The opposition of a contrary quality, by which the quality opposed acquires strength; or the action by which a body attacked collects force by opposition; or the intension of the activity of one quality by the opposition of another. Thus quick-lime is set on fire, or sensible heat is excited in it, by mixture with water; and cold applied to the human body may increase its heat.
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A small stone of a roundish form, and of no determinate size, found on the sea shore and on the banks or in the channels of rivers, &c., worn smooth or rounded by the action of water; a pebble.
To return, as sound reverberated; to echo. To act reciprocally, as the strings of an instrument to the hand.
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A little animal; but appropriately, an animal whose figure cannot be discerned without the aid of a magnifying glass; such as are invisible to the naked eye.
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To work double tides, in the language of seamen, to perform the labor of three days in two; a phrase taken from the practice of working by the night tide as well as by the day.
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A vegetable; an organic body, destitute of sense and spontaneous motion, adhering to another body in such a manner as to draw from it its nourishment, and having the power of propagating itself by seeds; "whose seed is in itself." Gen.1. This definition may not be perfectly correct, as it respects all plants, for some marine plants grow without being attached to any fixed body.
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To fall or sink suddenly into water or mud, when walking on a hard surface, as on ice or frozen ground, not strong enough to bear the person. [This legitimate word is in common and respectable use in New England, and its signification is so appropriate that no other word will supply its place.]
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In other news... Three Noah Webster assemblages are featured in the current issue of Lamination Colony.
(Back to your regularly scheduled dictionary blogging now.)
-josh
A fish of the genus mugil. The lips are membranaceous; the inferior one carinated inwards; it has no teeth, and the body is of a whitish color. This fish frequents the shore and roots in the sand like a hog. It is an excellent fish for the table.
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Noah Webster's poem "Meteor" is featured this month on a letterpress postcard from the expert practitioners at YES Press. These folks have been making beautiful work for nearly a year now, in collaboration with independent artists and poets. Postcards are $3 at the YES Press shop.
In common usage, any small creeping animal, or reptile, either entirely without feet, or with very short ones, including a great variety of animals of different classes and orders, viz. certain small serpents, as the blind-worm or slow-worm; the larvas of insects, viz. grubs, caterpillars and maggots, as the wood-worm, canker-worm, silk-worm, (the larva of a moth which spins the filaments of which silk is made,) the grub that injures corn, grass, &c., the worms that breed in putrid flesh, the bots in the stomach of horses, and many others; certain wingless insects, as the glow-worm; the intestinal worms, or such as breed in the cavities and organs of living animals, as the tape-worm, the round-worm, the fluke, &c.; and numerous animals found in the earth, and in water, particularly in the sea, as the earth-worm or lumbricus, the hair-worm or gordius, the teredo, or worm that bores in to the bottom of ships, &c.
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Originally, the name of a street near Moorfields, in London, much inhabited by mean writers; hence applied to mean writings; as a Grubstreet poem.
The outer edge of any thing; the extreme part or surrounding line; the confine or exterior limit of a country, or of any region or tract of land; the exterior part or edge of a garment, or of the corol of plants; the rim or brim of a vessel, but not often applied to vessels; the exterior part of a garden, and hence a bank raised at the side of a garden, for the cultivation of flowers, and a row of plants; in short, the outer part or edge of things too numerous to be specified.
Texture or organization of parts. The peculiar intimate structure of a part is called its tissue. A part of a fibrous structure is called a fibrous tissue. The organs of the body are made up of simpler elements, some generally diffused through the body, and others peculiar to particular organs. These simpler structures are called the tissues of the body; as the cellular tissue; the mucous tissue, &c.
In America, unlocated lands are such new or wild lands as have not been surveyed, appropriated or designated by marks, limits or boundaries, to some individual, company or corporation.
In shipbuilding, a piece of elm, close fitted and sheathed with copper, in the throating or score of the pintle, to keep the rudder from rising.
A composition for setting fire to powder, &c. frequently used in preference to a match. It is wet or dry. The wet is composed of saltpeter, four parts, of sulphur one, and of mealed powder four; mixed and sifted, moistened with a little lintseed oil, and well rubbed. The dry is composed of saltpeter, four parts, sulphur one, mealed powder two, and antimony one. These compositions are driven into small papers for use.
Care for something more than a dictionary definition today? The independent, free press Beard of Bees has just published an online chapbook of my political poems called Common Sensed. It's basically me reading political texts to my computer, using the "Speech Recognition" function of Microsoft Word, while the computer struggles to keep up. Free for the taking at www.beardofbees.com.
-josh
Moving in the manner of waves; or resembling the motion of waves, which successively rise or swell and fall. We speak of the undulatory motion of water, of air or other fluid, and this undulatory motion of air is supposed to be the cause of sounds. This is sometimes called vibratory; but undulatory seems to be most correct.
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A harbor; a haven; any bay, cove, inlet or recess of the sea or of a lake or the mouth of a river, which ships or vessels can enter, and where they can lie safe from injury by storms. Ports may be natural or artificial, and sometimes works of art, as piers and moles, are added to the natural shores of a place to render a harbor more safe.
Port of the voice, in music, the faculty or habit of making the shakes, passages and diminutions, in which the beauty of a song consists.
The surface of land or upper part of the earth, without reference to the materials which compose it. We apply ground to soil, sand or gravel indifferently, but never apply it to the whole mass of the earth or globe, nor to any portion of it when removed. We never say a shovel full or a load of ground. We say under ground, but not under earth; and we speak of the globe as divided into land and water, not into ground and water. Yet ground, earth and land are often used synonymously. We say, the produce or fruits of the ground, of the earth, or of land. The water overflows the low ground, or the low land.
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To set the teeth together and open the lips, or to open the mouth and withdraw the lips from the teeth, so as to show them, as in laughter or scorn.
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A machine, in the human form, which, by certain springs, performs some of the natural motions of a living man. One of these machines, invented by M. Vaucanson, appeared at Paris in 1738, representing a flute player.
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An iron instrument for holding a ship or other vessel at rest in water. It is a strong shank, with a ring at one end, to which a cable may be fastened; and with two arms and flukes at the other end, forming a suitable angle with the shank to enter the ground. In seamen's language, the anchor comes home, when it is dislodged from its bed, so as to drag by the violence of the wind, sea or current.
The dew of May, which is said to whiten linen, and to afford by repeated distillations, a red and odoriferous spirit.
When a planet is in conjunction with the sun or apparently very near it, it is said to be combust or in combustion. The distance within which this epithet is applicable to a planet, is said by some writers to be 8 1/2 degrees; others say, within the distance of half the sun's disk.
Bookstone; a species of shistous stones, mostly calcarious, which present, between their lamens, the figures of leaves.
The terms mechanical and chimical, are thus distinguished; those changes which bodies undergo without altering their constitution, that is, losing their identity, such as changes of place, of figure, &c. are mechanical; those which alter the constitution of bodies, making them different substances, as when flour, yeast and water unite to form bread, are chimical. In the one case, the changes relate to masses of matter, as the motions of the heavenly bodies, or the action of the wind on a ship under sail; in the other case, the changes occur between the particles of matter, as the action of heat in melting lead, or the union of sand and lime forming mortar. Most of what are usually called the mechanic arts, are partly mechanical, and partly chimical.
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Rock oil, a liquid inflammable substance or bitumen exuding from the earth and collected on the surface of the water in wells, in various parts of the world, or oozing from cavities in rocks.
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A fiery or luminous body or appearance flying or floating in the atmosphere, or in a more elevated region. We give this name to the brilliant globes or masses of matter which are occasionally seen moving rapidly through our atmosphere, and which throw off, with loud explosions, fragments that reach the earth, and are called falling stones. We call by the same name those fire balls which are usually denominated falling stars, supposed to be owning to gelatinous matter inflated by phosphureted hydrogen gas; also, the lights which appear over moist grounds and grave yards which are ascribed to the same cause.
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In its general sense, a passing; a moving, or motion forward, in a direct or curving line; applicable to any body or substance, solid or fluid.
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A letter, so named because it is considered as being sounded only in connection with a vowel. But some consonants have no sound, even when united with a vowel, and others have a very imperfect sound. The consonants are better called articulations, as they are the names given to the several closings or junctions of the organs of speech, which precede and follow the openings of the organs, with which the vowels are uttered. These closings are perfect, and wholly intercept the voice, as in the syllables ek, ep, et; or imperfect, and admitting some slight sound, as in em, en. The consonants begin or end syllables, and their use is to determine the manner of beginning or ending the vocal sounds. These closings or configurations of the organs being various, serve to diversify the syllables, as in uttering ba, da, pa, or ab, ad, ap; and although b and p may be considered as representing no sounds at all, yet they so modify the utterance of ab, ap, or ba, pa, that the slight difference between these articulations may be perceived as far as the human voice can be distinctly heard.
A kind of fowling in the night, in which the birds are wakened by a bell, and blinded by light, so as to be easily taken.
[W. llabi, a tall lank fellow, a clumsy man, a stripling, a lubber, a looby; llab, a flag or thin strip, a stripe or stroke; llabiaw, to slap; llob, an unwieldy lump, a dull fellow. From the significations of llabi, it appears that the primary sense is tall and lank, like a stripling who gains his highth before he does his full strength, and hence is clumsy. But loob seems rather to be from llob.]
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In the animal economy, an agreement, or sympathy, by which one affected part of the system affects some distant part. This consent is supposed to exist in, or be produced by the nerves; and the affections to be communicated from one part to another by means of their ramifications and distribution through the body. Thus, the stone in the bladder, by vellicating the fibers, will produce spasms and colic in the bowels; a shameful thing seen or heard will produce blushing in the cheeks. But many facts indicate that other causes than nervous communication produce sympathy.
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In gunnery, the shot of a gun leveled horizontally. The distance between the piece, and the point where the shot first touches the ground, is called the point-blank range; the shot proceeding on a straight line, without curving.
Along a descent; from a higher to a lower place; as, to run down a hill; to fall down a precipice; to go down the stairs. Toward the mouth of a river, or toward the place where water is discharged into the ocean or a lake. We swim down a stream; we sail down the sound from New York to New London. We pass down the current of life or of time. Down the sound, in the direction of the ebb-tide towards the sea. Down the country, towards the sea, or towards the part where rivers discharge their waters into the ocean.
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An opake, spherical, solid body, like a planet, but accompanied with a train of light, performing revolutions about the sun. In popular language, comets are tailed, bearded or hairy, but these terms are taken from the appearance of the light which attends them, which, in different positions with respect to the sun, exhibits the form of a tail or train, a beard, or a border of hair. When the comet is westward of the sun and rises or sets before it, the light appears in the morning like a train beginning at the body of the comet and extending westward and diverging in proportion to its extent. Thus the comet of 1769, [which I saw,] when it rose in the morning, presented a luminous train that extended nearly from the horizon to the meridian. When the comet and the sun are opposite, the earth being between them, the comet is, to the view, immersed in its train and the light appears around its body like a fringe or border of hair. From the train of a comet, this body has obtained the popular name of a blazing star.
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Open; vacant; exposed to a free current of air; as a bleak hill or shore. This is the true sense of the word; hence cold and cheerless. A bleak wind is not so named merely from its coldness, but from its blowing without interruption, on a wide waste; at least this is the sense in America.
A bent of mind towards a particular object, holding a middle place between disposition, which is natural, and passion, which is excited by the presence of its exciting object. Affection is a permanent bent of the mind, formed by the presence of an object, or by some act of another person, and existing without the presence of its object.
A musical instrument in form of a spinet. It has forty nine or fifty stops or keys, and seventy strings; some of the latter being in unison. There are several little mortises for passing the jacks, armed with brass hooks, which stop and raise the chords. The chords are covered with pieces of cloth, which deaden the sound and render it sweeter. Hence it is particularly used by nuns.
To toss in a blanket by way of punishment; an ancient custom. The Emperor Otho used to sally forth in dark nights, and if he found a drunken man, he administered the discipline of the blanket.
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The American crocodile. The largest of these animals grow to the length of seventeen or eighteen feet. They live in and about the rivers in warm climates, eat fish, and sometimes catch hogs, on the shore, or dogs which are swimming. In winter, they burrow in the earth, which they enter under water and work upwards, lying torpid till spring.
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An instrument for measuring heat; founded on the property which heat possesses of expanding all bodies, the rate or quantity of expansion being supposed proportional to the degree of heat applied, and hence indicating that degree. The thermometer indicates only the sensible heat of bodies, and gives us no information respecting the quantity of latent heat, or of combined heat, which those bodies may contain.
To appear above the surface either of sea or land, or to appear larger than the real dimensions and indistinctly; as a distant object, a ship at sea, or a mountain. The ship looms large, or the land looms high.
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To remain undestroyed; to float; not to sink or founder. It must be a good ship that lives at sea in a hurricane.
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A burden; that which is laid on or put in any thing for conveyance. Thus we lay a load on a beast or on a man's shoulders, or on a cart or wagon; and we say, a light load, heavy load. A load then is indefinite in quantity or weight. But by usage, in some cases, the word has a more definite signification, and expresses a certain quantity or weight, or as much as is usually carried, or as can be well sustained.
The line that terminates the view, when extended on the surface of the earth; or a great circle of the sphere, dividing the world into two parts or hemispheres; the upper hemisphere which is visible, and the lower which is hid. The horizon is sensible, and rational or real. The sensible, apparent, or visible horizon, is a lesser circle of the sphere, which divides the visible part of the sphere from the invisible. It is eastern or western; the eastern is that wherein the sun and stars rise; the western, that wherein they set. The rational, true, or astronomical horizon, is a great circle whose plane passes through the center of the earth, and whose poles are the zenith and nadir. This horizon would bound the sight, if the eye could take in the whole hemisphere.
The act of stripping off husks. In New England, the practice of farmers is to invite their neighbors to assist them in stripping their maiz, in autumnal evenings, and this is called a husking.
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Body; substance extended; that which is visible or tangible, as earth, wood, stone, air, vapor, water.
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The sensible internal motion of the constituent particles of animal and vegetable substances, occasioned by a certain degree of heat and moisture, and accompanied by an extrication of gas and heat. Fermentation is followed by a change of properties in the substances fermented, arising from new combinations of their principles.
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We think it strange that stones should fall from the aerial regions.
In this use, should implies that stones do fall.
[L. ad and osculatio, a kissing, from osculum, a kiss, or mouth.]
The impregnation of plants by the falling of the farina on the pistils.
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The unfolding or opening of a curve, and making it describe an evolvent. The equable evolution of the periphery of a circle, or other curve, is such a gradual approach of the circumference to rectitude, as that its parts do all concur, and equally evolve or unbend; so that the same line becomes successively a less arc of a reciprocally greater circle, till at last they change into a straight line.
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The coast or land adjacent to the ocean or sea, or to a large lake or river. The word is applied primarily to the land contiguous to water; but it extends also to the ground near the border of the sea or of a lake, which is covered with water. We also use the word to express the land near the border of the sea or of a great lake, to an indefinite extent; as when we say, a town stands on the shore. We do not apply the word the land contiguous to a small stream. That we call a bank.
On a horse, a sort of natural frizzling of the hair, which, in some places, rises above the lying hair, and there makes a figure resembling the tip of an ear of wheat.
The lungs; the organs of breathing in animals. These organs in man we call lungs; in other animals, lights.
Such parts of animal or vegetable bodies, as are usual and natural, as the hair, wool, horns; or accidental, as fungus, mistletoe, and excrescences.
The definition of riot must depend on the laws. In Connecticut, the assembling of three persons or more, to do an unlawful act by violence against the person or property of another, and not dispersing upon proclamation, is declared to be a riot. In Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the number necessary to constitute a riot is twelve.
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In a general sense, that state of animals and plants, or of an organized being, in which its natural functions and motions are performed, or in which its organs are capable of performing their functions. A tree is not destitute of life in winter, when the functions of its organs are suspended; nor man during a swoon or syncope; nor strictly birds, quadrupeds or serpents during their torpitude in winter. They are not strictly dead, till the functions of their organs are incapable of being renewed.
That which is exhaled; that which is emitted, or which rises in the form of vapor; fume or steam. Exhalations are visible or invisible. The earth is often dried by evaporation, without visible exhalations. The smell of fragrant plants is caused by invisible exhalations.
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Apologies for the absence of several months. We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.
Webster's Daily appears to be on some kind of vacation. I've been busy with other projects -- particularly the DVD release of my documentary & eight screenings coming up in the next month -- and haven't had time to tap the untapped pages of the dictionary.
I do have a lovely new balcony for reading Webster's by the sea & I hope to be back to regular postings sometime soon.
To move quickly; to quiver; to be tremulous, like fame or water; as the bickering flame; the bickering stream.
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That part of a clock or watch, which regulates its movements, and prevents their acceleration.
A composition in which the subject must be a word of two syllables, each forming a distinct word; and these syllables are to be concealed in an enigmatical description, first separately and then together.
Example. My first, when a Frenchman in learning English, serves him to swear by. My second is either hay or corn. My whole is the delight of the age. Gar-rick.
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An advantage which a planet has on account of its being in some particular place of the zodiac, or in a particular station in respect to other planets.
A great wave or surge of the sea, occasioned usually by violent wind. It can hardly be applied to the waves of a river, unless in poetry, or when the river is very large.
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