Re: Greetings all - and a question on word division

Nick Wagg wrote:

I have obviously fallen prey to an apocryphal story.

In that case, so has OED2:

[f. the prec. advb. phr. in its combined form as repr. a simple idea,
and 16th c. pronunciation. Short for the phrase ‘set or make at one’;
cf. to back, to forward, to right, etc., and the compounds
at-one-maker, at-one making, under prec. Assisted by the prior
existence of the vb. to one = make one, put at one, unite, L. unWre, F.
unir; whence onement was used already by Wyclif. From the frequent
phrases ‘set at one’ or ‘at onement,’ the combined atonement began to
take the place of onement early in 16th c., and atone to supplant one
vb. about 1550. Atone was not admitted into the Bible in 1611, though
atonement had been in since Tindale.]

Earliest citation is from 1555, and looks more like Early Modern than Middle English to me:

1555 Fardle Facions i. vi. 92 Those battayles are attoned by the
women+For when they be ones comen into the middle+the battaile sodenly
ceaseth.

Giles
.