is is included in the definition.
Similar senses are grouped with commas; changes in sense are
indicated by semicolons. For example:

sad > heavy, heavily laden; sad

The commoner obsolete forms have been silently converted: "thee"
to "you", "dost" to "does", "mought" to "might", "whenas" to
"when", and so on. Others (generally speaking, those less common
words sufficiently distinct from their modern counterparts to
merit a separate entry in the _Shorter Oxford English
Dictionary_) have been unified to the spelling preferred by that
and its parent dictionary. This should allow the reader, during
very close scrutiny of any passage, quickly to find any of
Spenser's words in the _OED_.

All the Glossary entries are context-sensitive: Spenser often
uses the same word in several different ways. Thus no single
Glossary entry should be taken as generally definitive.

Types of entry

(a) Translations

An entry not enclosed in brackets should be read as a straight
translation of the quoted text which can be directly substituted
for it.

For example, in stanza 1 of the proem to Book I, line 1:

whilom > formerly

Line 1 can thus be understood to mean:

Lo I, the man whose Muse formerly did mask

Very often, additional meanings are given in such definitions:

weeds > clothes, garb

These additional meanings may complement one another, indicating
the hybrid sense which seems to be required, or they may
constitute a set of alternative meanings, any or all of which may
have been intended by Spenser. Each entry in any unbracketed
list may always be substituted for the original without
disturbing the syntax.

Similar senses are grouped with commas; changes in sense are
indicated with semicolons. For example:

gentle > noble; courteous, generous

In this case, an apparently modern form has a different
contextual meaning, and so it is glossed; and when the modern
sense is also to be understood, this is included in the
definition:

dull > dull, lacklustre; blunt

Where the contrast between alternatives is particularly great,
words are separated by _or_, _also_, etc.

Sometimes the meaning is forced or metaphorical. In these cases
the straight "dictionary" meaning of the word is given first, and
_hence_, _thus_, or _so_ are used to indicate contextual
departure from this. For example:

style > literary composition; _hence_: poem, song (cf. _SC_,
"Januar