> as lemmas

a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Fairf. 14) 15709 He is comande nere atte hande.

?a1425 tr. Guy de Chauliac Grande Chirurgie (Hunterian) f. 61^v (MED) It semeþ þat he haþ but one orifice oþer hole, alle ȝif he haue two wunder nere to gidere [L. propinqua adinuicem].

c1450 (a1425) Metrical Paraphr. Old Test. (Selden) 1781 (MED) God sent vnto them veniance ten..than..The ix fell neyr at hand.

1530 J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 821/1 Nere at hande, bien pres.

a1532 T. More p. 930 sig. B3, in J. Delcourt Essai sur la langue de Sir Thomas More III. 448 Written nere togither.

1564 in D. H. Fleming Reg. Christian Congregation St. Andrews (1889) I. 217 The deponar can nocht tell quhidder thai lay ner together or syndry.

a1586 Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1590) ii. i. sig. O3 She drewe thether neere-away.

a1661 T. Fuller Worthies (1662) Wilts. 155 Country-People who live far off in our Land misapprehend them (distanced more then 12 miles) to be near together.

1670 S. Wilson Lassels's Voy. Italy (new ed.) ii. 40 I once saw it neere at hand.

1719 G. London & H. Wise J. de la Quintinie's Compl. Gard'ner (ed. 7) 215 To place them near together afterward in another Nursery-Bed, and cover them up with long Litter.

1733 B. Franklin in Pennsylvania Gaz. 20 Dec. 1/1 He receiv'd a Bucket of Water on his impudent Face. This was a fit Reward, as it was near at Hand and took up a little Time to give it.

1774 O. Goldsmith Hist. Earth VIII. 23 Others, whose time of transformation is also near at hand, fasten their tails to a tree, or to the first worm-hole they meet, in a beam.

1820 J. Keats Eve of St. Agnes in Lamia & Other Poems 87 The hallow'd hour was near at hand.

1841 C. Dickens Barnaby Rudge xxxvii. 149 Eyes so small and near together, that his broken nose alone seemed to prevent their meeting and fusing into one of the usual size.

1867 Lady's Friend May 309/2 It was very bearish to be sitting there alone, too, while scores of pretty girls were so near at hand.

1891 Daily News 31 Oct. 2/8 Near at hand parcels are being sold in considerable quantities.

1926 Amer. Mercury Apr. p. xxvii (advt.) He had the vision of a nation-wide telephone system by which people near at hand and far apart could talk to one another as if face to face.

1935 C. J. Smith Intermediate Physics (ed. 2) I. v. 861 The elementary magnets that are near together must be arranged so that one pole of a molecular magnet is near to another of the opposite kind.

1994 C. Paglia Vamps & Tramps 26 Disintegration into banditry is always near at hand, as was shown in 1989 in the notorious case of the Central Park jogger—a savage attack.