C. T. Onions, A Shakespeare Glossary

1. before All'sW. IV. iv. 3 “for whose throne 'tis needful . . . to kneel” (mod. edd. “'fore”†).

2. “for all”=once for all Cym. II. iii. 111.

3. in place of Ham. V. i. 252, Lucr. 1424; LLL. I. i. 279 “the best that ever I heard.—Ay, the best for the worst” ; Cor. V. iv. 23 “made for,” made to represent.

4. in expressions denoting an amount staked or an object risked LLL. V. ii. 726 “Dead, for my life!,” Shr. I. i. 193 “for my hand,” III. i. 50 “Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love,” Ham. III. iv. 23 “Dead, for a ducat, dead!” ; hence in phrase with a negative, e.g. “for my head or heart,” to save my life, Meas. IV. iii. 164 “I dare not for my head fill my belly” Shr. I. ii. 38 “I . . . could not get him for my heart to do it.”

5. because of, on account of Gent. IV. i. 50 “[banished] from Mantua, for a gentleman, Who . . . I stabb'd,” Sonn. xxvii. 14 “For thee, and for myself no quiet find,” xcix. 6 “The lily I condemned for thy hand.”

6. in the character or quality of, as Meas. I. ii. 36 “piled, for a French velvet,” Err. II. ii. 192 “I cross me for a sinner” (=sinner that I am), V. i. 32 “I . . . defy thee for a villain,” Lr. III. iv. 56 “to course his own shadow for a traitor” ; so “What is he for a fool?”= What kind of a fool is he? Ado I. iii. 49 (cf. German ‘was für ein?’).

7. in exclamations R2 III. iii. 70 “alack, for woe!,” V. ii. 75 “God for his mercy!.”

8. in spite of; as in phr. “for all”=although Wiv. V. v. 210, Cym. V. iv. 208, Ven. 342.

9. as a precaution against, for fear of; always with a gerund, e.g. Gent. I. ii. 133 “here they shall not lie, for catching cold” (=lest they catch cold), 2H6 IV. i. 74, Troil. I. ii. 292, Per. I. i. 40, Sonn. lii. 4.