Definition of "aby"

(transitive)

1. (archaic) To pay the penalty for (something); to atone for, to make amends.  quotations

   Quotations

   • Foole-hardy Knight, full soone thou shalt aby / This fond reproach, thy body will I hang, [Hee takes down / his pole.] / And loe vpon that string thy teeth shall hang: Prepare thy selfe, for dead soone shalt thou bee

     1607 (first performance), [Francis Beaumont], The Knight of the Burning Pestle, London: […] [Nicholas Okes] for Walter Burre, […], published 1613, Act III, signature G, recto

2. (archaic, figuratively) To pay (something) as a penalty, to atone for; to suffer (something).  quotations

   Quotations

   • Who dyes the vtmoſt dolor doth abye, / But who that liues, is lefte to waile his loſſe: / So life is loſſe, and death felicity.

     1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, stanza 38, page 455

   • We doubt thee not; / Thy tale seems true, nor dost thou glorify / Thyself herein—certes thou wouldst abye / A heavy fate if thou shouldst lie herein— […]

     1870, William Morris, “February: Bellerophon in Lycia”, in The Earthly Paradise: A Poem, part IV, London: F[rederick] S[tartridge] Ellis, […], page 339

3. (obsolete except Scotland) To endure or tolerate (something); to experience.  quotations

   Quotations

   • The muckle black deil was father to the Frasers, a'body kens that; and as for the Gregara, I never could abye the reek of them since I could stotter on two feet.

     1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Wood by Silvermills”, in Catriona, London, Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons, page 131

4. (obsolete) To pay for (something); to buy.

(intransitive, obsolete)

1. To pay the penalty; to atone.  examples

2. To endure; to remain.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • So long as breath, and hable puiſſaunce / Did natiue corage vnto him ſupply, / His pace he freſhly forward did aduaunce, / And carried her beyond all ieopardy, / But nought that wanteth reſt, can long aby.

     1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, stanza 3, pages 494–495