eft

• IPA^(key): /ɛft/
• Rhymes: -ɛft

From Middle English evete, from Old English efeta, of unknown origin.

eft (plural efts)

1. A newt, especially the European smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris, syn. Triturus punctatus).
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, V.10:

     Only these marishes and myrie bogs, / In which the fearefull ewftes do build their bowres, / Yeeld me an hostry mongst the croking frogs […].

   • 1844, Robert Browning, "Garden Fancies," II. Sibrandus Schafnaburgennis:

     How did he like it when the live creatures

     Tickled and toused and browsed him all over,

     And worm, slug, eft, with serious features

     Came in, each one, for his right of trover?

The term red eft is used for the land-dwelling juvenile stage of the Eastern newt (Notophthalmus viridescens).

• red eft

From Old English eft, from Proto-Germanic *aftiz. Compare after, aft.

eft (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Again; afterwards
   • 14^thC, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Merchant’s Prologue and Tale in The Canterbury Tales,

     Were I unbounden, all so may I the, / I woulde never eft come in the snare.

   • 1384, John Wycliffe, Bible (Wycliffe): Mark, ii, 1,

     And eft he entride in to Cafarnaum, aftir eiyte daies.

   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter v, in Le Morte Darthur, book XXI:

     Than syr bedwere retorned ageyn & took the swerde in hys hande / and than hym thought synne and shame to throwe awaye that nobyl swerde / and so efte he hydde the swerde and retorned ageyn and tolde to the kyng that he had ben at the water and done his commaundemente

   • 1557, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, The Fourth Book of Virgil,

     And when they were all gone, / And the dim moon doth eft withhold the light, […]

• eftsoons

• ETF, FET, FTE, TFE, fet, tef

From Proto-Germanic *aftiz. Cognate with Old Frisian eft, Old Saxon eft, Old Norse ept.

• IPA^(key): /eft/

eft

1. again
2. back (of return or reversal)

   Ne wēndon wē þīn eft swā hraðe!

   We didn't expect you back so soon!

   Iċ wȳsċe þæt iċ mihte eft niman þæt iċ cwæþ.

   I wish I could take back what I said.

   Mīn frēond āġeaf mē eft þā bōc þe iċ hiere lāh.

   My friend gave me back the book that I lent her.

   • late 10th century, Ælfric, "Saint Maur, Abbot"

     Þā ēode se prēost eft tō his weorce.

     Then the priest went back to his work.

3. afterwards

From Proto-Germanic *aftiz. Cognate with Old Frisian eft, Old English eft, Old Norse ept.

eft

1. afterwards, again

eft

1. newt

• J. Poole W. Barnes, A Glossary, with Some Pieces of Verse, of the Old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy (1867)