† way-bitn.

?1589 T. Nashe Almond for Parrat 2 If..my full points seeme as tedious to thy puritane perusers, as the Northren mans mile, and a waybitte to the weary passenger.

1600 Wisdome Doctor Dodypoll iv. sig. F1^v Alb. How far am I from court? Pea. Some two myles, and a wye byt sir.

1603 True Narration Entertainm. His Maiestie sig. C3^v The miles according to the Northren phrase, are a wey-bit longer then they be here in the South.

1647 J. Cleveland Poems in Char. London-diurnall (Wing C4662) 24 A Yorkshire Wea-bit, longer then a mile.

1655 J. Howell 4th Vol. Familiar Lett. xxviii. 67 In the North parts where there is a wea bit to evry mile.

a1661 T. Fuller Worthies (1662) Yorks. 190 Ask a Country-man here on the high-way, how far it is to such a Town, and they commonly return, So many miles and a way-bit... It is not Way-bit, though generally so pronounced, but Wee-bit is a pure Yorkshirisme, which is a small bit in the Northern Language.

1692 J. Dennis Poems in Burlesque 15 From Sleep to Death, there's but a way-bit.

1700 J. Brome Trav. iii. 204 The Weather was ill, the ways worse, and the long Miles with their Way-bitts at the end of them worst of all.

1763 Crit. Rev. Apr. 269 When a traveller in the north asks how far 'tis to his inn; they tell him, a mile and a way-bit; and the southern men find this way-bit as long as the mile.

1775 J. Watson Hist. Halifax 548 Way-bit. As a mile and a way-bit. Meaning a wee, or little bit.

1834 T. Medwin Angler in Wales I. 255 You shall have his description of it, preface and all—which is like the mile and the wai bit, in Sussex, the one twice the length of the other.

1674 E. Settle Notes on Empress of Morocco Rev. 51 But to show you the Squire was not altogether unacquainted with Gold sub tenui panno in his Muses Minority, viz. in his anno ætatis, thirty and a Way-bit.