rereward

rere +‎ -ward

rereward (plural rerewards)

1. Obsolete spelling of rearward (in the archaic and historical military sense of rearguard and the obsolete sense of haunches, buttocks). [Middle English through the 19th century]
   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, Much Adoe about Nothing. […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     Do not liue Hero, do not ope thine eies: / For did I thinke thou wouldſt not quickly die / Thought I thy ſpirites were ſtronger than thy ſhames / My ſelfe would on the rereward of reproches / Strike at thy life.

   • 1611, Thomas Iames [i.e., Thomas James], “The 32. Place Corrupted, in the 17. Homily of Chrys[ostom] vpon Gen[esis] To[me] 1. Pg. 97.”, in A Treatise of the Corrvption of Scripture, Councels, and Fathers, by the Prelats, Pastors, and Pillars of the Church of Rome, for Maintenance of Popery and Irreligion. […], London: Printed by H. L. for Mathew Lownes, →OCLC; republished London: Printed by H. L. for Mathew Lownes;  […], 1612, →OCLC, part II (Corruption of the True Fathers), page 85:

     For, though it were a knowen corruption, and therefore ſhould haue beene auoyded; yet [Robert] Bellarmine in muſtering vp the Fathers authorities, for proofe of the reading, ipſa (the beſt ground of their Mariolatrie) brings in [John] Chryſoſtom in the rereward.

• redrawer, rewarder

• rerewarde, reirwarde, reerwarde, rierwarde

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman rerewarde; equivalent to rere +‎ ward.

• IPA^(key): /ˈrɛːr(ə)ward(ə)/

rereward

1. The back side of an army; the forces at the rear.
2. (rare) A strike from behind.

• English: rearward (obsolete in this sense)

• “rēre-ward(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-08-11.