> as lemmas

a1275 Prov. Ælfred (Trin. Coll. MS.) 35 Þis werin þe sawen of kinc Alfred.

a1275 Prov. Ælfred (Trin. Coll. MS.) 361 Þurch saȝe mon is wis.

c1320 tr. J. Bonaventura Medit. 853 Of salamons sawys ȝe are nat auysed.

1362 W. Langland Piers Plowman A. viii. 124 ‘Lewede lorel!’ quod he ‘luite lokestou on þe Bible, On Salamones sawes seldom þou bi-holdest’.

c1400 (?c1380) Cleanness l. 1599 His sawle is ful of syence, saȝes to schawe.

c1440 Promptorium Parvulorum 441/2 Sawe, or proverbe, proverbium, problema.

1470–85 T. Malory Morte d'Arthur x. lxi. 519 Euer hit is an old sawe gyue a chorle rule and there by he wylle not be suffysed.

c1480 (a1400) St. James Less 653 in W. M. Metcalfe Legends Saints Sc. Dial. (1896) I. 169 Fore It is sad in elderys saw: ‘ful harde is hungyre in hale maw’.

1530 J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 265/1 Sawe a proverbe, prouerbe.

1563 B. Googe Eglogs Epytaphes & Sonettes sig. A*.i And many a saged sawe lies hyd within thine aged brest.

a1616 W. Shakespeare As you like It (1623) ii. vii. 156 Full of wise sawes, and moderne instances. View more context for this quotation

1632 E. Robertson in W. Lithgow Totall Disc. Trav. To Author B 4 How ruld with Lawes The South world is: their Rites, Religious sawes.

1709 A. Pope Chaucer's January & May in Poet. Misc.: 6th Pt. 190 We, Sirs, are Fools; and must resign the Cause To heathnish Authors, Proverbs, and old Saws.

1764 Oxf. Sausage 172 Alone from Jargon born to rescue Law, From Precedent, grave Hum, and formal Saw!

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. x. 635 The great question now depending was not to be decided by the saws of pedantic Templars.

1859 F. Nightingale Notes on Nursing vii. 39 It is an ever ready saw that an egg is equivalent to a lb. of meat—whereas it is not at all so.

1884 Ld. Tennyson Becket v. ii. 197 For I was musing on an ancient saw, Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.