Search the Dictionary

A medicine, the ingredients of which are kept secret for the purpose of restricting the profits of sale to the inventor or proprietor; a quack medicine.

Brown as a nut long kept and dried. "The spicy nutbrown ale." Milton.

or service of attention; a form; a practice; a rite; a custom. At dances These young folk kept their observances. Chaucer. Use all the observance of civility. Shak. Some represent to themselves the whole of religion as consisting in a few easy observances. Rogers. O I that wasted time to tend upon her, To compass her w…

Kept in stock by apothecaries; -- said of such drugs and medicines as may be obtained without special preparation or compounding; not magistral.

Aloft; above ground. [Obs.] She kept her father's life onloft. Chaucer.

An apartment or closet in which bread and other provisions are kept.

l fresh-water Asiatic fish (Macropodus viridiauratus) having very large fins. It is often kept alive as an ornamental fish. -- Paradise flycatcher (Zoöl.), any flycatcher of the genus Terpsiphone, having the middle tail feathers extremely elongated. The adult male of T. paradisi is white, with the head glossy dark gre…

A tract of ground kept in its natural state, about or adjacent to a residence, as for the preservation of game, for walking, riding, or the like. Chaucer. While in the park I sing, the listening deer Attend my passion, and forget to fear. Waller.

ith a curious tuft of long, curly, white feathers on each side of the throat. It is often kept as a cage bird.

eparate or not; a piece; a fragment; a fraction; a division; a member; a constituent. And kept back part of the price, . . . and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles'feet. Acts v. 2. Our ideas of extension and number -- do they not contain a secret relation of the parts Locke. I am a part of all that I ha…

milies of soldiers killed in service, or to meritorious authors, or the like. To all that kept the city pensions and wages. 1 Esd. iv. 56.

A place where swine are kept.

Eyeglasses kept on the nose by a spring.

nd in the tomb of the Emperor Alexander Severus. It is owned by the Duke of Portland, and kept in the British Museum.

or way over which the mail is carried. -- Post town. (a) A town in which post horses are kept. (b) A town in which a post office is established by law. -- To ride post, to ride, as a carrier of dispatches, from place to place; hence, to ride rapidly, with as little delay as possible. -- To travel post, to travel, as…

The act or process of preserving, or keeping safe; the state of being preserved, or kept from injury, destruction, or decay; security; safety; as, preservation of life, fruit, game, etc.; a picture in good preservation. Give us particulars of thy preservation. Shak.

That which is preserved; fruit, etc., seasoned and kept by suitable preparation; esp., fruit cooked with sugar; -- commonly in the plural.

e practice prevails this day. This custom makes the short-sighted bigots, and the warier skeptics, as far as it prevails. Locke.

e like that of an ordinary boat. The ends are alike. The canoe is long and narrow, and is kept from overturning by a cigar-shaped log attached to a frame extending several feet to windward. It has been called the flying proa, and is the swiftest sailing craft known.

ommonalty; hence, mean; vile; vulgar. "Every citizen, if he were not a proletarian animal kept at the public cost." De Quincey. -- n.