Sunday Word: Makebate

[sallymn]

makebate, make-bate [meyk-beyt]

noun:
(archaic) a person who causes contention or discord

Examples:

Barillon was therefore directed to act, with all possible precautions against detection, the part of a makebate. (Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II)

Trying to set you against me, the spiteful old makebate, and no one knows how long she will be here, falling on the poor lads if they do but sing a song in the hall after supper, as if she were a very Muggletonian herself. (Charlotte M Yonge, Under the Storm)

Angus answered somewhat sulkily, that "he was no makebate, or stirrer-up of quarrels; he would rather be a peacemaker." (Sir Walter Scott, A Legend of Montrose)

Origin:

The rare noun makebate comes from the common English verb make and the uncommon, obsolete noun bate 'strife, discord,' a derivative of the Middle English verb baten 'to argue, contend; (of a bird) to beat the wings' (cf. abate), a borrowing from Old French batre 'to beat.' Makebate entered English in the 16th century. (Dictionary.com)

The earliest known use of the word makebate is in the early 1500s. OED's earliest evidence for makebate is from 1529, in the writing of Thomas More, lord chancellor, humanist, and martyr. (Oxford English Dictionary)