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erset, etc.] "The vaulter's sombersalts." Donne. Now I'll only Make him break his neck in doing a sommerset. Beau. & Fl.

Moving with a quick, lively pace, or capable of so doing; dashing. Four spanking grays ready harnessed. G. Colman, the Younger.

stalks of the raspberry, strawberry, tomato, asters, and many other garden plants, often doing much injury.

a very small dark gray moth whose larvæ burrow both in the larger roots and crown, often doing great damage. (b) The crown borer (Tyloderma fragariæ), a small brown weevil whose larva burrows in the crown and kills the plant. -- Strawberry bush (Bot.), an American shrub (Euonymus Americanus), a kind of spindle tree h…

Overofficious; doing more than is required or desired. "A superserviceable, finical rogue." Shak.

One who forms or divides words into syllables, or is skilled in doing this.

eculiar skill or faculty; nice perception or discernment; ready power of appreciating and doing what is required by circumstances. He had formed plans not inferior in grandeur and boldness to those of Richelieu, and had carried them into effect with a tact and wariness worthy of Mazarin. Macaulay. A tact which surpasse…

Slavery; bondage; servitude; thraldom. Tennyson. He still in thrall Of all-subdoing sleep. Chapman.

sila, quinquemaculata) which feeds upon the leaves of the tomato and potato plants, often doing considerable damage. Called also potato worm.

The doing or performing of any business; management of any affair; performance.

to undo a riddle. Tennyson. Pray you, undo this button. Shak. She took the spindle, and undoing the thread gradually, measured it. Sir W. Scott.

To loose by undoing a lacing; as, to unlace a shoe.

Doing or done without sight; not seeing or examining. [Colloq.] Unsight unseen, a colloquial phrase, denoting unseeing unseen, or unseen repeated; as, to buy a thing unsight unseen, that is, without seeing it. For to subscribe, unsight, unseen, To a new church discipline. Hudibras. There was a great confluence of chapm…

per ran among the country people, that Sir Roger was up. Addison. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate. Longfellow.

To aid by approval or encouragement; to countenance; as, to uphold a person in wrongdoing.

The state of a villain, or serf; base servitude; tenure on condition of doing the meanest services for the lord. [In this sense written also villenage, and villeinage.] I speak even now as if sin were condemned in a perpetual villanage, never to be manumitted. Milton. Some faint traces of villanage were detected by the…

Extremely poisonous or venomous; very active in doing injury. A contagious disorder rendered more virulent by uncleanness. Sir W. Scott.

y the property by which it is given. -- Vis mortua Etym: [L.] (Mech.), dead force; force doing no active work, but only producing pressure. -- Vis vitæ, or Vis vitalis Etym: [L.] (Physiol.), vital force. -- Vis viva Etym: [L.] (Mech.), living force; the force of a body moving against resistance, or doing work, in di…

That which warrants or authorizes; a commission giving authority, or justifying the doing of anything; an act, instrument, or obligation, by which one person authorizes another to do something which he has not otherwise a right to do; an act or instrument investing one with a right or authority, and thus securing him f…

to waver; to be in an unsettled state; to vacillate. [Obs.] He waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm. Shak.