Page images
PDF
EPUB

ABORIGINES. n. s. [Lat.] The earliest inhabitants of a country; those of whom no original is to be traced; as the Welsh in Britain.

To ABORT. v. n. [aborto, Lat.] To bring forth before the time; to miscarry. Dict. ABORTION. n. s. [abortio, Lat.] 1. The act of bringing forth untimely. These then need cause no abortion. 2. The produce of an untimely birth. His wife miscarried; but, as the abortion proved enly a female fatus, he comforted himself.

Sandys.

Arbuthnot and Pope's Martinus Scriblerus. Behold my arm thus blasted, dry, and wither'd, Shrunk like a foul abortion, and decay'd

Like some untimely product of the seasons. Rowe. ABORTIVE. n. s. That which is born before the due time. Perhaps anciently any thing irregularly produced.

No common wind, no customed event, But they will pluck away its nat'ral causes, And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs, Abortives, and presages, tongues of heav'n, Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John. Shaks. Take the fine skin of an abortive, and, with starch thin laid on, prepare your ground or tablet. Peacham on Drawing.

Many are preserved, and do signal service to their country, who, without a provision, might have perished as abortives, or have come to an untimely end, and perhaps have brought upon their guilty parents the like destruction.

Addison's Guardian.

ABORTIVE, adj. [abortivus, Lat.]
1. Brought forth before the due time of birth.
If ever he have 'child, abortive be it,
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light. Shaks.
All th' unaccomplish'd works of nature's hand,
Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mix'd,
Dissolv'd on earth, fleet hither. Milt. Par. Lost.
Nor will his fruit expect

Th' autumnal season, but, in summer's pride When other orchards smile, abortive fail. Philips. 2. That fails for want of time: figuratively.

How often hast thou waited at my cup, Remember it, and let it make thee crest-fall'n; Ay, and allay this thy abortive pride.

3. That brings forth nothing.

[blocks in formation]

Shaks.

Wide-gaping; and with utter loss of being Threatens him, plung'd in that abortive gulf. Milton's Paradise Lost. 4. That fails or miscarries, from whatever cause. This is less proper.

Many politick conceptions, so elaborately formed and wrought, and grown at length ripe, for delivery, do yet, in the issue, miscarry and prove abertive. South's Sermons.

s. [from abortive.]

ABORTIVELY. adv. [from abortive.] Born without the due time; immaturely; untimely. ABO'KTIVENESS. n. The state of abortion. ABORTMENT. n. s. [from abort.] The thing brought forth out of time; an untimely birth.

Concealed treasures, now dost to mankind, shall be brought into use by the industry of converted penitents, whose wretched carcases the impartial

laws dedicate, as untimely feasts, to the worms of the earth, in whose womb those deserted mineral riches must ever lie buried as lost abortments, unless those be made the active midwives to deliver them. Bac. Physic. Remains. ABOVE. prep. [from a, and bufan, Saxon; boven, Dutch.]

1. To a higher place; in a higher place.

So when with crackling flames a cauldron fries, The bubbling waters from the bottom rise; Above the brims they force their fiery way; Black vapours climb aloft, and cloud the day.

2. More in quantity or number.

Dryden.

Every one that passeth among them, that are numbered from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering unto the Lord. Exodus.

3. In a superiour degree, or to a superiour degree of rank, power, or excellence.

The Lord is high above all nations, and his Psalms. glory above the heavens.

The public power of all societies is above every soul contained in the same societies.

Hooker.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

It is an old and true distinction, that things may be above our reason, without being contrary to it. Of this kind are the power, the nature, and the universal presence of God, with innumerable other points. Swift.

5. Beyond; more than.

We were pressed out of measure, above strength; insomuch that we despaired even of life. 2 Cor. In having thoughts unconfused, and being able to distinguish one thing from another, where there is but the least difference, consists the exactness of judgment and clearness of reason, which is in one man above another. Locke.

The inhabitants of Tirol have many privileges above those of the other hereditary countries of the emperor. Addison.

6. Too proud for; too high for. A phrase chiefly used in familiar expression.

Kings and princes, in the earlier ages of the world, laboured in arts and occupations, and were above nothing that tended to promote the conve niences of life. Pope's Odyssey.

ABOVE. adv.

1. Overhead; in a bigher place.

To men standing below, men standing aloft seem much lessened; to those above, men standing below seem not so much lessened. Bacon.

When he established the clouds above; when he strengthened the fountains of the deep; when he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment; when he appointed the foundations of the earth; then I was by him, as one brought up with him; and I was daily his delight, rejcicing always before him.

Proverbs.

Every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is po variableness, neither shadow of turning, James

The Trojans from above their foes beheld, And with arm'd legions all the rampires fill'd.

2. In the regions of heaven.

Dryden.

Your praise the birds shall chant in every grove, And winds shall waft it to the pow'rs above. Pope's Pastorals.

3. Before. [See ABOVE-CITED.]

I said above, that these two machines of the balance, and the dira, were only ornamental, and that the success of the duel had been the same without them. Dryden. ABOVE ALL. In the first place; chiefly.

I studied Virgil's design, his disposition of it, his manners, his judicious management of the figures, the sober retrenchments of his sense, which always leaves something to gratify our imagination, on which it may enlarge at pleasure; but, above all, the elegance of his expression, and the harmony of his numbers. Dryden. ABOVE-BOARD.

[blocks in formation]

1. In open sight; without artifice or trick. A figurative expression, borrowed from gamesters, who, when they put their 3. hands under the table, are changing their cards. It is used only in familiar language.

It is the part also of an honest man to deal above-board, and without tricks. L'Estrange. 2. Without disguise or concealment.

Though there have not been wanting such heretofore, as have practised these unworthy arts, for as much as there have been villains in all places, and all ages, yet now-a-days they are owned aboveSouth's Sermons.

board.

ABOVE-CITED. Cited before. A figurative expression, taken from the ancient manner of writing books on scrolls: where whatever is cited or mentioned before, in the same page, must be above.

[ocr errors]

It appears from the authority above-cited, that this is a fact confessed by heathens themselves. Addison on the Christian Religion. ABOVE-GROUND. An expression used to signify alive; not in the grave. ABOVE-MENTIONED. See ABOVE-CITED.

I do not remember, that Homer any where falls into the faults above-mentioned, which were indeed the false refinements of latter ages. Addison's Spectator. To ABO’UND. v. n. [abundo, Lat. abonder, Fr.]

1. To have in great plenty; to be copiously stored. It is used sometimes with the particle in, and sometimes the particle with.

The king-becoming graces,

I have no relish of them, but abound
In the division of each several crime,

Acting it many ways. Shakspeare's Macbeth.

Corn, wine, and oil, are wanting to this ground, In which our countries fruitfully abound. Dryden.

A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but be that maketh haste to be rich, shall not be innocent. Proverbs.

Now that languages are made, and abound with words standing for combinations, an usual way of getting complex ideas, is by the explication of those terms that stand for them. 2. To be in great plenty.

Locke.

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of Many shall wax cold. Matthew.

Speak unto the congregation, saying, get you up from about the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Exodus. Thou dost nothing, Sergius, Thou canst endeavour nothing, nay, not think; But I both see and hear it; and am with thee, By and before, about and in thee too.

Ben Jonson's Catiline. Concerning; with regard to; relating to.

When Constantine had finished an house for the service of God at Jerusalem, the dedication he judged a matter not unworthy, about the solemn performance whereof the greatest part of the bishops in Christendom should meet together.

Hooker.

The painter is not to take so much pains about the drapery as about the face, where the principal resemblance lies. Dryden.

They are most frequently used as words equivalent, and do both of them indifferently signify either a speculative knowledge of things, or a practical skill about them, according to the exigency of the matter or thing spoken of. Tillotson.

Theft is always a sin, although the particular species of it, and the denomination of particular acts, doth suppose positive laws about dominion and property; Stilling fleet.

Children should always be heard, and fairly and kindly answered, when they ask after any thing they would know, and desire to be informed about. Curiosity should be as carefully cherished in children as other appetites suppressed.

Locke.

It hath been practised as a method of making men's court, when they are asked about the rate of lands, the abilities of tenants, the state of trade, to answer that all things are in a flourishing condition. Swift's Short View of Ireland. 4. In a state of being engaged in, or employed upon.

5.

Our blessed Lord was pleased to command the representation of his death and sacrifice on the cross should be made by breaking of bread and effusion of wine; to signify to us the nature and sacredness of the liturgy we are about. Taylor.

Labour, for labour's sake, is against nature. The understanding, as well as all the other faculties, chooses always the shortest way to its end, would presently obtain the knowledge it is about, and then set upon some new enquiry. But this, whether laziness or haste, often misleads it. Locke.

Our armies ought to be provided with secreta ries, to tell their story in plain English, and to let us know, in our mother tongue, what it is our brave countrymen are about. Addison's Spectator. Appendant to the person, as clothes. If you have this about you, And I will give you when we go, you may Boldly assault the necromancer's hall.

Milton's Comur.

It is not strange to me, that persons of the fairer sex should like, in all things about them, that handsomeness for which they find themselves most liked. Boyle on Colours.

6. Relating to the person, as a servant or dependant.

Liking very well the young gentleman, such I took him to be, admitted this Deiphantus about me, who well shewed, there is no service like his that serves because he loves. Sidney. 7. Relating to the person, as an act or office. Good corporal, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend: she hath no body to do any thing about her when I am gone, and she is old and cannot help herself, Shakspeare's Henry IV. ABOUT. adv.

1. Circularly; in a round; circum. The weyward sisters, hand in hand Posters of the sea and land,

Thus do go about, about,

Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, And thrice again to make up nine. 2. In circuit; in compass.

Shaks.

I'll tell you what I am about.---Two yards and more.---No quips now, Pistol: indeed I am in the waste two yards about; but I am about no waste, I am about thrift. Shakspeare.

A tun about was ev'ry pillar there, A polish'd mirror shone not half so clear. 3. Nearly; circiter.

nearer.

Dryd.

When the boats were come within about sixty yards of the pillar, they found themselves all bound, and could go no farther; yet so as they might move to go about, but might not approach Bacon's New Atalantis. 4. Here and there; every way; circa. Up rose the gentle virgin from her place, And looked all about, if she might spy Her lovely knight.

Fairy Queen. A wolf that was past labour, in his old age, borrows a habit, and so about he goes, begging charity from door to door, under the disguise of a pilgrim. L'Estrange. 5. With to before a verb; as, about to fly; upon the point; within a small distance of. These dying lovers, and their floating sons, Suspend the fight, and silence all our guns: Beauty and youth, about to perish, finds Such noble pity in brave English minds. Waller. 6. Round; the longest way, in opposition to the short straight way.

Gold hath these natures; greatness of weight; closeness of parts; fixation; pliantness, or softness; immunity from rust; colour, or tincture of yellow: Therefore the sure way (though most about) to make gold, is to know the causes of the several natures before rehearsed. Bacon.

Spies of the Volscians Held me in chace, that I was forced to wheel Three or four miles about; else had I, Sir, Half an hour since brought my report. Shaks. 7. To bring about, to bring to the point or state desired; as, he has brought about his purposes.

Whether this will be brought about, by breaking his head, I very much question. Spectator. 8. To come about, to come to some certain state or point. It has commonly the idea of revolution, or gyration.

Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about, after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son.

1 Sam.

9.

One evening it befel, that looking out, The wind they long had wish'd was come about, Well pleas'd they went to rest; and, if the gale Till morn continued, both resolved to sail.

Dryden's Fables.

To go about, to prepare to do it. Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me? Jobn.

In common language, they say, to come about a man, to circumvent him.

Some of these phrases seem to derive their original from the French à bout; venir à bout d'une chose; venir à bout de quelqu'un.

A. Bp. for Archbishop; which see. ABRACADABRA. A superstitious charm against agues.

To ABRA'DE. v. a. [abrado, Lat.] To rub off; to wear away from the other parts; to waste by degrees.

By this means there may be a continued supply of what is successively abraded from them by decursion of waters. Hale. ABRAHAM'S BALM. The name of an herb. ABRA'SION. n. s. n. s. [See ABRADE.] 1. The act of abrading, or rubbing off. 2. [In medicine.] The wearing away of the natural mucus, which covers the membranes, particularly those of the stomach and guts, by corrosive or sharp medicines, or humours. Quincy.

3. The matter worn off by the attrition of bodies.

ABREAST. adv. [See BREAST.] Side by
side; in such a position that the breasts
may bear against the same line.
My cousin Suffolk,

My soul shall thine keep company to heav'n:
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast. Shaks.
For honour travels in a streight so narrow,
Where one but goes abreast.

Shaks.

The riders rode abreast, and one his shield, His lance of cornel wood another held. Dryden. A'BRICOT. See APRICOT. To ABRIDGE. v. a. [abreger, Fr. abbrevio, Lat.]

1. To make shorter in words, keeping still the same substance.

All these sayings being declared by Jason of Cyrene in five books, we will essay to abridge in 2 Macc. one volume.

2. To contract; to diminish; to cut short.

The determination of the will, upon enquiry, is following the direction of that guide; and he that has a power to act or not to act, according as such determination directs, is free. Such determination abridges not that power wherein liLocke. berty consists.

3. To deprive of; to cut off from. In which sense it is followed by the particle from, or of, preceding the thing taken

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Surely this commandment containeth the law and the prophets: and, in this one word, is the abridgment of all volumes of scripture. Hooker.

Idolatry is certainly the first-born of folly, the great and leading paradox; nay, the very abridg ment and sum total of all absurdities.

2. A diminution in general.

South.

All trying, by a love of littleness, To make abridgments, and to draw to less Even that nothing, which at first we were. Donne. 3. Contraction; reduction.

The constant desire of happiness, and the constraint it puts upon us, no body, I think, accounts an abridgment of liberty, or at least an abridgment Locke. of liberty to be complained of. 4. Restraint from any thing pleasing; contraction of any thing enjoyed.

It is not barely a man's abridgment in his external accommodations which makes him miserable, but when his conscience shall tell him that it was his sin and his folly which brought him under that abridgment. South.

ABROACH. adv. [See To BROACH.] 1. In a posture to run out, or yield the liquor contained: properly spoken of vessels.

The jarrs of gen'rous wine

He set abroach, and for the feast prepar'd. Dryd The Templer spruce, while ev'ry spout's abroach, Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach.

Swift's Miscel

2. In a figurative sense: in a state to be diffused or extended; in a state of such beginning as promises a progress.

That man, that sits within a monarch's heart, And ripens in the sunshine of his favour, Would he abuse the count'nance of the king, Alack! what mischiefs might be set abroach, In shadow of such greatness? ABROAD. adv. [compounded of a and broad. See BROAD.]

Shakspeare.

[blocks in formation]

They thought it better to be somewhat hardly yoked at home, than for ever abroad, and discredited. Hooker. Whosoever offers at verbal translation, shall have the misfortune of that young traveller, who lost his own languare abroad, and brought home no other instead of it. Sir J. Denham. What learn our youth abroad, but to refine The homely vices of their native land? Dryden. He who sojourns in a foreign country, refers what he secs and hears abroad, to the state of things at home. Atterbury's Sermons.

4. In all directions; this way and that; with wide expansion.

Full in the midst of this infernal road, An elm displays her dusky arms abroad. Dryden. 5. Without; not within.

Bodies politick being subject, as much as natural, to dissolution by divers means, there are undoubtedly more states overthrown through diseases bred within themselves, than through violence from abroad. Hooker.

To ABROGATE. v. a. [abrogo, Lat.j To take away from a law its force; to repeal; to annul.

Laws have been made upon special occasions, which occasions ceasing, laws of that kind do abroHooker. gate themselves.

The negative precepts of men may cease by many instruments, by contrary customs, by public disrelish, by long omission: but the negative precepts of God never can cease, but when they are expressly abrogated by the same authority. Taylor's Holy Living. ABROGA'TION. n. s. [abrogatio, Lat.] The act of abrogating; the repeal of a law. The commissioners from the confederate Ro man catholics demanded the abrogation and repeal of all those laws, which were in force against the Clarenden. exercise of the Roman religion.

To ABROOK. v. a. [from To brook, with a superabundant: : a word not in use.] To brook; to bear; to endure.

Sweet Nell, ill can thy noble mind abrook The abject people gazing on thy face With envious looks, still laughing at thy shame. Shakspeare's Henry VI. ABRUPT. adj. [abruptus, Lat. broken off.] 1. Broken; craggy.

Resistless, roaring, dreadful, down it comes From the rude mountain, and the mossy wild, Tumbling through rocks abrupt. Thomson's Win. 2. Divided; without any thing intervening. Or spread his aery Hight,

Uphorn with indefatigable wings,

Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive
The happy isle.

Milton's Paradise Lost.

3. Sudden; without the customary or proper preparatives.

My lady craves

To know the cause of your abrupt departure.

Shakspeare.

The abrupt and unkind breaking off the two first parliaments, was wholly imputed to the duke of Buckingham. Clarendon,

Abrupt, with cagle-speed she cut the sky; Instant invisible to mortal eye.

Then first he recogniz'd th' ethereal guest. Pope, 4. Unconnected.

The abrupt stile, which hath many breaches, and doth not seem to end but fall. Ben Jonson

ABRUPTED. adj. [abruptus, Latin: a word little in use.] Broken off suddenly. The effects of their activity are not precipitously abrupted, but gradually proceed to their Brown's Vulgar Errours. ABRUPTION. n. s. [abruptio, Lat.] Breaking off; violent and sudden separation.

cessations.

These which are inclosed in stone, marble, or such other solid matter, being difficultly separable from it, because of its adhesion to all sides of them, have commonly some of that matter still adhering to them, or at least marks of its abruption from them, on all their sides. Woodward. ABRUPTLY. adv. [See ABRUPT.] Hastily; without the due forms of preparation. The sweetness of virtue's disposition, jealous even over itself, suffered her not to enter abruptly into questions of Musidorus. Sidney. Now missing from their joy so lately found, So lately found, and so abruptly gone. Par. Reg. They both of them purctually observed the time thus agreed upon, and that in whatever company or business they were engaged, they left it abruptly, as soon as the clock warned them to. Addison's Spectator. ABRUPTNESS. n. s. [from abrupt.] 1. An abrupt manner; haste; suddenness; untimely vehemence.

retire.

2. The state of an abrupt or broken thing roughness; craggedness, as of a fragment violently disjoined.

The crystallized bodies found in the perpendicular intervals, have always their root, as the jewellers call it, which is only the abruptness at the end of the body whereby it adhered to the stone, or sides of the intervals; which abruptness is caused by its being broke off from the said Woodward's Nat. Hist. A'BSCESS. n. s. [abscessus, Lat.] A morbid cavity in the body; a tumour filled with matter: a term of chirurgery.

stone.

If the patient is not relieved, nor dies in eight days, the inflammation ends in a suppuration and an abess in the lungs, and sometimes in some other part of the body. Arbuthnot on Diet. Liatant's conjectured it might be some hidden abscess in the mesentery, which, breaking some few days after, was diccovered to be an apostem of the mesentery. Harvey on Consumptions. To ABSCIND. v. a To cut off; either in a natural or figurative sense. ABSCI'SSA. [Lat.] Part of the diameter of a conic section, intercepted between the vertex and a semierdinate. ABSCI'SSION. n. s. [abscissio, Lat.]

1. The act of cutting off.

Fabricius ab Aquapendente renders the abscissia of them difficult enough, and not without danger. Wiseman's Surgery.

2. The state of being cut off.

By cessation of oracles, with Montacutius, we may understand this intercision, not abscission, or consummate desolation. Brown's Vulg. Er. To ABSCOND. v. n. [abscondo, Lat ] To hide one's self; to retire from the public view generally used of persons in debt, or criminals eluding the law.

The marmotte, or mus alpinus, which absconds all winter, lives on its own fat: for in autumn, when it shuts itself up in its hole, it is very fat;

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

2. Want of appearance: in a legal sense.

3.

Absence is of a fourfold kind or species. The first is a necessary absence, as in banished persons; this is entirely necessary. A second, necessary and voluntary; as upon the account of the common wealth, or in the service of the church. The third kind the civilians call a probable absence; as, that of students on the score of study. And the fourth, an absence entirely voluntary; as, on the account of trade, merchandise, and the like. Some add a fifth kind of absence, which is committed cum dolo & culpa, by a man's non-appearance on a citation; as, in a contumacious person, who, in hatred to his contumacy, is, by the law, in some respects reputed as a person preAyliffe's Parergen Juris Canon. Inattention; heedlessness; neglect of the present object.

sent.

I continued my walk, reflecting on the little absences and distractions of mankind. Spectator.

4. It is used with the particle from.

His absence from his mother oft he'll mourn, And, with his eyes, look wishes to return. Dryd. A'BSENT. adj. [absens, Lat]

1. Not present: used with the particle from.
In spring the fields, in autumn hills I love;
At morn the plains, at noon the shady grove;
But Delia always: absent from her sight,
Nor plains at morn, nor groves at noon delight.
Pope's Past.
Where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt;
And none serve with him but constrained things,
Whose hearts are absent too.
Shakspeart.
Whether they were absent or present, they
were vexed alike.
Wisdom.

2. Absent in mind; inattentive; regardless of the present object.

I distinguish a man that is absent because he thinks of something else, from him that is absent because he thinks of nothing. Addison.

To ABSENT. v. a. To withdraw; to forbear to come into presence.

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity a while,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my tale.

[ocr errors]

Shakspeare's Hamlet.

Go---for thy stay, not free, absents thee more. Milton's Paradise Lost.

Tho' I am forc'd thus to absent myself From all I love, I shall contrive some means, Some friendly intervals, to visit thee.

Southern's Spartan Dame.

« PreviousContinue »