Search the Dictionary

Having the appearance of that which is seen in pictures by Antoine Watteau, a French painter of the eighteenth century; --said esp. of women's garments; as, a Watteau bodice.

The back of a woman's gown in which one or more very broad folds are carried from the neck to the floor without being held in at the waist, while the front and sides of the gown are shaped to the person and have a belt or its equivalent.

A small European singing bird (Saxicola oenanthe). The male is white beneath, bluish gray above, with black wings and a black stripe through each eye. The tail is black at the tip and in the middle, but white at the base and on each side. Called also checkbird, chickell, dykehopper, fallow chat, fallow finch, stonechat…

A primer for teaching the alphabet and first elements of reading. [Obs.]

Stealing cattle on a large scale. [Obs.]

One who steals and drives away cattle or beasts by herds or droves. [Obs.]

One engaged in teaching the alphabet. Wood.

an insurrection. "The whole tribe abets the villany." South. Would not the fool abet the stealth, Who rashly thus exposed his wealth Gay.

here the heart is forestalled with misopinion, ablative directions are found needful to unteach error, ere we can learn truth. Bp. Hall.

To tear off or asunder. [Obs.] "Till death abrupts them." Sir T. Browne.

To depart clandestinely; to steal off and secrete one's self; -- used especially of persons who withdraw to avoid a legal process; as, an absconding debtor. That very homesickness which, in regular armies, drives so many recruits to abscond. Macaulay.

To suck up; to drink in; to imbibe; as a sponge or as the lacteals of the body. Bacon.

e the result of abstraction and generalization, and consequently to all general names, instead of confining it to the names of attributes. J. S. Mill.

es are Australian or Polynesian, and have terete or vertically compressed leaf stalks, instead of the bipinnate leaves of the much fewer species of America, Africa, etc. Very few are found in temperate climates.

A group of teleostean fishes having spiny fins. See Acanthopterygii.

To show the correspondence of; to apply or make suit by analogy; to adapt or fit, as teachings to accidental circumstances, statements to facts, etc.; as, to accommodate prophecy to events.

s; as, the value of testimony depends on its accuracy. The professed end [of logic] is to teach men to think, to judge, and to reason, with precision and accuracy. Reid. The accuracy with which the piston fits the sides. Lardner.

Having the style spring from the base, instead of from the apex, as is the case in certain ovaries.

The science of sounds, teaching their nature, phenomena, and laws. Acoustics, then, or the science of sound, is a very considerable branch of physics. Sir J. Herschel.

Communicated orally; oral; -- applied to the esoteric teachings of Aristotle, those intended for his genuine disciples, in distinction from his exoteric doctrines, which were adapted to outsiders or the public generally. Hence: Abstruse; profound.