1. A woman that spins.
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
Do use to chant it. SHAKESPEARE’S TWELFTH NIGHT.
2. [In law.] The general term for a girl or maiden woman.
One Michael Cassio,
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows
More than a spinster. SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO.
I desire that a yearly annuity of twenty pounds shall be paid to Rebecca Dingley of the city of Dublin, spinster, during her life. SWIFT.
SPI’NSTRY. n.s. [from spinster.] The work of spinning.
SPI’RE. n.s. [spira, Latin; spira, Italian; spira, Swedish.]
1. A curve line; any thing wreathed or contorted; a curl; a twist; a wreath.
His head
Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes;
With burnish’d neck of verdant gold, erect
Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass
Floated redundant. MILTON.
A dragon’s fiery form belied the god,
Sublime on radiant spires he rode. DRYDEN.
Air seems to consist of spires contorted into small spheres, through the interstices of which the particles of light may freely pass;
it is light, the solid substance of the spires being very small in proportion to the spaces they take up. CHEYNE.
2. Any thing growing up taper; a round pyramid, so called perhaps because a line drawn round and round in less and less circles, would be a spire; a steeple.
With glist’ring spires and pinnacles adorn’d. MILTON.
He cannot make one spire of grass more or less than he hath made. HALE’S ORIGIN OF MANKIND.
These pointed spires that wound the ambient sky,
Inglorious change! shall in destruction lie. PRIOR.
3. The top or uppermost point.
’Twere no less than a traducement to silence, that
Which to the spire and top of praises vouch’d,
Wou’d seem but modest. SHAKESPEARE.
SPI’SSITUDE. n.s. [from spissus, Latin.] Grossness; thickness.
Drawing wine or beer from the lees, called racking, it will clarify the sooner; for though the lees keep the drink in heart, and make it lasting, yet they cast up some spissitude. BACON.
Spissitude is subdued by acrid things, and acrimony by inspissating. ARBUTHNOT ON ALIMENTS.
To SPI’TCHCOCK. v.a. To cut an eel in pieces and roast him. Of this word I find no good etymology.
No man lards salt pork with orange peel,
Or garnishes his lamb with spitchcockt eel. KING.
SPLE’NDENT. adj. [splendens, Latin.] Shining; glossy; having lustre.
They assigned them names from some remarkable qualities, that is very observable in their red and splendent planets. BROWN.
Metallick substances may, by reason of their great density, reflect all the light incident upon them, and so be as opake and splendent as it’s possible for any body to be. NEWTON.
SPONK. n.s. A word in Edinburgh which denotes a match, or any thing dipt in sulphur that takes fire: as, any sponks will ye buy? Touchwood.
SPO’NSION. n.s. [sponsio, Latin.] The act of becoming surety for another.
SPO’NSOR. n.s. [Latin.] A surety; one who makes a promise or gives security for another.
In the baptism of a male there ought to be two males and one woman, and in the baptism of a female child two women and one man; and these are called sponsors or sureties for their education in the true Christian faith. AYLIFFE’S PARERGON.
The sponsor ought to be of the same station with the person to whom he becomes surety. BROOME.
SPO’ONMEAT. n.s. [spoon and meat.] Liquid food; nourishment taken with a spoon.
We prescribed a slender diet, allowing only spoonmeats. WISEMAN.
Wretched
Are mortals born to sleep their lives away!
Go back to what thy infancy began,
Eat pap and spoonmeat; for thy gugaws cry,
Be sullen, and refuse the lullaby. DRYDEN’S PERSIUS.
Diet most upon spoonmeats, as veal, or cock-broths. HARVEY.
SPO’RTULE. n.s. [sportule, French; sportula, Latin.] An alms; a dole.
The bishops, who consecrated the ground, had a spill or sportule from the credulous laity. AYLIFFE’S PARERGON.
SPRUCE. adj. [Skinner derives this word from preux, French; but he proposes it with hesitation: Junius thinks it comes from sprout; Casaubon trifles yet more contemptibly. I know not whence to deduce it, except from pruce. In ancient books we find furniture of pruce a thing costly and elegant, and thence probably came spruce.] Nice; trim; neat without elegance.
The tree
That wraps that crystal in a wooden tomb,
Shall be took up spruce, fill’d with diamond. DONNE.
Thou wilt not leave me in the middle street,
Tho’ some more spruce companion thou do’st meet. DONNE.
Along the crisped shades and bow’rs
Revels the spruce and jocund Spring;
The graces, and the rosy-bosom’d hours,
Thither all their bounties bring. MILTON.
I must not slip into too spruce a style for serious matters; and yet I approve not that dull insipid way of writing practised by many chymists. BOYLE.
He put his band and beard in order,
The sprucer to accost and board her. HUDIBRAS.
He is so spruce, that he can never be genteel. TATLER.
This Tim makes a strange figure with that ragged coat under his livery: can’t he go spruce and clean? ARBUTHNOT.
To SPRUCE. v.n. [from the noun.] To dress with affected neatness.
SPRU’CEBEER. n.s. [from spruce, a kind of fir.] Beer tinctured with branches of fir.
In ulcers of the kidneys sprucebeer is a good balsamick. ARBUTHNOT.
SPRUNT. n.s. Any thing that is short and will not easily bend.
SPUD. n.s. A short knife.
My love to Sheelah is more firmly fixt,
Than strongest weeds that grow these stones betwixt:
My spud these nettles from the stones can part,
No knife so keen to weed thee from my heart. SWIFT.
SPU’NGINGHOUSE. n.s. [spunge and house.] A house to which debtors are taken before commitment to prison, where the bailiffs sponge upon them, or riot at their cost.
A bailiff kept you the whole evening in a spunginghouse. SWIFT.
SPUNK. n.s. Rotten wood; touch-wood. See SPONK.
To make white powder, the best way is by the powder of rotten willows: spunk, or touchwood prepared, might perhaps make it russet. BROWN’S VULGAR ERROURS.
SPU’RWAY. n.s. [spur and way.] A horseway; a bridle-road; distinct from a road for carriages.
To SPU’TTER. v.n. [sputo, Latin.]
1. To emit moisture in small flying drops.
If a manly drop or two fall down,
It scalds along my cheeks, like the green wood,
That, sputt’ring in the flame, works outward into tears. DRYDEN.
2. To fly out in small particles with some noise.
The nightly virgin, while her wheel she plies,
Foresees the storms impending in the skies,
When sparkling lamps their sputt’ring light advance,
And in the sockets oily bubbles dance. DRYDEN.
3. To speak hastily and obscurely, as with the mouth full; to throw out the spittle by hasty speech.
A pinking owl sat sputtering at the sun, and asked him what he meant to stand staring her in the eyes. L’ESTRANGE.
They could neither of them speak their rage; and so fell a sputtering at one another, like two roasting apples. CONGREVE.
Though he sputter through a session,
It never makes the least impression;
Whate’er he speaks for madness goes. SWIFT.
To SPU’TTER. v.a. To throw out with noise and hesitation.
Thou do’st with lies the throne invade,
Obtending heav’n for whate’er ills befall;
And sputt’ring under specious names thy gall. DRYDEN.
In the midst of caresses, and without the least pretended incitement, to sputter out the basest accusations! SWIFT.
SPU’TTERER. n.s. [from sputter.] One that sputters.
SPY’BOAT. n.s. [spy and boat.] A boat sent out for intelligence.
Giving the colour of the sea to their spyboats to keep them from being discovered, came from the Veneti. ARBUTHNOT.
SQUAB. adj. [I know not whence derived.]
1. Unfeathered; newly hatched.
Why must old pidgeons, and they stale, be drest,
When there’s so many squab ones in the nest. KING.
2. Fat; thick and stout; awkwardly bulky.
The nappy ale goes round,
Nor the squab daughter nor the wife were nice,
Each health the youths began, Sim pledg’d it twice. BETTERTON.
SQUAB. n.s. A kind of sofa or couch; a stuffed cushion.
On her large squab you find her spread,
Like a fat corpse upon a bed. SWIFT.
SQUAB. adv. With a heavy sudden fall; plump and flat. A low word.
The eagle took the tortoise up into the air, and dropt him down, squab, upon a rock, that dashed him to pieces. L’ESTRANGE.
SQUA’BPIE. n.s. [squab and pie.] A pie made of many ingredients.
Cornwal squabpie, and Devon whitepot brings,
And Leister beans and bacon, food of kings. KING.
To SQUAB. v.n. To fall down plump or flat; to squelsh or squash.
SQUA’BBISH. adj. [from squab.] Thick; heavy; fleshy.
Diet renders them of a squabbish or lardy habit of body. HARVEY.
SQUA’DRON. n.s. [escadron, Fr. squadrone, Italian, from quadratus, Latin.]
1. A body of men drawn up square.
Those half rounding guards
Just met, and closing stood in squadron join’d. MILTON.
2. A part of an army; a troop.
Nothing the Moors were more afraid of, than in a set battle to fight with squadrons coming orderly on. KNOLLES.
Then beauteous Atys, with Iulus bred,
Of equal age, the second squadron led. DRYDEN.
3. Part of a fleet, a certain number of ships.
Rome could not maintain its dominion over so many provinces, without squadrons ready equipt. ARBUTHNOT.
To SQUALL. v.n. [squala, Swedish.] To scream out as a child or woman frighted.
In my neighbourhood, a very pretty prattling shoulder of veal squalls out at the sight of a knife. SPECTATOR.
I put five into my coat pocket, and as to the sixth I made a countenance as if I would eat him alive. The poor man squalled terribly. SWIFT.
Cornelius sunk back on a chair; the guests stood astonished; the infant squawl’d. ARBUTHNOT AND POPE.
SQUALL. n.s. [from the verb.]
1. Loud scream.
There oft are heard the notes of infant woe,
The short thick sob, loud scream, and shriller squall. SWIFT.
2. Sudden gust of wind. A sailor’s word.
SQUA’LLER. n.s. [from squall.] Screamer; one that screams.
To SQUEAK. v.n. [sqwaka, Swedish.]
1. To set up a sudden dolorous cry; to cry out with pain.
2. To cry with a shrill acute tone.
The sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets. SHAKESPEARE.
Cart wheels squeak not when they are liquored. BACON.
I see the new Arion sail,
The lute still trembling underneath thy nail:
At thy well sharpen’d thumb from shore to shore,
The trebles squeak for fear, the bases roar. DRYDEN.
Blunderbusses planted in every loop-hole, go off constantly at the squeaking of a fiddle and the thrumming of a guitar. DRYDEN’S SPANISH FRIAR.
Who can endure to hear one of the rough old Romans squeaking through the mouth of an eunuch? ADDISON.
How like brutes organs are to ours;
They grant, if higher pow’rs think fit,
A bear might soon be made a wit;
And that for any thing in nature,
Pigs might squeak love-odes, dogs bark satyr. PRIOR.
In florid impotence he speaks,
And as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks. POPE.
Zoilus calls the companions of Ulysses the squeaking pigs of Homer. POPE’S ODYSSEY.
3. To break silence or secrecy for fear or pain.
If he be obstinate, put a civil question to him upon the rack, and he squeaks, I warrant him. DRYDEN’S DON SEBASTIAN.
SQUEAK. n.s. [from the verb.] A shrill quick cry; a cry of pain.
Ran cow and calf, and family of hogs,
In panick horrour of pursuing dogs:
With many a deadly grunt and doleful squeak,
Poor swine! as if their pretty hearts wou’d break. DRYDEN.
To SQUEAL. v.n. [sqwala, Swedish.] To cry with a shrill sharp voice; to cry with pain. Squeak seems a short sudden cry, and squeal a cry continued.
SQUIB. n.s. [schiehen, German, to push forward. This etymology, though the best that I have found, is not very probable.]
1. A small pipe of paper filled with wild-fire. Used in sport.
The armada at Calais, sir Walter Raleigh was wont pretily to say, were suddenly driven away with squibs; for it was no more than a stratagem of fire-boats manless, and sent upon them. BACON’S WAR WITH SPAIN.
The forest of the south, compareth the French valour to a squib, or fire of flax, which burns and crackles for a time, but suddenly extinguishes. HOWEL’S VOCAL FOREST.
Lampoons, like squibs, may make a present blaze;
But time, and thunder, pay respect to bays. WALLER.
Furious he begins his march,
Drives rattling o’er a brazen arch;
With squibs and crackers arm’d to throw
Among the trembling crowd below. SWIFT.
2. Any petty fellow.203
Asked for their pass by every squib,
That lift at will them to revile or snib. SPENSER.
The squibs, in the common phrase, are called libellers. TATLER.
STAFF. n.s. plur. staves. [stæf, Saxon; staff, Danish; staff, Dutch.]
1. A stick with which a man supports himself in walking.
It much would please him,
That of his fortunes you would make a staff
To lean upon. SHAKESPEARE’S ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
Grant me and my people the benefit of thy chastisements, that thy rod as well as thy staff may comfort us. KING CHARLES.
Is it probable that he, who had met whole armies in battle, should now throw away his staff, out of fear of a dog. BROOME.
2. A prop; a support.
Hope is a lover’s staff; walk hence with that,
And manage it against despairing thoughts. SHAKESPEARE.
The boy was the very staff of my age, my very prop. SHAKESPEARE.
3. A stick used as a weapon; a club; the handle of an edged or pointed weapon. A club properly includes the notion of weight, and the staff of length.
I cannot strike at wretched kernes, whose arms
Are hir’d to bear their staves. SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH.
He that bought the skin ran greater risque than t’other that sold it, and had the worse end of the staff. L’ESTRANGE.
With forks and staves the felon they pursue. DRYDEN.
4. Any long piece of wood.
He forthwith from the glitt’ring staff unfurl’d
Th’ imperial ensign. MILTON.
To his single eye, that in his forehead glar’d
Like a full moon, or a broad burnish’d shield,
A forky staff we dext’rously apply’d,
Which, in the spacious socket turning round,
Scoopt out the big round gelly from its orb. ADDISON.
5.204 An ensign of an office; a badge of authority.
Methought this staff, mine office-badge in court,
Was broke in twain. SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY VI.
All his officers brake their staves; but at their return new staves were delivered unto them. HAYWARD ON EDWARD VI.
6. [Stef, Islandick] A stanza; a series of verses regularly disposed, so as that, when the stanza is concluded, the same order begins again.
Cowley found out that no kind of staff is proper for an heroick poem, as being all too lyrical; yet though he wrote in couplets, where rhyme is freer from constraint, he affects half verses. DRYDEN.
STAGE. n.s. [estage, French.]
1. A floor raised to view on which any show is exhibited.
2. The theatre; the place of scenick entertainments.
And much good do’t you then,
Brave plush and velvet men:
Can feed on ort; and, safe in your stage clothes,
Dare quit, upon your oaths,
The stagers and the stage wrights too. BEN JONSON.
Those two Mytilene brethren, basely born, crept out of a small galliot unto the majesty of great kings. Herein admire the wonderful changes and chances of these worldly things, now up, now down, as if the life of man were not of much more certainty than a stage play. KNOLLES’S HISTORY OF THE TURKS.
I maintain, against the enemies of the stage, that patterns of piety, decently represented, may second the precepts. DRYDEN.
One Livius Andronicus was the first stage player in Rome. DRYDEN’S JUVENAL, DEDICATION.
Knights, squires, and steeds must enter on the stage. POPE.
Among slaves, who exercised polite arts, none sold so dear as stage players or actors. ARBUTHNOT ON COINS.
3. Any place where any thing is publickly transacted or performed.
When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools. SHAKESPEARE’S KING LEAR.
4. A place in which rest is taken on a journey; as much of a journey as is performed without intermission. [Statio, Latin.]
I shall put you in mind where it was you promised to set out, or begin your first stage; and beseech you to go before me my guide. HAMMOND’S PRACTICAL CATECHISM.
Our next stage brought us to the mouth of the Tiber. ADDISON.
From thence compell’d by craft and age,
She makes the head her latest stage. PRIOR.
By opening a passage from Muscovy to China, and marking the several stages, it was a journey of so many days. BAKER.
5. A single step of gradual process.
The changes and vicissitude in wars are many; but chiefly in the seats or stages of the war, the weapons, and the manner of the conduct. BACON’S ESSAYS.
We must not expect that our journey through the several stages of this life should be all smooth and even. ATTERBURY.
To prepare the soul to be a fit inhabitant of that holy place to which we aspire, is to be brought to perfection by gradual advances through several hard and laborious stages of discipline. ROGERS’S SERMONS.
The first stage of healing, or the discharge of matter, is by surgeons called digestion. SHARP’S SURGERY.
To STAGE. v.a. [from the noun.] To exhibit publickly. Out of use.
I love the people;
But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause. SHAKESPEARE’S MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
The quick comedians
Extemp’rally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels. SHAKESPEARE’S ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
STA’GECOACH. n.s. [stage and coach.] A coach that keeps its stages; a coach that passes and repasses on certain days for the accommodation of passengers.
The story was told me by a priest, as we travelled in a stagecoach. ADDISON.
When late their miry sides stagecoaches show,
And their stiff horses through the town move slow,
Then let the prudent walker shoes provide. GAY.
STA’GEPLAY. n.s. [stage and play.] Theatrical entertainment.
This rough-cast unhewn poetry was instead of stageplays for one hundred and twenty years. DRYDEN’S JUVENAL, DEDICATION.
STA’GER. n.s. [from stage.]
1. A player.
You safe in your stage clothes,
Dare quit, upon your oaths,
The stagers and the stage wrights too. BEN JONSON.
2. One who has long acted on the stage of life; a practitioner; a person of cunning.
I’ve heard old cunning stagers
Say, fools for argument use wagers. HUDIBRAS.
One experienced stager, that had baZed twenty traps and tricks before, discovered the plot. L’ESTRANGE.
Some stagers of the wiser sort
Made all these idle wonderments their sport:
But he, who heard what ev’ry fool could say,
Would never fix his thought, but trim his time away. DRYDEN.
One cries out, these stagers
Come in good time to make more work for wagers. DRYDEN.
Be by a parson cheated!
Had you been cunning stagers,
You might yourselves be treated
By captains and by majors. SWIFT.
STALE. n.s. [from stælan, Saxon, to steal.]
1. Something exhibited or offered as an allurement to draw others to any place or purpose.
His heart being wholly delighted in deceiving us, we could never be warned; but rather one bird caught, served for a stale to bring in more. SIDNEY.
Still as he went he crafty stales did lay,
With cunning trains him to entrap unwares;
And privy spials plac’d in all his way,
To weet what course he takes, and how he fares. FAIRY QUEEN.
The trumpery in my house bring hither,
For stale to catch these thieves. SHAKESPEARE’S TEMPEST.
Had he none else to make a stale but me?
I was the chief that rais’d him to the crown,
And I’ll be chief to bring him down again. SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY VI.
A pretence of kindness is the universal stale to all base projects: by this men are robbed of their fortunes, and women of their honour. GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE.
It may be a vizor for the hypocrite, and a stale for the ambitious. DECAY OF PIETY.
This easy fool must be my stale, set up
To catch the people’s eyes: he’s tame and merciful;
Him I can manage. DRYDEN’S DON SEBASTIAN.
2. In Shakespeare it seems to signify a prostitute.
I stand dishonour’d, that have gone about
To link my dear friend to a common stale. SHAKESPEARE.
3. [From stale, adj.] Urine; old urine.
4. Old beer; beer somewhat acidulated.
5. [Stele, Dutch, a stick.] A handle.
It hath a long stale or handle, with a button at the end for one’s hand. MORTIMER’S HUSBANDRY.
STA’LLION. n.s. [ysdalwyn, an old Welch word: the one is derived from the other; but which from which I cannot certainly tell. Wotton. Estallion, French; stallone, Italian; stalhengst, Dutch. Junius thinks it derived from stælan, to leap.] A horse kept for mares.
The present defects are breeding without choice of stallions in shape or size. TEMPLE.
If fleet Dragon’s progeny at last
Prove jaded, and in frequent matches cast,
No favour for the stallion we retain,
And no respect for the degen’rate strain. DRYDEN.
I will not ask him one of his Egyptians;
No, let him keep ’em all for slaves and stallions. DRYDEN.
STA’MMEL. n.s. Of this word I know not the meaning.205
Reedhood, the first that doth appear
In stammel: scarlet is too dear. BEN JONSON.
STA’NDISH. n.s. [stand and dish.] A case for pen and ink.
A grubstreet patriot does not write to secure, but get something: should the government be overturned he has nothing to lose but an old standish. ADDISON.
I bequeath to Dean Swift esq; my large silver standish, consisting of a large silver plate, an ink-pot, and a sand-box. SWIFT.
STARGA’ZER. n.s. [star and gaze.] An astronomer, or astrologer. In contempt.
Let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save thee. BIBLE ISAIAH, XLVII. 13.
A stargazer, in the height of his celestial observations, stumbled into a ditch. L’ESTRANGE.
STARK. adv. Is used to intend or augment the signification of a word: as stark mad, mad in the highest degree. It is now little used but in low language.
Then are the best but stark naught; for open suspecting others, comes of secret condemning themselves. SIDNEY.
The fruitful-headed beast, amaz’d
At flashing beams of that sun-shiny shield,
Became stark blind, and all his senses doz’d,
That down he tumbled. SPENSER.
Men and women go stark naked. ABBOT.
He is stark mad, who ever says
That he hath been in love an hour. DONNE.
Those seditious, that seemed moderate before, became desperate, and those who were desperate seemed stark mad; whence tumults, confused hollowings and howlings. HAYWARD.
Who, by the most cogent arguments, will disrobe himself at once of all his old opinions, and turn himself out stark naked in quest of new notions? LOCKE.
In came squire South, all dressed up in feathers and ribbons, stark staring mad, brandishing his sword. ARBUTHNOT.
STA’RSHOOT. n.s. [star and shoot.] An emission from a star.
I have seen a good quantity of that jelly, by the vulgar called a starshoot, as if it remained upon the extinction of a falling star. BOYLE.
STA’RTUP. n.s. [start and up.] One that comes suddenly into notice.
That young startup hath all the glory of my overthrow. SHAKESPEARE.
STA’TESMAN. n.s. [state and man.]
1. A politician; one versed in the arts of government.
It looks grave enough
To seem a statesman.
BEN JONSON’S EPIGRAMS.
The corruption of a poet is the generation of a statesman. POPE.
2. One employed in publick affairs.
If such actions may have passage free,
Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be. SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO.
It is a weakness which attends high and low; the statesman who holds the helm, as well as the peasant who holds the plough. SOUTH’S SERMONS.
A British minister must expect to see many friends fall off, whom he cannot gratify, since, to use the phrase of a late statesman, the pasture is not large enough. ADDISON.
Here Britain’s statesmen oft the fall foredoom
Of foreign tyrants, and of nymphs at home. POPE.
STA’TESWOMAN. n.s. [state and woman.] A woman who meddles with publick affairs. In contempt.
How she was in debt, and where she meant
To raise fresh sums: she’s a great stateswoman! BEN JONSON.
Several objects may innocently be ridiculed, as the passions of our stateswomen. ADDISON.
STA’TICAL, STATICK. adj. [from the noun.] Relating to the science of weighing.
A man weigheth some pounds less in the height of Winter, according to experience, and the statick aphorisms of Sanctorius. BROWN’S VULGAR ERROURS.
If one by a statical engine could regulate his insensible perspiration, he might often, by restoring of that, foresee, prevent, or shorten a fit of the gout. ARBUTHNOT ON DIET.
STA’TICKS. n.s. [στατiϰή; statique, Fr.] The science which considers the weight of bodies.
This is a catholick rule of staticks, that if any body be bulk for bulk heavier than a fluid, it will sink to the bottom; and if lighter, it will float upon it, having part extant, and part immersed, as that so much of the fluid as is equal in bulk to the immersed part be equal in gravity to the whole. BENTLEY.
STA’TIONER. n.s. [from station.]
1. A bookseller.
Some modern tragedies are beautiful on the stage, and yet Tryphon the stationer complains they are seldom asked for in his shop. DRYDEN.
With authors, stationers obey’d the call;
Glory and gain th’ industrious tribe provoke,
And gentle dulness ever loves a joke. POPE’S DUNCIAD.
2. A seller of paper.
To STAVE and Tail. v.a. To part dogs by interposing a staff, and by pulling the tail.
The conquering foe they soon assail’d,
First Trulla stav’d, and Cerdon tail’d. HUDIBRAS.
STA’YLACE. n.s. [stay and lace.] A lace with which women fasten their boddice.
A staylace from England should become a topick for censure at visits. SWIFT.
STEE’LYARD. n.s. [steel and yard.] A kind of balance, in which the weight is moved along an iron rod, and grows heavier as it is removed farther from the fulcrum.
STE’LLIONATE. n.s. [stellionat, French; stellionatus, Latin.] A kind of crime which is committed [in law] by a deceitful selling of a thing otherwise than it really is: as, if a man should sell that for his own estate which is actually another man’s.
It discerneth of crimes of stellionate, and the inchoations towards crimes capital, not actually committed. BACON.
STENCH. n.s. [from stencan, Saxon.]
1. A stink; a bad smell.
Death, death; oh amiable and lovely death!
Thou odoriferous stench, sound rottenness,
Arise forth from thy couch of lasting night. SHAKESPEARE’S KING JOHN.
So bees with smoke, and doves with noisome stench,
Are from their hives, and houses, driv’n away. SHAKESPEARE.
Physicians by the stench of feathers cure the rising of the mother. BACON’S NATURAL HISTORY.
The ministry will be found the salt of the earth, the only thing that keeps societies of men from stench and corruption. SOUTH’S SERMONS.
The hoary Nar,
Corrupted with the stench of sulphur flows,
And into Tiber’s streams th’ infected current throws. ADDISON.
2. I find it used once for a good smell.
Black bulls and bearded goats on altars lie,
And clouds of sav’ry stench involve the sky. DRYDEN.
STENTOROPHO’NICK. adj. [from Stentor, the Homerical herald, whose voice was as loud as that of fifty men, and øωνή, a voice.] Loudly speaking or sounding.
Of this stentorophonick horn of Alexander there is a figure preserved in the Vatican. DERHAM’S PHYSICO-THEOLOGY.
STEP, in composition, signifies one who is related only by marriage. [Steop, Saxon, from stepan, to deprive or make an orphan: for the Saxons not only said a step-mother, but a step-daughter, or step-son; to which it indeed, according to this etymology, more properly belongs: but as it is now seldom applied but to the mother, it seems to mean, in the mind of those who use it, a woman who has stepped into the vacant place of the true mother.]
How should their minds chuse but misdoubt, lest this discipline, which always you match with divine doctrine as her natural and true sister, be found unto all kinds of knowledge a step-mother. HOOKER.
His wanton step-dame loved him the more;
But when she saw her offered sweets refuse,
Her love she turn’d to hate. FAIRY QUEEN.
You shall not find me, daughter,
After the slander of most step-mothers,
Ill-ey’d unto you. SHAKESPEARE’S CYMBELINE.
A father cruel, and a step-dame false. SHAKESPEARE.
Cato the elder, being aged, buried his wife, and married a young woman: his son came to him, and said, Sir, what have I offended, that you have brought a step-mother into your house? The old man answered, Nay, quite the contrary, son; thou pleasest me so well, as I would be glad to have more such. BACON.
The name of step-dame, your practis’d art,
By which you have estrang’d my father’s heart,
All you have done against me, or design,
Shows your aversion, but begets not mine. DRYDEN’S AURENGZEBE.
A step-dame too I have, a cursed she,
Who rules my hen-peck’d sire, and orders me. DRYDEN.
Any body would have guessed miss to have been bred up under the influence of a cruel step-dame, and John to be the fondling of a tender mother. ARBUTHNOT HISTORY OF JOHN BULL.
STERCORA’TION. n.s. [from stercora, Latin.] The act of dunging; the act of manuring with dung.
The first help is stercoration: the sheeps dung is one of the best, and next the dung of kine, and that of horses. BACON.
Stercoration is seasonable. EVELYN’S KALENDAR.
The exteriour pulp of the fruit serves not only for the security of the seed, whilst it hangs upon the plant, but, after it is fallen upon the earth, for the stercoration of the soil, and promotion of the growth, though not the first germination of the seminal plant. RAY ON THE CREATION.
STERNUTA’TION. n.s. [sternutatio, Latin.] The act of sneezing.
Sternutation is a convulsive shaking of the nerves and muscles, first occasioned by an irritation of those in the nostrils. QUINCY.
Concerning sternutation, or sneezing, and the custom of saluting upon that motion, it is generally believed to derive its original from a disease wherein sternutation proved mortal, and such as sneezed died. BROWN’S VULGAR ERROURS.
STE’VEN. n.s. [stefen, Saxon.] A cry, or loud clamour.
Ne sooner was out, but swifter than thought,
Fast by the hide, the wolf Lowder caught;
And had not Roffy renne to the steven,
Lowder had been slain thilke same even. SPENSER.
To STI’CKLE. v.n. [from the practice of prizefighters, who placed seconds with staves or sticks to interpose occasionally.]
1. To take part with one side or other.
Fortune, as she’s wont, turn’d fickle,
And for the foe began to stickle. HUDIBRAS.
2. To contest; to altercate; to contend rather with obstinacy than vehemence.
Let them go to’t, and stickle,
Whether a conclave, or a conventicle. CLEAVELAND.
Heralds stickle, who got who,
So many hundred years ago. HUDIBRAS.
3. To trim; to play fast and loose; to act a part between opposites.
When he sees half of the Christians killed, and the rest in a fair way of being routed, he stickles betwixt the remainder of God’s host and the race of fiends. DRYDEN’S JUVENAL, DEDICATION.
STI’CKLER. n.s. [from stickle.]
1. A sidesman to fencers; a second to a duellist; one who stands to judge a combat.
Basilius came to part them, the stickler’s authority being unable to persuade cholerick hearers; and part them he did. SIDNEY.
Basilius, the judge, appointed sticklers and trumpets, whom the others should obey. SIDNEY.
Our former chiefs, like sticklers of the war,
First fought t’ inflame the parties, then to poise:
The quarrel lov’d, but did the cause abhor;
And did not strike to hurt, but made a noise. DRYDEN.
2. An obstinate contender about any thing.
Quercetanus, though the grand stickler for the tria prima, has this concession of the irresolubleness of diamonds. BOYLE.
The inferior tribe of common women have,
in most reigns, been the professed sticklers for such as have acted against the true interest of the nation. ADDISON’S FREEHOLDER.
The tory or high church clergy were the greatest sticklers against the exorbitant proceedings of king James II. SWIFT.
All place themselves in the list of the national church, though they are great stick-lers for liberty of conscience. SWIFT.
STI’LLSTAND. n.s. [still and stand.] Absence of motion.
The tide swell’d up unto his height,
Then makes a stillstand, running neither way. SHAKESPEARE.
STI’NGO. n.s. [from the sharpness of the taste.] Old beer. A cant word.
STI’NGY. adj. [A low cant word. In this word, with its derivatives, the g is pronounced as in gem.] Covetous; niggardly; avaricious.
A stingy narrow hearted fellow that had a deal of choice fruit, had not the heart to touch it till it began to be rotten. L’ESTRANGE.
He relates it only by parcels, and wont give us the whole, which forces me to bespeak his friends to engage him to lay aside that stingy humour, and gratify the publick at once. ARBUTHNOT’S HISTORY OF JOHN BULL.
STI’NKARD. n.s. [from stink.] A mean stinking paltry fellow.
STI’NKER. n.s. [from stink.] Something intended to offend by the smell.
The air may be purified by burning of stink-pots or stinkers in contagious lanes. HARVEY.
STI’NKPOT. n.s. [stink and pot.] An artificial composition offensive to the smell.
The air may be purified by fires of pitch-barrels, especially in close places, by burning of stinkpots. HARVEY.
STI’RIOUS. adj. [from stiria, Latin.] Resembling icicles.
Chrystal is found sometimes in rocks, and in some places not much unlike the stirious or stillicidious dependencies of ice. BROWN’S VULGAR ERROURS.
To STIVE. v.a. [Supposed of the same original with stew.]
1. To stuff up close.
You would admire, if you saw them stive it in their ships. SANDYS’S JOURNEY.
2. To make hot or sultry.
His chamber was commonly stived with friends or suitors of one kind or other. WOTTON.
STO’CAH. n.s. [Irish; stochk, Erse.] An attendant; a walletboy; one who runs at a horseman’s foot; a horseboy.206
He holdeth himself a gentleman, and scorneth to work, which he saith is the life of a peasant; but thenceforth becometh an horseboy, or a stocah to some kern, inuring himself to his sword, and the gentlemanly trade of stealing. SPENSER.
STO’CKJOBBER. n.s. [stock and job.] A low wretch who gets money by buying and selling shares in the funds.
The stockjobber thus from ’Change-alley goes down,
And tips you the freeman a wink;
Let me have but your vote to serve for the town,
And here is a guinea to drink. SWIFT.
STO’OLBALL. n.s. [stool and ball.] A play where balls are driven from stool to stool.
While Betty dances on the green,
And Susan is at stoolball seen. PRIOR.
STO’RYTELLER. n.s. [story and tell.] One who relates tales; An historian. In contempt.
In such a satire all would seek a share,
And every fool will fancy he is there;
Old storytellers too must pine and die,
To see their antiquated wit laid by;
Like her, who miss’d her name in a lampoon,
And griev’d to find herself decay’d so soon. DRYDEN.
Company will be no longer pestered with dull, dry, tedious storytellers.
SWIFT’S POLITE CONVERSATION.
STOUND. n.s. [from the verb.]
1. Sorrow; grief; mishap. Out of use. The Scots retain it.
Begin and end the bitter baleful stound,
If less than that I fear. FAIRY QUEEN.
The fox his copesmate found,
To whom complaining his unhappy stound,
He with him far’d some better chance to find. HUBBERD.
2. Astonishment; amazement.
Thus we stood as in a stound,
And wet with tears, like dew, the ground.
GAY.
3. Hour; time; season. Spenser.
To STRA’GGLE. v.a. [Of this word no etymology is known; it is probably a frequentative of stray, from stravviare, Italian, of extraviam, Latin.]
1. To wander without any certain direction; to rove; to ramble.
But stay, like one that thinks to bring his friend
A mile or two, and sees the journey’s end:
I straggle on too far. SUCKLING.
Having passed the Syrens, they came between Scylla and Charybdis, and the straggling rocks, which seemed to cast out great store of flames and smoke.
RALEIGH.
A wolf spied out a straggling kid, and pursued him. L’ESTRANGE.
Children, even when they endeavour their utmost, cannot keep their minds from straggling. LOCKE.
2. To wander dispersedly.
He likewise enriched poor straggling soldiers with great quantity. SHAKESPEARE’S TIMON OF ATHENS.
They found in Burford some of the straggling soldiers, who out of weariness stayed behind. CLARENDON.
From straggling mountaineers for publick good,
To rank in tribes, and quit the savage wood;
Houses to build, and them contiguous make,
For cheerful neighbourhood and safety’s sake. TATE.
3. To exuberate; to shoot too far.
Were they content to prune the lavish vine,
Of straggling branches, and improve the wine.
Trim off the small superfluous branches on each side of the hedge that straggle too far out. MORTIMER’S HUSBANDRY.
4. To be dispersed; to be apart from any main body; to stand single.
Wide was his parish, not contracted close
In streets, but here and there a straggling house;
Yet still he was at hand. DRYDEN.
STRA’PPING. adj. Vast; large; bulky. Used of large men or women in contempt.
To STRA’TIFY. v.a. [stratifier, Fr. from stratum, Lat.] To range in beds or layers. A chymical term.
STRA’TUM. n.s. [Latin.] A bed; a layer. A term of philosophy.
Another was found in a perpendicular fissure of a stratum of stone in Langron iron-mine, Cumberland. WOODWARD.
Drill’d through the sandy stratum, every way
The waters with the sandy stratum rise.
THOMSON.
STRE’PEROUS. adj. [strepo, Latin.] Loud; noisy.
Porta conceives, because in a streperous eruption it riseth against fire, it doth therefore resist lightning. BROWN.
To STREW. v.a. [The orthography of this word is doubtful: it is generally written strew, and I have followed custom; but Skinner likewise proposes strow, and Junius writes straw. Their reasons will appear in the word from which it may be derived. Strawan, Gothick; stroyen, Dutch; streawian, Sax. strawen, German; strôer, Danish. Perhaps strow is best, being that which reconciles etymology with pronunciation.207]
1. To spread by being scattered.
The snow which does the top of Pindus strew,
Did never whiter shew. SPENSER.
Is thine alone the seed that strews the pain?
The birds of heav’n shall vindicate their grain. POPE.
2. To spread by scattering.
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid,
And not have strew’d thy grave.
SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET.
Here be tears of perfect moan,
Wept for thee in Helicon;
And some flowers and some bays,
For thy herse, to strew the ways. MILTON.
3. To scatter loosely.
The calf he burnt in the fire, ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made Israel drink of it. BIBLE EXODUS.
With furies and nocturnal orgies fir’d,
Whom ev’n the savage beasts had spar’d, they kill’d,
And strew’d his mangled limbs about the field. DRYDEN.
STRE’WMENT. n.s. [from strew.] Any thing scattered in decoration.
Her death was doubtful. — For charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her;
Yet here she is allow’d her virgin chants,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial. SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET.
STRI’GMENT. n.s. [strigmentum, from stringo, Lat. to scrape.] Scraping; recrement.
Many, besides the strigments and sudorous adhesions from mens hands, acknowledge that nothing proceedeth from gold in its usual decoction.
BROWN’S VULGAR ERROURS.
STRIPE. n.s. [strepe, Dutch.]
1. A lineary variation of colour. This seems to be the original notion of the word.
Gardeners may have three roots among an hundred that are rare, as purple and carnation of several stripes.
BACON.
2. A shred of a different colour.
One of the most valuable trimmings of their cloaths was a long stripe sowed upon the garment, called latus clavus.
ARBUTHNOT.
3. A weal; or discolouration made by a lash or blow.
Cruelty marked him with inglorious stripes.
THOMSON.
4. A blow; a lash.
A body cannot be so torn with stripes, as a mind with remembrance of wicked actions.
HAYWARD.
To those that are yet within the reach of the stripes and reproofs of their own conscience; I would address that they would not seek to remove themselves from that wholsome discipline.
DECAY OF PIETY.
To STROLL. v.n. To wander; to ramble; to rove; to be a vagrant.
She’s mine, and thine, and strolling up and down.
GRANVILLE.
Your wine lock’d up, your butler stroll’d abroad.
POPE.
These mothers strole, to beg sustenance for their helpless infants.
SWIFT.
STRO’LLER. n.s. [from stroll.] A vagrant; a wanderer; a vagabond.
Two brother-hermits, saints by trade,
Disguis’d in tatter’d habits, went
To a small village down in Kent;
Where, in the strollers canting strain,
They begg’d from door to door in vain.
SWIFT.
The men of pleasure, who never go to church, form their ideas of the clergy from a few poor strollers they often observe in the streets.
SWIFT.
STRO’NGWATER. n.s. [strong and water.] Distilled spirits.
Metals receive in readily strongwaters; and strongwaters do readily pierce into metals and stones: and some will touch upon gold, that will not touch upon silver.
BACON’S NATURAL HISTORY.
To STROUT. v.n. [strussen, German.] To swell with an appearance of greatness; to walk with affected dignity; to strut. This is commonly written strut, which seems more proper.
To STROUT. v.a. To swell out; to puff out; to enlarge by affectation.
I will make a brief list of the particulars in an historical truth nowise strouted, nor made greater by language.
BACON.
To STROW. v.n. [See to STREW.]
1. To spread by being scattered.
Angel forms lay entranc’d,
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Valombrosa.
MILTON’S PARADISE LOST.
2. To spread by scattering; to besprinkle.
All the ground
With shiver’d armour strown.
MILTON’S PARADISE LOST.
Come, shepherds come, and strow with leaves the plain;
Such funeral rites your Daphnis did ordain. DRYDEN.
With osier floats the standing water strow,
With massy stones make bridges if it flow. DRYDEN.
3. To spread.
There have been three years dearth of corn, and every place strow’d with beggars. SWIFT.
4. To scatter; to throw at random.
Synah, can I tell thee more?
And of our ladies bowre;
But little need to strow my store,
Suffice this hill of our. SPENSER.
The tree in storms
The glad earth about her strows,
With treasure from her yielding boughs.
WALLER.
Possession kept the beaten road,
And gather’d all his brother strow’d.
SWIFT.
To STROWL. v.n. To range; to wander. [See STROLL.]
’Tis she who nightly strowls with saunt’ring pace. GAY.
STRU’CTURE. [structure, Fr. structura, from structus, Latin.]
1. Act of building; practice of building.
His son builds on, and never is content, Till the last farthing is in structure spent. DRYDEN.
2. Manner of building; form; make.
Several have gone about to inform them, but for want of insight into the structure and constitution of the terraqueous globe, have not given satisfaction.
WOODWARD.
3. Edifice; building.
Ecbatana her structure vast there shews,
And Hecatompylos her hundred gates.
MILTON.
High on a rock of ice the structure lay.
POPE.
There stands a structure of majestick frame.
POPE.
To STRUT. v.n. [strussen, German.]
1. To walk with affected dignity; to swell with stateliness.
Adore our errours, laugh at’s while we strut To our confusion. SHAKESPEARE’S ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
Does he not hold up his head and strut in his gait? SHAKESPEARE.
Though thou strut and paint,
Yet art thou both shrunk up and old.
BEN JONSON.
The false syren
Struts on th’ waves, and shews the brute below. DRYDEN.
We will be with you ere the crowing cock
Salutes the light, and struts before his feather’d flock. DRYDEN.
2. To swell; to protuberate.
The goats with strutting dugs shall homeward speed. DRYDEN.
The pow’r appeas’d, with winds suffic’d the sail,
The bellying canvas strutted with the gale.
DRYDEN.
As thy strutting bags with money rise,
The love of gain is of an equal size.
DRYDEN.
STRUT. n.s. [from the verb.] An affectation of stateliness in the walk.
Certain gentlemen of the gown, by smirking countenances and an ungainly strut in their walk, have got preferment.
SWIFT.
STUD. n.s. [studu, Saxon.]
1. A post; a stake. In some such meaning perhaps it is to be taken in the following passage, which I do not understand.
A barn in the country, that hath one single stud, or one height of studs to the roof, is two shillings a foot.
MORTIMER.
2. A nail with a large head driven for ornament; any ornamental knob or protuberance.
Handles were to add,
For which he now was making studs.
CHAPMAN’S ILIAD.
A belt of straw, and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs.
RALEIGH.
Crystal and myrrhine cups emboss’d with gems,
And studs of pearl.
MILTON’S PARADISE REGAIN’D.
Upon a plane are several small oblong studs, placed regularly in a quincunx order. WOODWARD ON FOSSILS.
A desk he had of curious work,
With glitt’ring studs about. SWIFT.
3. [Stode, Saxon; stod, Islandick, is a stallion.] A collection of breeding horses and mares.
In the studs of Ireland, where care is taken, we see horses bred of excellent shape, vigour, and size.
TEMPLE.
STU’DENT. n.s. [studens, Latin.] A man given to books; a scholar; a bookish man.
Keep a gamester from dice, and a good student from his book.
SHAKESPEARE’S MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
This grave advice some sober student bears,
And loudly rings it in his fellow’s ears.
DRYDEN’S PERSIUS.
A student shall do more in one hour, when all things concur to invite him to any special study, than in four at a dull season. WATTS’S LOGICK.
I slightly touch the subject, and recommend it to some student of the profession.
ARBUTHNOT ON COINS.
STULTI’LOQUENCE. n.s. [stultus and loquentia, Lat.] Foolish talk. Dictionaries.
STU’MBLINGBLOCK, STU’MBLINGSTONE. n.s. [from stumble.] Cause of stumbling; cause of errour; cause of offence.
We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness.
BIBLE 1 CORINTHIANS, I. 23.
Shakespeare is a stumblingblock to these rigid criticks. SPECTATOR.
This stumbling stone we hope to take away. BURNET.
STUPE. n.s. [stupa, Latin.] Cloath or flax dipped in warm medicaments, and applied to a hurt or sore.
A fomentation was by some pretender to surgery applied with coarse woollen stupes, one of which was bound upon his leg.
WISEMAN’S SURGERY.
STU’RDY. adv. [estourdi, French.]
1. Hardy; stout; brutal; obstinate. It is always used of men with some disagreeable idea of coarseness or rudeness.
This must be done, and I would fain see
Mortal so sturdy as to gainsay.
HUDIBRAS.
A sturdy hardened sinner shall advance to the utmost pitch of impiety with less reluctance than he took the first steps, whilst his conscience was yet vigilant and tender.
ATTERBURY.
Aw’d by that house, accustom’d to command,
The sturdy kerns in due subjection stand,
Nor bear the reins in any foreign hand.
DRYDEN.
2. Strong; forcible.
The ill-apparelled knight now had gotten the reputation of some sturdy lout, he had so well defended himself. SIDNEY.
Ne ought his sturdy strokes might stand before,
That high trees overthrew, and rocks in pieces tore. FAIRY QUEEN.
3. Stiff; stout.
He was not of any delicate contexture, his limbs rather sturdy than dainty.
WOTTON.
Sturdiest oaks
Bow’d their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,
Or torn up sheer.
MILTON’S PARADISE REGAIN’D.
To STUT, To STUTTER. v.n. [stutten, to hinder, Dutch.] To speak with hesitation; to stammer.
Divers stut: the cause is the refrigeration of the tongue, whereby it is less apt to move; and therefore naturals stut. BACON.
STU’TTER, STUTTERER. n.s. [from stut.] One that speaks with hesitation; a stammerer.
Many stutters are very cholerick, choler inducing a dryness in the tongue.
BACON’S NATURAL HISTORY.
STYLE. n.s. [stylus, Latin.]
1. Manner of writing with regard to language.
Happy
That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet, and so sweet a style.
SHAKESPEARE.
Their beauty I will rather leave to poets, than venture upon so tender and nice a subject with my severer style. MORE.
Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of a stile. SWIFT.
Let some lord but own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens, and the style refines. POPE.
2. Manner of speaking appropriate to particular characters.
No style is held for base, where love well named is. SIDNEY.
There was never yet philosopher,
That could endure the toothach patiently,
However they have writ the style of gods,
And make a pish at chance and sufferance. SHAKESPEARE.
3. Title; appellation.
Ford’s a knave, and I will aggravate his stile; thou shalt know him for knave and cuckold. SHAKESPEARE.
The king gave them in his commission the style and appellation which belonged to them. CLARENDON.
O virgin! or what other name you bear
Above that style; O more than mortal fair!
Let not an humble suppliant sue in vain.
DRYDEN’S ÆNEID.
Propitious hear our pray’r,
Whether the style of Titan please thee more,
Whose purple rays th’ Achæmenes adore.
POPE’S STATIUS.
4.208 Course of writing. Unusual.
While his thoughts the ling’ring day beguile,
To gentle Arcite let us turn our style.
DRYDEN.
5. A pointed iron used anciently in writing on tables of wax.
6. Any thing with a sharp point, as a graver; the pin of a dial.
Placing two stiles or needles of the same steel, touched with the same loadstone, when the one is removed but half a span, the other would stand like Hercules’s pillars. BROWN.
7. The stalk which rises from amid the leaves of a flower.
Style is the middle prominent part of the flower of a plant, which adheres to the fruit or seed: ’tis usually slender and long, whence it has its name. QUINCY.
The figure of the flower-leaves, stamina, apices, stile, and seed-vessel. RAY.
8. STYLE of Court, is properly the practice observed by any court in its way of proceeding. Ayliffe’s Parergon.
SUB, in composition, signifies a subordinate degree.
SUBBE’ADLE. n.s. [sub and beadle.] An under beadle.
They ought not to execute those precepts by simple messengers, or subbeadles, but in their own persons. AYLIFFE’S PARERGON.
SUBCELE’STIAL. adj. [sub and celestial.] Placed beneath the heavens.
The most refined glories of subcelestial excellencies are but more faint resemblances of these.
GLANVILLE SCEPSIS SCIENTIFICA.
SUBDERISO’RIOUS. adj. [sub and derisor.] Scoffng or ridiculing with tenderness and delicacy.
This subderisorious mirth is far from giving any offence to us: it is rather a pleasant condiment of our conversation. MORE.
SUBDITI’TIOUS. adj. [subdititius, Latin.] Put secretly in the place of something else.
SUBINGRE’SSION. n.s. [sub and ingressus, Latin.] Secret entrance.
The pressure of the ambient air is strengthened upon the accession of the air sucked out; which, forceth the neighbouring air to a violent subingression of its parts. BOYLE.
SUBLI’NGUAL. adj. [sublingual, French; sub and lingua, Lat.] Placed under the tongue.
Those subliming humours should be intercepted, before they mount to the head, by sublingual pills.
HARVEY ON CONSUMPTION.
SUBLU’NAR, SUBLUNARY. adj. [sublunaire, Fr. sub and luna, Latin.] Situated beneath the moon; earthly; terrestrial; of this world.
Dull sublunary lovers, love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Of absence, ’cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it. DONNE.
Night measur’d, with her shadowy cone,
Half way up hill this vast sublunar vault. MILTON.
Through seas of knowledge we our course advance,
Discov’ring still new worlds of ignorance;
And these discov’ries make us all confess
That sublunary science is but guess. DENHAM.
The celestial bodies above the moon being not subject to chance, remained in perpetual order, while all things sublunary are subject to change. DRYDEN’S DUFRESNOY.
Ovid had warn’d her to beware
Of strolling gods, whose usual trade is,
Under pretence of taking air,
To pick up sublunary ladies. SWIFT.
SUBO’RDINACY, SUBORDINANCY. n.s. [from subordinate.] Subordinacy is the proper and analogical word.
1. The state of being subject.
Pursuing the imagination through all its extravagancies, is no improper method of correcting, and bringing it to act in subordinacy to reason. SPECTATOR.
2. Series of subordination.
The subordinancy of the government changing hands so often, makes an unsteddiness in the pursuit of the publick interests. TEMPLE.
SU’BSTANTIVE. n.s. [substantif, French; substantivum, Latin.] A noun betokening the thing, not a quality.
Claudian perpetually closes his sense at the end of a verse, commonly called golden, or two substantives and two adjectives with a verb betwixt them. DRYDEN.
SUBSTITU’TION. n.s. [substitution, Fr. from substitute.] The act of placing any person or thing in the room of another; the state of being placed in the room of another.
He did believe
He was the duke, from substitution,
And executing th’ outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative.
SHAKESPEARE’S TEMPEST.
Nor sal, sulphur, or mercury can be separated from any perfect metals; for every part, so separated, may easily be reduced into perfect metal without substitution of that which chymists imagine to be wanting. BACON.
To SUBSTRA’CT. v.a. [subtraho, Lat. soustraction, French.]
1. To take away part from the whole.
2. To take one number from another.
SUBSTRA’CTION. n.s. [soubstraire, soubstraction, French.]
1. The act of taking away part from the whole.
I cannot call this piece Tully’s nor my own, being much altered not only by the change of the style, but by addition and substraction. DENHAM.
2. [In arithmetick.] The taking of a lesser number out of a greater of like kind, whereby to find out a third number, being or declaring the inequality, excess, or difference between the numbers given. Cocker’s Arithmetick.
SUBSTRU’CTION. n.s. [substructio, from sub and struo, Latin.] Underbuilding.
To found our habitation firmly, examine the bed of earth upon which we build, and then the underfillings, or substruction, as the ancients called it. WOTTON’S ARCHITECTURE.
SU’BTILE. adj. [subtile, Fr. subtilis, Lat. This word is often written subtle.]
1. Thin; not dense; not gross.
From his eyes the fleeting fair
Retir’d, like subtle smoke dissolv’d in air. DRYDEN’S GEORGICKS.
Deny Des Cart his subtile matter,
You leave him neither fire nor water. PRIOR.
Is not the heat conveyed through the vacuum by the vibrations of a much subtiler medium than air, which, after the air was drawn out, remained in the vacuum? NEWTON’S OPTICKS.
2. Nice; fine; delicate; not coarse.
But of the clock which in our breasts we bear, The subtile motions we forget the while.
DAVIES.
Thou only know’st her nature, and her pow’rs; Her subtile form thou only can’st define. DAVIES.
I do distinguish plain
Each subtile line of her immortal face.
DAVIES.
3. Piercing; acute.
Pass we the slow disease and subtile pain,
Which our weak frame is destin’d to sustain;
The cruel stone, the cold catarrh.
PRIOR.
4. Cunning; artful; sly; subdolous. In this sense it is now commonly written subtle.209
Arrius, a priest in the church of Alexandria, a subtile witted and a marvellous fair spoken man, was discontented that one should be placed before him in honour, whose superior he thought himself in desert, because through envy and stomach prone unto contradiction. HOOKER.
Think you this York
Was not incensed by his subtle mother,
To taunt and scorn you?
SHAKESPEARE’S RICHARD III.
O subtile love, a thousand wiles thou hast
By humble suit, by service, or by hire,
To win a maiden’s hold. FAIRFAX.
A woman, an harlot and subtile of heart. BIBLE PROVERBS, VII. 10.
Nor thou his malice, and false guile, contemn:
Subtile he needs must be, who could seduce Angels. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST.
5. Deceitful.
Like a bowl upon a subtle ground,
I’ve tumbled past the throw.
SHAKESPEARE’S CORIOLANUS.
6. Refined; acute beyond exactness.
Things remote from use, obscure and subtle. MILTON.
SU’BTILELY. adv. [from subtile.] 1.210 Finely; not grossly.
The constitution of the air appeareth more subtilly by worms in oak-apples than to the sense of man. BACON.
In these plaisters the stone should not be too subtilely powdered; for it will better manifest its attraction in more sensible dimensions.
BROWN’S VULGAR ERROURS.
The opakest bodies, if subtilely divided, as metals dissolved in acid menstruums, become perfectly transparent. NEWTON.
2. Artfully; cunningly.
By granting this, add the reputation of loving the truth sincerely to that of having been able to oppose it subtilely. BOYLE.
Others have sought to ease themselves of affiction by disputing subtilly against it, and pertinaciously maintaining that affictions are no real evils.
TILLOTSON’S SERMONS.
SU’BTILENESS. n.s. [from subtile.]
1. Fineness; rareness.
2. Cunning; artfulness.
To SUBTI’LIATE. v.a. [from subtile.] To make thin.
A very dry and warm or subtiliating air opens the surface of the earth.
HARVEY ON THE PLAGUE.
SU’BTILTY. n.s. [subtilité, French; from subtile.]
1. Thinness; fineness; exility of parts.
The subtilties of particular sounds may pass through small crannies not confused, but its magnity not so well. BACON.
How shall we this union well express?
Nought ties the soul, her subtilty is such.
DAVIES.
The corporeity of all bodies being the same, and subtilty in all bodies being essentially the same thing, could any body by subtilty become vital, then any degree of subtilty would produce some degree of life. GREW’S COSMOLOGIA SACRA.
Bodies the more of kin they are to spirit in subtilty and refinement, the more spreading and self-diffusive are they. NORRIS.
2. Nicety.211
Whatsoever is invisible, in respect of the fineness of the body, or subtilty of the motion, is little enquired. BACON.
3. Refinement; too much acuteness.
You prefer the reputation of candour before that of subtilty. boyle.
Intelligible discourses are spoiled by too much subtilty in nice divisions. LOCKE.
Greece did at length a learned race produce,
Who needful science mock’d, and arts of use;
Mankind with idle subtilties embroil,
And fashion systems with romantick toil.
BLACKMORE.
They give method, and shed subtilty upon their author. BAKER.
4. Cunning; artifice; slyness.
Finding force now faint to be,
He thought grey hairs afforded subtilty. SIDNEY.
The rudeness and barbarity of savage Indians knows not so perfectly to hate all virtues as some mens subtilty.
KING CHARLES.
Sleights proceeding
As from his wit and native subtlety. MILTON.
To SU’BTILIZE. v.a. [subtilizer, French; from subtile.]
1. To make thin; to make less gross or coarse.
Chyle, being mixed with the choler and pancreatick juices, is further subtilized, and rendered so fluid and penetrant, that the thinner and finer part easily finds way in at the streight orifices of the lacteous veins. RAY ON THE CREATION.
Body cannot be vital; for if it be, then is it so either as subtilized or organized, moved or endowed with life. GREW.
2. To refine; to spin into useless niceties.
The most obvious verity is subtilized into niceties, and spun into a thread indiscernible by common opticks. GLANVILLE.
To SUBTI’LIZE. v.n. To talk with too much refinement.
Qualities and moods some modern philosophers have subtilized on. DIGBY ON BODIES.
SU’BTLE. adj. [Written often for subtile, especially in the sense of cunning.] Sly; artful; cunning.
Some subtle headed fellow will put some quirk, or devise some evasion, whereof the rest will take hold. SPENSER.
Shall we think the subtle witted French
Conj’rers and sorc’rers, that, afraid of him,
By magick verse have thus contriv’d his
end? SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY VI.
The serpent, subtlest beast of all the field. MILTON.
The Arabians were men of a deep and subtle wit. SPRAT.
SU’BTLY. adv. [from subtle.]
1. Slily; artfully; cunningly.
Thou see’st how subtly to detain thee I devise;
Inviting thee to hear, while I relate. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST.
2. Nicely; delicately.
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true,
From pois’nous herbs extracts the healing dew! POPE.
To SU’BTRACT. v.a. [subtractio, Latin. They who derive it from the Latin write subtract; those who know the French original, write substract; which is the common word.] To with-draw part from the rest.
Reducing many things unto charge, which, by confusion, became concealed and subtracted from the crown. DAVIES.
What is subtracted or subducted out of the extent of the divine perfection, leaves still a quotient infinite. HALE.
The same swallow, by the subtracting daily of her eggs, lay nineteen successively, and then gave over. RAY.
SUBTRA’CTION. n.s. See SUBSTRACTION.
SUCCE’SSFUL. adj. [success and full.] Prosperous; happy; fortunate.
They were terrible alarms to persons grown wealthy by a long and successful imposture, by persuading the world that men might be honest and happy, though they never mortified any corrupt appetites. SOUTH’S SERMONS.
H’ observ’d the illustrious throng,
Their names, their fates, their conduct and their care
In peaceful senates and successful war. DRYDEN.
The early hunter
Blesses Diana’s hand, who leads him safe
O’er hanging cliffs; who spreads his net successful,
And guides the arrow through the panther’s heart. PRIOR.
SUCCE’SSLESS. adj. [from success.] Unlucky; unfortunate; failing of the event desired.
The hopes of thy successless love resign. DRYDEN.
The Bavarian duke,
Bold champion! brandishing his Noric blade,
Best temper’d steel, successless prov’d in field. PHILIPS.
Passion unpity’d, and successless love,
Plant daggers in my heart.
ADDISON’S CATO.
Successless all her soft caresses prove,
To banish from his breast his country’s
love. POPE.
SUCCI’NCT. adj. [succinct, French; succinctus, Latin.]
1. Tucked or girded up; having the cloaths drawn up to disengage the legs.
His habit fit for speed succinct. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST.
His vest succinct then girding round his waist,
Forth rush’d the swain. POPE.
Four knaves in garbs succinct. POPE.
2. Short; concise; brief.
A strict and succinct stile is that where you can take nothing away without loss, and that loss manifest. BEN JONSON.
Let all your precepts be succinct and clear,
That ready wits may comprehend them soon. ROSCOMMON.
To SUCCU’MB. v.n. [succumbo, Latin; succomber, French.] To yield; to sink under any difficulty. Not in use, except among the Scotch.
To their wills we must succumb,
Quocunque trahunt, ’tis our doom. HUDIBRAS.
SU’CKINGBOTTLE. n.s. [suck and bottle.] A bottle which to children supplies the want of a pap.
He that will say, children join these general abstract speculations with their sucking-bottles, has more zeal for his opinion, but less sincerity. LOCKE.
SUDA’TION. n.s. [sudo, Latin.] Sweat.
SUDS. n.s. [from seodan, to seeth; whence sodden, SAXON.]
1. A lixivium of soap and water.
2. To be in the SUDS. A familiar phrase for being in any difficulty.
To SU’FFRAGATE. v.n. [suffragor, Latin.] To vote with; to agree in voice with.
No tradition could universally prevail, unless there were some common congruity of somewhat inherent in nature, which suits and suffragates with it, and closeth with it. HALE.
To SU’GGILATE. v.a. [suggillo, Latin.] To beat black and blue; to make livid by a bruise.
The head of the os humeri was bruised, and remained suggilated long after.
WISEMAN’S SURGERY.
SUI’LLAGE. n.s. [souillage, French.] Drain of filth. Obsolete.
When they have chosen the plot, and laid out the limits of the work, some Italians dig wells and cisterns, and other conveyances for the suillage of the house. WOTTON.
SU’MMERSAULT, SUMMERSET. n.s. [soubresault, French. Somerset is a corruption.] A high leap in which the heels are thrown over the head.
Some do the summersault,
And o’er the bar like tumblers vault.
HUDIBRAS.
Frogs are observed to use divers summersaults. WALTON.
The treasurer cuts a caper on the strait rope: I have seen him do the summerset upon a trencher fixed on the rope, which is no thicker than a common packthread.
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS.
SU’MPTER. n.s. [sommier, French; somaro, Italian.] A horse that carries the cloaths or furniture.
Return with her!
Persuade me rather to be a slave and sumpter
To this detested groom.
SHAKESPEARE’s KING LEAR.
With full force his deadly bow he bent,
And feather’d fates among the mules and sumpters sent. DRYDEN.
Two sumpter mules, bred of large Flanders mares. MORTIMER’S HUSBANDRY.
SU’MPTUARY. adj. [sumptuarius, Latin.] Relating to expence; regulating the cost of life.
To remove that material cause of sedition, which is want and poverty in the estate, serveth the opening and well balancing of trade, the banishing of idleness, the repressing of waste and excess by sumptuary laws. BACON.
SUPER, in composition, notes either more than another, or more than enough, or on the top.
To SUPERA’NNUATE. v.a. [super and annus, Lat.] To impair or disqualify by age or length of life.
If such depravities be yet alive, deformity need not despair, nor will the eldest hopes be ever superannuated. BROWN.
When the sacramental test was put in execution, the justices of peace through Ireland, that had laid down their commissions, amounted only to a dozen, and those of the lowest fortune, and some of them superannuated. SWIFT.
SUPERCA’RGO. n.s. [super and cargo.] An officer in the ship whose business is to manage the trade.
I only wear it in a land of Hectors, Thieves, supercargo’s, sharpers. POPE.
SUPERCO’NSEQUENCE. n.s. [super and consequence.] Remote consequence.
Not attaining the deuteroscopy, and second intention of the words, they omit their superconsequences and coherences. BROWN.
SUPERE’XCELLENT. adj. [super and excellent.] Excellent beyond common degrees of excellence.
We discern not the abuse: suffer him to persuade us that we are as gods, something so superexcellent, that all must reverence and adore. DECAY OF PIETY.
SUPERLU’NAR. adj. [super and luna.] Not sublunary; placed above the moon; not of this world.
The mind, in metaphysicks, at a loss,
May wander in a wilderness of moss;
The head that turns at superlunar things,
Pois’d with a tail, may steer on Wilkins’ wings. DUNCIAD.
SUPERSTI’TIOUS. adj. [superstitieux, Fr. superstitiosus, Latin.]
1. Addicted to superstition; full of idle fancies or scruples with regard to religion.
At the kindling of the fire, and lighting of candles, they say certain prayers, and use some other superstitious rites, which shew that they honour the fire and the light. SPENSER.
Have I
Been out of fondness superstitious to him?
And am I thus rewarded? SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY VIII.
Nature’s own work it seem’d, nature taught art,
And to a superstitious eye the haunt
Of wood-gods and wood-nymphs. MILTON.
A venerable wood,
Where rites divine were paid, whose holy hair
Was kept and cut with superstitious care. DRYDEN.
2. Over accurate; scrupulous beyond need.
To SUPERVI’VE. v.n. [super and vivo, Lat.] To overlive; to outlive.
Upon what principle can the soul be imagined to be naturally mortal, or what revolutions in nature will it not be able to resist and supervive. CLARKE.
SUPPEDA’NEOUS. adj. [sub and pes, Latin.] Placed under the feet.
He had slender legs, but encreased by riding after meals; that is, the humour descended upon their pendulosity, they having no support or suppedaneous stability. BROWN.
SUPPUTA’TION. n.s. [supputation, French; supputo, Latin.] Reckoning; account; calculation; computation.
From these differing properties of day and year arise difficulties in carrying on and reconciling the supputation of time in long measures. HOLDER ON TIME.
The Jews saw every day their Messiah still farther removed from them; that the promises of their doctors, about his speedy manifestations, were false; that the predictions of the prophets, whom they could now no longer understand, were covered with obscurity; that all the supputations of time either terminated in Jesus Christ, or were without a period. WEST.
To SUPPU’TE. v.a. [from supputo, Latin.] To reckon; to calculate.
To SURBA’TE. v.a. [solbatir, French.] To bruise and batter the feet with travel; to harrass; to fatigue.
Their march they continued all that night, the horsemen often alighting, that the foot might ride, and others taking many of them behind them; however they could not but be extremely weary and surbated. CLARENDON.
Chalky land surbates and spoils oxens feet. MORTIMER.
SU’RCOAT. n.s. [surcot, old French; sur and coat.] A short coat worn over the rest of the dress.
The honourable habiliments, as robes of state, parliament-robes, the surcoat, and mantle. CAMDEN.
The commons were besotted in excess of apparel, in wide surcoats reaching to their loins. CAMDEN.
That day in equal arms they fought for fame;
Their swords, their shields, their surcoats were the same. DRYDEN.
SU’RELY. adv. [from sure.]
1. Certainly; undoubtedly; without doubt. It is often used rather to intend and strengthen the meaning of the sentence, than with any distinct and explicable meaning.
In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. BIBLE GENESIS.
Thou surely hadst not come sole fugitive. MILTON.
He that created something out of nothing, surely can raise great things out of small. SOUTH.
The curious have thought the most minute affairs of Rome worth notice; and surely the consideration of their wealth is at least of as great importance as grammatical criticisms. ARBUTHNOT.
2. Firmly; without hazard.
He that walketh righteously, walketh surely.
SU’RFEIT. n.s. [from the verb.] Sickness or satiety caused by overfulness.
When we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and stars. SHAKESPEARE’S KING LEAR.
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream’d of such a kind of man,
So surfeit swell’d, so old, and so profane. SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY IV.
Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;
Now shall he try his friends that flatter’d him. SHAKESPEARE’S RICHARD II.
Thou’st years upon thee, and thou art too full
Of the wars surfeits to go rove with one
That’s yet unbruis’d. SHAKESPEARE’S CORIOLANUS.
Why, disease, do’st thou molest Ladies, and of them the best? Do not men grow sick of rites, To thy altars, by their nights Spent in surfeits? BEN JONSON.
Surfeits many times turn to purges, both upwards and downwards. BACON’S NATURAL HISTORY.
Peace, which he lov’d in life, did lend
Her hand to bring him to his end;
When age and death call’d for the score,
No surfeits were to reckon for. CRASHAW.
Our father
Has ta’en himself a surfeit of the world,
And cries, it is not safe that we should taste it. OTWAY.
SU’RFEITWATER. n.s. [surfeit and water.] Water that cures surfeits.
A little cold-distilled poppywater, which is the true surfeitwater, with ease and abstinence, often ends distempers in the beginning. LOCKE.
SU’RGEON. n.s. [Corrupted by conversation from chirurgeon.]212 One who cures by manual operation; one whose duty is to act in external maladies by the direction of the physician.
The wound was past the cure of a better surgeon than myself, so as I could but receive some few of her dying words. SIDNEY.
I meddle with no woman’s matters; but withal, I am a surgeon to old shoes. SHAKESPEARE’S JULIUS CÆSAR.
He that hath wounded his neighbour, is tied to the expences of the surgeon, and other incidences. TAYLOR.
Though most were sorely wounded, none were slain:
The surgeons soon despoil’d them of their arms,
And some with salves they cure. DRYDEN.
SU’RGEONRY, SU’RGERY. n.s. [for chirurgery.] The act of curing by manual operation.
It would seem very evil surgery to cut off every unsound part of the body, which, being by other due means recovered, might afterwards do good service. SPENSER.
But strangely visited people,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures. SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH.
They are often tarr’d over with the surgery of our sheep, and would you have us kiss tar? SHAKESPEARE.
SURPRI’SAL, SURPRISE. n.s. [surprise, French; from the verb.]
1. The act of taking unawares; the state of being taken unawares.
Parents should mark heedfully the witty excuses of their children, especially at suddains and surprisals; but rather mark than pamper them. WOTTON.
This let him know,
Lest, wilfully transgressing, he pretend Suprisal, unadmonish’d, unforewarn’d. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST.
I set aside the taking of St. Jago and St. Domingo in Hispaniola, as surprizes rather than encounters. BACON.
This strange surprisal put the knight And wrathful squire into a fright. HUDIBRAS.
There is a vast difference between them, as vast as between inadvertency and deliberation, between surprize and set purpose. SOUTH.
2. A dish, I suppose, which has nothing in it.
Few care for carving trifles in disguise, Or that fantastick dish some call surprise. KING’S COOKERY.
3. Sudden confusion or perplexity.
SURTOU’T. n.s. [French.] A large coat worn over all the rest.
The surtout if abroad you wear,
Repels the rigour of the air;
Would you be warmer, if at home You had the fabrick, and the loom? PRIOR.
Sir Roger she mortally hated, and used to hire fellows to squirt kennel-water upon him, so that he was forced to wear a surtout of oiled cloth, by which means he came home pretty clean, except where the surtout was a little scanty. ARBUTHNOT.
To SU’SCITATE. v.n. [susciter, French; suscito, Lat.] To rouse; to excite.
It concurreth but unto predisposed effects, and only suscitates those forms whose determinations are seminal, and proceed from the idea of themselves. BROWN’S VULGAR ERROURS.
To SUSPI’RE. v.n. [suspiro, Latin.]
1. To sigh; to fetch the breath deep.
2. It seems in Shakespeare to mean only, to begin to breath; perhaps mistaken for respire.
Since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
To him that did but yesterday suspire,
There was not such a gracious creature
born. SHAKESPEARE.
To SWAG. v.n. [sigan, Saxon; sweigia, Islandick.] To sink down by its weight; to lay heavy.
They are more apt, in swagging down, to pierce with their points, than in the jacent posture, and crevice the wall. WOTTON.
Being a tall fish, and with his sides much compressed, he hath a long fin upon his back, and another answering to it on his belly; by which he is the better kept upright, or from swagging on his sides. GREW.
To SWAGE. v.a. [from asswage.] To ease; to soften; to mitigate.
Apt words have pow’r to swage
The tumours of a troubled mind,
And are as balm to fester’d wounds. MILTON.
Nor wanting pow’r to mitigate and swage,
With solemn touches, troubled thoughts, and chase
Anguish, and doubt, and fear from mortal minds. MILTON.
I will love thee,
Though my distracted senses should forsake me,
I’d find some intervals, when my poor heart
Should swage itself, and be let loose to thine. OTWAY.
To SWALE, To SWEAL. v.a. [swelan, Saxon, to kindle.] To waste or blaze away; to melt: as, the candle swales.
SWA’LLOW. n.s. [swalewe, Saxon.] A small bird of passage, or, as some say, a bird that lies hid and sleeps in the Winter.
The swallow follows not Summer more willingly than we your lordship. SHAKESPEARE’S TIMON OF ATHENS.
Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares. SHAKESPEARE.
The swallows make use of celandine, and the linnet of euphragia. MORE.
When swallows fleet soar high and sport in air,
He told us that the welkin would be clear. GAY.
The swallow sweeps
The slimy pool, to build his hanging house Intent. THOMSON’S SPRING.
SWA’NSKIN. n.s. [swan and skin.] A kind of soft flannel, imitating for warmth the down of a swan.
SWEET. n.s.
1. Sweetness; something pleasing.
Pluck out
The multitudinous tongue, let them not lick
The sweet which is their poison. SHAKESPEARE’S CORIOLANUS.
What softer sounds are these salute the ear,
From the large circle of the hemisphere,
As if the center of all sweets met here! BEN JONSON.
Hail! wedded love,
Perpetual fountain of domestick sweets! MILTON.
Taught to live
The easiest way; nor with perplexing thoughts
To interrupt the sweet of life. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST.
Now since the Latian and the Trojan brood
Have tasted vengeance, and the sweets of blood,
Speak. DRYDEN’S ÆNEID.
Can Ceyx then sustain to leave his wife,
And unconcern’d forsake the sweets of life? DRYDEN.
We have so great an abhorrence of pain, that a little of it extinguishes all our pleasures; a little bitter mingled in our cup leaves no relish of the sweet. LOCKE.
Love had ordain’d that it was Abra’s turn To mix the sweets, and minister the urn. PRIOR.
2. A word of endearment.
Sweet! leave me here a while
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep. SHAKESPEARE.
Wherefore frowns my sweet?
Have I too long been absent from these lips? BEN JONSON.
3. A perfume.
As in perfumes,
’Tis hard to say what scent is uppermost; Nor this part musick or civet can we call, Or amber, but a rich result of all: So she was all a sweet. DRYDEN.
Flowers
Innumerable, by the soft south-west Open’d, and gather’d by religious hands, Rebound their sweets from th’ odoriferous pavement. PRIOR.
To SWELL. v.n. Participle pass. swollen. [swellan, Sax. swellen, Dutch.]
1. To grow bigger; to grow turgid; to extend the parts.
Propitious Tyber smooth’d his wat’ry way,
He roll’d his river back, and pois’d he stood,
A gentle swelling and a peaceful flood. DRYDEN’S ÆNEID.
2. To tumify by obstruction.
But strangely visited people,
All swol’n and ulc’rous; pitiful to the eye,
The meer despair of surgery he cures. SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH.
Forty years didst thou sustain them in the
wilderness, so that their cloaths waxed not
old, and their feet swelled not. BIBLE NEHEMIAH, IX. 21.
Swol’n is his breast; his inward pains encrease,
All means are us’d, and all without success. DRYDEN.
3. To be exasperated.
My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,
My mildness hath allay’d their swelling
griefs. SHAKESPEARE.
4. To look big.
Here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock. SHAKESPEARE.
Peleus and Telephus exil’d and poor,
Forget their swelling and gigantick words. ROSCOMMON.
5.213 To protuberate.
This iniquity shall be as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall. BIBLE ISAIAH, XXX. 13.
6. To rise into arrogance; to be elated.
In all things else above our humble fate, Your equal mind yet swells not into state. DRYDEN.
7. To be inflated with anger.
I will help every one from him that swelleth against him, and will set him at rest. BIBLE PSALMS, XII. 6.
We have made peace of enmity
Between these swelling wrong incensed peers. SHAKESPEARE.
The hearts of princes kiss obedience,
So much they love it; but to stubborn spirits
They swell and grow as terrible as storms. SHAKESPEARE.
8. To grow upon the view.
O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene. SHAKESPEARE.
9. It implies commonly a notion of something wrong.
Your youth admires
The throws and swellings of a Roman soul,
Cato’s bold flights, th’ extravagance of virtue. ADDISON.
Immoderate valour swells into a fault. ADDISON’S CATO.
To SWELL. v.a.
1. To cause to rise or encrease; to make tumid.
Wind, blow the earth into the sea,
Or swell the curled waters ’bove the main. SHAKESPEARE.
You who supply the ground with seeds of grain,
And you who swell those seeds with kindly rain. DRYDEN.
2. To aggravate; to heighten.
It is low ebb with his accuser, when such peccadillos are put to swell the charge. ATTERBURY.
3. To raise to arrogance.
All these miseries proceed from the same natural causes, which have usually attended kingdoms swolen with long plenty, pride, and excess. CLARENDON.
To SWIG. v.n. [swiga, Islandick.] To drink by large draughts.
To SWILL. v.a. [swilgan, Saxon.]
1. To drink luxuriously and grossly.
The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar
That spoil’d your summer fields and fruitful vines,
Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough
In your embowel’d bosoms. SHAKESPEARE’S RICHARD III.
The most common of these causes are an hereditary disposition, swilling down great quantities of cold watery liquors. ARBUTHNOT ON DIET.
Such is the poet, fresh in pay,
The third night’s profits of his play;
His morning draughts till noon can swill,
Among his brethren of the quill. SWIFT.
2. To wash; to drench.
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with me the wild and wasteful ocean. SHAKESPEARE.
With that a German oft has swill’d his throat,
Deluded, that imperial Rhine bestow’d
The generous rummer. PHILIPS.
3. To inebriate.214
I should be loth
To meet the rudeness and swill’d insolence
Of such late wassailers. MILTON.
He drinks a swilling draught; and lin’d within,
Will supple in the bath his outward skin. DRYDEN.
SWILL. n.s. [from the verb.] Drink, luxuriously poured down.
Give swine such swill as you have. MORTIMER.
Thus as they swim, in mutual swill the talk
Reels fast from theme to theme. THOMSON.
SWILLER. n.s. [from swill.] A luxurious drinker.
To SWI’NGLE. v.n. [from swing.]
1. To dangle; to wave hanging.
2. To swing in pleasure.
SWO’RDLAW. n.s. Violence; the law by which all is yielded to the stronger.
So violence
Proceeded, and oppression, and swordlaw,
Through all the plain, and refuge none was found. MILTON.
SWO’RDMAN. n.s. [sword and man.] Soldier; fighting man.
Worthy fellows, and like to prove most sinewy swordmen. SHAKESPEARE’S ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
At Lecca’s house,
Among your swordmen, where so many associates
Both of thy mischief and thy madness met. BEN JONSON.
Essex was made lieutenant-general of the army, the darling of the swordmen. CLARENDON.
SWO’RDPLAYER. n.s. [sword and play.] Gladiator; fencer; one who exhibits in publick his skill at the weapons by fighting prizes.
These they called swordplayers, and this spectacle a swordfight. HAKEWILL ON PROVIDENCE.
SYB. adj. [Properly sib; sib, Saxon.] Related by blood. The Scottish dialect still retains it.
If what my grandsire to me said be true,
Siker I am very syb to you. SPENSER’S PASTORALS.
SY’CAMINE, SYCAMORE. n.s. A tree.215
Sycamore is our acer majus, one of the kinds of maples: it is a quick grower. MORTIMER’S HUSBANDRY.
Under the grove of sycamore I saw your son. SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO AND JULIET.
If ye had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye might say unto this sycamine-tree, be thou plucked up, and it should obey you. BIBLE LUKE, XVII. 6.
I was no prophet, but an herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. BIBLE AMOS, VII. 14.
Go to yonder sycamore-tree, and hide your bottle of drink under its hollow root. WALTON’S ANGLER.
Sycamores with eglantine were spread;
A hedge about the sides, a covering over head. DRYDEN.
SY’LLABLE. n.s. [σνλλαβή; syllabe, French.]
1. As much of a word as is uttered by the help of one vowel, or one articulation.
I heard
Each syllable that breath made up between them. SHAKESPEARE.
There is that property in all letters of aptness to be conjoined in syllables and words, through the voluble motions of the organs from one stop or figure to another, that they modify and discriminate the voice without appearing to discontinue it. HOLDER’S ELEMENTS OF SPEECH.
2. Any thing proverbially concise.
Abraham, Job, and the rest that lived before any syllable of the law of God was written, did they not sin as much as we do in every action not commanded? HOOKER.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH.
He hath told so many melancholy stories, without one syllable of truth, that he hath blunted the edge of my fears. SWIFT.
SY’MBOL. n.s. [symbole, French; σύμβoλν symbolum, Latin.]
1. An abstract; a compendium; a comprehensive form.
Beginning with the symbol of our faith, upon that the author of the gloss enquires into the nature of faith. BAKER.
2. A type; that which comprehends in its figure a representation of something else.
Salt, as incorruptible, was the symbol of friendship; which, if it casually fell, was accounted ominous, and their amity of no duration. BROWN’S VULGAR ERROURS.
Words are the signs and symbols of things; and as, in accounts, ciphers and figures pass for real sums, so words and names pass for things themselves. SOUTH’S SERMONS.
The heathens made choice of these lights as apt symbols of eternity, because, contrary
to all sublunary beings, though they seem to perish every night, they renew themselves every morning. ADDISON ON ANCIENT MEDALS.
SYMPHO’NIOUS. adj. [from symphony.] Harmonious; agreeing in sound.
Up he rode,
Follow’d with acclamation and the sound
Symphonious of ten thousand harps, that tun’d
Angelick harmonies. MILTON.
SY’MPHONY. n.s. [symphonie, French; σύν and φωνή.] Concert of instruments; harmony of mingled sounds.
A learned searcher from Pythagoras’s school, where it was a maxim that the images of all things are latent in numbers, determines the comeliest proportion between breadths and heights, reducing symmetry to symphony, and the harmony of sound to a kind of harmony in sight. WOTTON.
Speak ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels! for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST.
The trumpets sound,
And warlike symphony is heard around;
The marching troops through Athens take their way;
The great earl-marshal orders their array. DRYDEN.
SYMPO’SIACK. adj. [symposiaque, French; σνμπoσiαχóς.] Relating to merry makings; happening where company is drinking together.
By desiring a secrecy to words spoke under the rose, we only mean in society and compotation, from the ancient custom of symposiack meetings to wear chaplets of roses about their heads. BROWN’S VULGAR ERROURS.
In some of those symposiack disputations amongst my acquaintance, I affirmed that the dietetick part of medicine depended upon scientifick principles. ARBUTHNOT.
SY’NCOPE. n.s. [syncope, French; σνγχoπή.]
1. Fainting fit.
The symptoms attending gunshot wounds are pain, fever, delirium, and syncope. WISEMAN.
2. Contraction of a word by cutting off part.
SY’NCOPIST. n.s. [from syncope.] Contractor of words.
To outshine all the modern syncopists, and thoroughly content my English readers, I intend to publish a Spectator that shall not have a single vowel in it. SPECTATOR.
SY’NDROME. n.s. [συνδϱoμή.] Concurrent action; concurrence.
All things being linked together by an uninterrupted chain of causes, every single motion owns a dependance on such a syndrome of prerequired motors. GLANVILLE’S SCEPSIS SCIENTIFICA.
SYNO’NYMA. n.s. [Latin; συνώνυμoς.] Names which signify the same thing.
To SYNO’NOMISE. v.a. [from synonyma.] To express the same thing in different words.
This word fortis we may synonymise after all these fashions, stout, hardy, valiant, doughty, couragious, adventurous, brave, bold, daring, intrepid. CAMDEN’S REMAINS.
SYNONYMO’US. adj. [synonyme, Fr. συνώνυμoς.] Expressing the same thing by different words.
These words consist of two propositions which are not distinct in sense, but one and the same thing variously expressed; for wisdom and understanding are synonymous words here. TILLOTSON.
Fortune is but a synonymous word for nature and necessity. BENTLEY’S SERMONS.
When two or more words signify the same thing, as wave and billow, mead and meadow, they are usually called synonymous words. WATTS’S LOGICK.
SYNO’NYMY. n.s. [συνωνυμία.] The quality of expressing by different words the same thing.
SYNTA’CTICAL. adj. [from syntaxis, Latin.]
1. Conjoined; fitted to each other.
2. Relating to the construction of speech.
SY’NTAX, SYNTAXIS. n.s. [σύνταξiς.]
1. A system; a number of things joined together.
They owe no other dependance to the first than what is common to the whole syntax of beings. GLANVILLE.
2. That part of Grammar which teaches the construction of words.
I can produce a hundred instances to convince any reasonable man that they do not so much as understand common Grammar and syntax. SWIFT.