A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)
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First published 1986 (DOST Vol. VI).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
Prescribe, -scrybe, v.1 [Late ME and e.m.E. prescribe, -scrybe, to hold or claim by prescription (1455), lay down as a rule (1535), limit, restrict (1596), etc. L. præscrībere to write before, direct in writing, etc., whence also F. prescrire (cf. Prescrive v.1).] a. tr. To restrict, restrain. b. To lay down. = Prescrive v.1 3. c. intr. To lapse by prescription. = Prescrive v.1 2. —a. 1456 Hay II 21/35.
Saufand kingis that ar privilegit or prescribit in thaire power imperiale —b. 1560 Bk. Disc. 237.
The same censure that is prescribit for the ministeris 1566-70 Buch. Comm. on Virgil Æn. i 507.
Scho prescrybit to them ane ordor an gave them certaine precepts concerning punisching of faultis 1597 James VI Dæmonol. (S.T.S.) 12/6.
Who hauing first of all prescribed that forme of doing [etc.] 1685 Rothesay Par. Rec. 61.
The time prescribed her for publick penitence —c. 1678 Mackenzie Laws & C. ii xxix §1 (1699) 276.
According to the civil law, crimes did prescribe in twenty years
