C. T. Onions, A Shakespeare Glossary

---

bear back, to move or go back Cæs. III. ii. 173 “Stand back! room! bear back!,” Lucr. 1417; bear down, to overwhelm, overthrow Mer.V. IV. i. 214 “That malice bears down truth,” 2H4 I. i. 11, Tit. II. i. 30, Cym. II. i. 61; bear hard (1) to bear ill will to Cæs. I. ii. 318 “Cæsar doth bear me hard,” II. i. 215; (2) to take heavily or sadly 1H4 I. iii. 270 “who bears hard His brother's death,” R3 II. i. 57 (“hardly”); bear it, to carry the day 2H4 IV. i. 135 “He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry,” Troil. II. iii. 231, Oth. I. iii. 23; bear off, to keep off Tp. II. ii. 18 “neither bush nor shrub to bear off any weather” ; bear out, (1) to support, back up John IV. i. 6 “I hope your warrant will bear out the deed,” 2H4 V. i. 53; (2) with “it,” to have the upper hand, carry the day Tw.N. I. v. 22, Oth. II. i. 19, Sonn. cxvi. 12 “Love . . . bears it out even to the edge of doom” ; bear up, to put the helm up so as to bring the vessel into the direction of the wind, fig. Tp. III. ii. 3.