A writer in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, at the close of the article SIZAR, says of this class:  “But though their education is thus obtained at a less expense, they are not now considered as a menial order; for sizars, pensioner-scholars, and even sometimes fellow-commoners, mix together with the utmost cordiality.”

“Sizars,” says Bristed, “answer to the beneficiaries of American colleges.  They receive pecuniary assistance from the college, and dine gratis after the fellows on the remains of their table.  These ‘remains’ are very liberally construed, the sizar always having fresh vegetables, and frequently fresh tarts and puddings.”—­Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 14.

SIZE.  Food and drink from the buttery, aside from the regular dinner at commons.

“A size” says Minsheu, “is a portion of bread or drinke, it is a farthing which schollers in Cambridge have at the buttery; it is noted with the letter S. as in Oxford with the letter Q. for halfe a farthing; and whereas they say in Oxford, to battle in the Buttery Booke, i.e. to set downe on their names what they take in bread, drinke, butter, cheese, &c.; so, in Cambridge, they say, to size, i.e. to set downe their quantum, i.e. how much they take on their name in the Buttery Booke.”

In the Poems of the Rev. Dr. Dodd, a size of bread is described as “half a half-penny ‘roll.’” Grose, also, in the Provincial Glossary, says “it signifies the half part of a halfpenny loaf, and comes from scindo, I cut.”

In the Encyclopaedia Britannica is the following explanation of this term.  “A size of anything is the smallest quantity of that thing which can be thus bought” [i.e. by students in addition to their commons in the hall]; “two sizes, or a part of beef, being nearly equal to what a young person will eat of that dish to his dinner, and a size of ale or beer being equal to half an English pint.”  It would seem, then, that formerly a size was a small plateful of any eatable; the word now means anything had by students at dinner over and above the usual commons.

Of its derivation Webster remarks, “Either contracted from assize, or from the Latin scissus.  I take it to be from the former, and from the sense of setting, as we apply the word to the assize of bread.”

This word was introduced into the older American colleges from Cambridge, England, and was used for many years, as was also the word sizing, with the same meaning.  In 1750, the Corporation of Harvard College voted, “that the quantity of commons be as hath been usual, viz. two sizes of bread in the morning; one pound of meat at dinner, with sufficient sauce [vegetables], and a half-pint of beer; and at night that a part pie be of the same quantity as usual, and also half a pint of beer; and that the supper messes be but of four parts, though the dinner messes be of six.”—­Quincy’s Hist.  Harv.  Coll., Vol.  II. p. 97.