Definition of "rereward"

rereward

noun
plural rerewards
1. Obsolete spelling of rearward (in the archaic and historical military sense of rearguard and the obsolete sense of haunches, buttocks).
  Quotations
  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.
  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, [Act IV, scene i]
  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.
  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; republished London: Printed by H. L. for Mathew Lownes; […], 1612, part II (Corruption of the True Fathers), page 85