (1881) 2nd Ser. 400 (MED) Moordre wil out, thouh it abide a while.

a1450 ( in J. Kail 26 Polit. Poems (1904) 53 (MED) Synne, morþere, derne tresoun, Not may be hyd fro goddis syȝt.

?1499 J. Skelton Bowge of Courte (de Worde) sig. Bvi Forthwyth there I had him slayne But that I drde mordre wolde come oute.

a1593 C. Marlowe Edward II (1594) sig. M2 I feard as much, murther cannot be hid.

1600 W. Shakespeare Merchant of Venice ii. ii. 75 Mu[r]der [1623 murder] cannot bee hidde long. View more context for this quotation

1695 (title) Gallienus Redivivus; or, Murther Will Out, &c., being a true account of the De-Witting of Glencoe, Gaffney, &c.

1706 G. Farquhar Recruiting Officer iii. i. 32 Now the Murder's out.

1781 M. P. Andrews Baron Kinkvervankotsdorsprakingatchdern i. 21 Baron: Daughter, Daughter! Dag.: Daughter! there's the whole murder out at once.

1824 J. Hogg Private Mem. Justified Sinner 135 Murder will out, though the Almighty should lend hearing to the ears of the willow, and speech to the seven tongues of the woodriff.

a1845 R. H. Barham Hermann in Ingoldsby Legends (1847) 3rd Ser. 338 The murder thus out, Hermann's fêted and thankéd.

1853 C. Dickens Bleak House xxviii. 275 Sir Leicester's cousins, in the remotest degree, are so many Murders, in the respect that they ‘will out.’

1876 H. James Roderick Hudson xi. 398 All that had to be said. Murder will out, and my low spirits can't be hidden.

1942 William & Mary Coll. Q. Hist. Mag. 22 321 His family..believed he was murdered, and the weight of evidence seems to be with this surmise. It would seem that the familiar aphorism ‘Murder will out’ is here illustrated.

1994 W. Maples & M. Browning Dead Men do tell Tales vii. 95 In Hitchcock's movies, murder will out, always. No one escapes punishment.