Meaning of neck verse | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The verse formerly read to entitle a party to the benefit of clergy, said to be the first verse of the fifty-first Psalm, "Miserere mei," etc.
2. A verse or saying, the utterance of which decides one's fate; a shibboleth.
   broadly

Examples

“I haue ſeene a pardon giuen to a man vpon the gallovves, but vvho ſo emboldeneth himſelfe thereuypon, perhaps the rope may be his hire⟳: it is not good to put⟳ it vpon the Pſalme of Miſerere, and the neck-verſe, for ſometime he prooues no clarke.”

“Letter or line know⟳ I never a one, Were't my neck-verse at Hairibee”

“For having learned to read⟳, but never to write⟳, beyond, that is, the trifle of her maiden name⟳, she valued scholarship both by that she had, and that she had not; and in the year after I was breeched, prevailed on my father who, for his part, good man, never advanced beyond the Neck Verse, to bind⟳ me to the ancient Grammar School at Bishop's Stortford, then kept by a Mr. G----.”

“These words, "bread and cheese," were their neck verse or shibboleth to distinguish them; all pronouncing "broad and cause," being presently put⟳ to death.”

CEFR level