Search the Dictionary

Fig.: To be noise about; to chafe against. The sea that chides the banks of England. Shak. To chide hither, chide from, or chide away, to cause to come, or to drive away, by scolding or reproof.

To vary or shift suddenly; as, the wind chops about.

The jaws; also, the fleshy parts about the mouth.

e birth of Christ. It is supposed that owing to an error of a monk (Dionysius Exiguus, d. about 556) employed to calculate the era, its commencement was fixed three or four years too late, so that 1890 should be 1893 or 1894. -- Christian name, the name given in baptism, as distinct from the family name, or surname.…

the birth of Christ. The era as now established was first used by Dionysius Exiguus (died about 540), who placed the birth of Christ on the 25th of December in the year of Rome 754, which year he counted as 1 a. d. This date for Christ's birth is now generally thought to be about four years too late.…

ciples of this nature advocated by F. D. Maurice, Charles Kingsley, and others in England about 1850. -- Christian socialist.

Making Christ the center, about whom all things are grouped, as in religion or history; tending toward Christ, as the central object of thought or emotion. J. W. Chadwick.

A sedgelike plant (Cyperus esculentus) producing edible tubers, native about the Mediterranean, now cultivated in many regions; the earth almond.

An insect that turns about nimbly; the mole cricket; -- called also fan cricket. Johnson.

e curiosities of a place; a guide. Every glib and loquacious hireling who shows strangers about their picture galleries, palaces, and ruins, is termed by them [the Italians] a cicerone, or a Cicero. Trench.

A professed admirer of a married woman; a dangler about women.

A company assembled, or conceived to assemble, about a central point of interest, or bound by a common tie; a class or division of society; a coterie; a set. As his name gradually became known, the circle of his acquaintance widened. Macaulay.

necessary to attain the object in view. -- To make a circuit, to go around; to go a roundabout way. -- Voltaic or Galvanic circuit or circle, a continous electrical communication between the two poles of a battery; an arrangement of voltaic elements or couples with proper conductors, by which a continuous current of…

Going round in a circuit; roundabout; indirect; as, a circuitous road; a circuitous manner of accompalishing an end. -- Cir*cu"i*tous*ly, adv. -- Cir*cu"i*tous*ness, n.

A going round in a circle; a course not direct; a roundabout way of proceeding.

A Latin preposition, used as a prefix in many English words, and signifying around or about.

A roundabout or indirect course; indirectness. [Obs.] S. Richardson.

To walk round about. -- Cir`cum*am`bu*la"tion, n.

A roundabout or indirect way. [Jocular] Goldsmith.

The act of running about; also, rambling language. [Obs.] Barrow.