> as lemmas

a1300 Cursor Mundi 23892 Sum for mar and sum for less, Efter þat vr giftes ess.

?1504 W. Atkinson tr. Thomas à Kempis Ful Treat. Imytacyon Cryste (Pynson) iii. lx. 252 Gyftes of nature be gyuen Indyfferentlye to good folke and euyll.

1573 J. Sanford tr. L. Guicciardini Hours Recreat. (1576) Ep. Ded. sig. A 5 Hir vertues and giftes of minde.

1588 J. Udall Demonstr. Trueth of Discipline xi. 49 For some hath an excellent gift in doctrine, and not in application.

1597 T. Morley Plaine & Easie Introd. Musicke 115 Imagining that all the guiftes of God should die in themselues, if they should bee taken out of the worlde.

1647 N. Bacon Hist. Disc. Govt. 19 Austen had also a gift or trick of working miracles.

1693 S. Harvey in J. Dryden tr. Juvenal Satires ix. 179 The Gifts of Nature, what will they avail?

1710 S. Sewall Diary 2 Dec. (1973) II. 648 I have heard he had a good Gift in Prayer.

1711 J. Addison Spectator No. 128. ¶1 As Vivacity is the Gift of Women, Gravity is that of Men.

1769 ‘Junius’ Stat Nominis Umbra (1772) I. i. 13 Nature has been sparing of her gifts to this noble lord.

1814 W. Wordsworth Excursion i. 7 Endowed with highest gifts, The vision and the faculty divine. View more context for this quotation

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. vii. 229 He was in the habit of exercising his spiritual gifts at their meetings.

1856 B. Brodie Psychol. Inq. (ed. 3) I. i. 29 The faculty of reasoning correctly..is for the most part a natural gift.

1871 E. A. Freeman Hist. Norman Conquest (1876) IV. xvii. 99 He was displaying in Normandy the gifts of the wise lawgiver and firm administrator.

1882 C. Pebody Eng. Journalism xix. 144 The precise gifts that are needed in a special correspondent.

1888 J. Bryce Amer. Commonw. II. liii. 328 His [sc. A. Hamilton's] countrymen seem to have never..duly recognized his splendid gifts.