Irritable, peevish, spiteful; full of little mischievous ways, like the elves. Our superstitious fore-fathers thought such persons were actually “possessed” by elves; and elvish-marked is marked by elves or fairies.
“Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog.”
Shakespeare: Richard III., i. 3.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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