3. (old archery).—(a) The centre of a target: Fr. blanc: formerly painted white: cf. Bull's-eye. Whence (b) the object in view, a mark; to hit the white = to be right.
1580. Lyly, Euphues and his England [Nares]. An archer say you is to be knowen by his aime, not by his arrowe: but your aime is so ill, that if you knewe how farre wide from the white your shaft sticketh, you would hereafter rather breake your bowe then bend it.
1593. Shakspeare, Taming of the Shrew, v. 2. 'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white.
c. 1605. Drayton, Mooncalf, 509. Quoth mother Howlett, you have hit the white.
1629. Feltham, Parody Jonson's Ode on Leaving the Stage. As oft' you've wanted brains And art to strike the white, As you have levelled right.
1632. Massinger, Emperor of the East, iv. 4. The immortality of my fame is the white I shoot at.
c. 1635. Howell, Letters, iii. 3. Church-Lands were made secular, which was the White they levell'd at.
4. (colloquial).—In pl. = the white of the eyes.
1662. Grim the Collier, iii. And he, poor heart, no sooner heard my news, But turns me up his whites and falls down flat.
1682. Barnard, Heylin, clxxx. Lifting up both his hands and whites to heaven.
1764. Macklin, Man of the World, iii. 1. Ay, and I turned up the whites of my eyes till the strings awmost cracked again.
Adj. (old and still colloquial in many senses).—1. Thus white (= fair or specious) words; white (= lucky) day: cf. Red-letter day; white (= excusable) lie (Grose); white (= venial) crime; white (= friendly) witch; white (= honourable) man, formerly = fair, handsome; white (= guiltless) way; white (= auspicious) hour; white (= beneficially levied) mail.
c. 1300. Hymns to Virgin [E.E.T.S.], 72. Y was stalworthe & white.
1369. Chaucer, Troilus, ii. 1062. Thou, Minerva the whyte, Gif thou me wit my letre to devyse. Ibid., ii. 887. Ye ywis, quod fresshe Antigone the white. Ibid., iii. 1568. Ye caused al this fare, Trow I, quod she, for al your wordes white.
1606. Returne from Parnassus, ii. 6. When he returns, I'll tell twenty admirable lies of his hawk, and then I shall be his little rogue, and his white villain, for a whole week after.
c. 1616. Fletcher, Knight of Malta, ii. 5. In the white way of virtue and true valour.
1630. Shirley, Grateful Servant, ii. 1. Till this white hour these walls were never proud T'inclose a guest.
1689. Mather, Witchcraft, 5. There is mention of creatures that they call white-witches, which do only good turns for their neighbours.
1715. Addison, Drummer, ii. The common people call him a wizard, a white-witch, a conjuror, a cunning man, a necromancer.
1789. D'Arblay, Diary, iv. 289. Sir George has told me a lie—a white lie, he says, but I hate a white lie; if you will tell me a lie, let it be a black lie.
1815. Scott, Guy Mannering [Webster]. On the whole the Dominie reckoned this as one of the white days of his life. Ibid. (1821), Kenilworth, i. 170. He was what the vulgar call a white-witch, a cunning man, and such like.
1834. Edgeworth, Helen, vi. I wish that word fib was out of the English language, and white lie drummed out after it.
1855. Kingsley, Westward Ho, 1. When he had warts or burns, he went to the white-witch at Northam to charm them away.
1861. Reade, Cloister and Hearth lii. He spent much of his gains, however, in sovereign herbs and choice drugs, and would have so invested them all, but Margaret white-mailed a part.
