> as lemmas

1598 F. Meres tr. Luis de Granada Sinners Guyde ii. xxi. 516 We doe and speake all things with that warines, that we doe not stray in the least [Sp. en ninguna cosa] from the tract and path of vertue.

a1616 W. Shakespeare King Lear (1623) ii. ii. 314 I cannot thinke my Sister in the least Would faile her Obligation.

1662 E. Stillingfleet Origines Sacræ iii. iii. §4 And is it possible..to imagine that the Scriptures do in the least ascribe the Origine of evill to God?

?1699 Dialogue Two Members East-India Companies (single sheet) (verso) To expect their Rights to be preserved, and not in the least to be Infringed upon.

a1719 J. Addison Dialogues Medals in Wks. (1721) I. ii. 461 I have been surprized to meet with a man in a Satire that I never in the least expected to find there.

1787 W. Beckford Portuguese Jrnl. 15 June (1954) 83 I pretended not to have been in the least tired.

1851 J. Ruskin Stones of Venice I. xx. 218 No sculptor can in the least imitate the peculiar character of accidental fracture.

1868 Stephen's New Comm. Laws Eng. (ed. 6) II. iv. i. vi. 531 So as to restrain or diminish in the least any of his rights or interests.

1882 Cent. Mag. July 448/1 ‘No, it isn't’, he returned, promptly. ‘Not in the least.’

1915 V. Woolf Voy. Out iv. 60 One enormous question, which she did not in the least know how to put into words.

1944 Living off Land: Man. Bushcraft iii. 61 Where the ground appears to be in the least unsafe, it should always be timbered.

2015 E. Wood My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend 246 It doesn't seem to be worrying him or anyone else in the least.