> as lemmas

a1522 G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneid (1957) ii. vii. 63 Mony debatis and onsettis haue we done.

1567 G. Fenton tr. M. Bandello Certaine Tragicall Disc. (1898) II. 85 After the oncet is geven, the worste is paste.

1594 (a1555) D. Lindsay Hist. Squyer Meldrum l. 628, in Wks. (1931) I. 162 Upon the Scottis thay maid onset.

1619 E. M. Bolton tr. Florus Rom. Hist. iii. iii. 253 That inuincible rage, and furious onset, which goes current with the barbarous for true valour.

1669 in Rothesay Town Council Rec. (1935) I. 170 Upone thair just apprehensioune of some outragious onsett in defence of thair prissoner.

1690 T. Burnet Theory of Earth iii. 80 This destroying of the outward garniture of the earth is but the first onset.

1718 A. Pope tr. Homer Iliad IV. xvi. 949 He..thrice three Heroes at each Onset slew.

1767 Poetry in Ann. Reg. 231 The forceful onset had contus'd his brain.

1791 W. Cowper tr. Homer Iliad in Iliad & Odyssey I. viii. 616 At their ships Give them brisk onset.

1819 W. Scott Ivanhoe I. ix. 168 Prince John with his truncheon signed to the trumpets to sound the onset.

1855 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. IV. xix. 279 These troops had to bear the first brunt of the onset.

1892 G. Meredith Poems 77 He entreats..Compassion..For his fierce bugler horning onset.

a1902 F. Norris Pit (1903) ii. 140 Beneath that boyish exterior was..the male hardness, the callousness that met the brunt and withstood the shock of onset.

1930 W. S. Churchill My Early Life xiv. 196 We young men who lay down to sleep that night within three miles of 60,000 well-armed fanatical Dervishes, expecting every moment their violent onset or onrush.

1993 G. Williams Renewal & Reformation ii. 49 He told with wry, mocking humour how, at the onset of the enemy, he and his fellows fled precipitately.