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ned over the head. Bacon. Fools climbs to fall: fond hopes, like seeled doves for want of better light, mount till they end their flight with falling. J. Reading.

r sleeping, without being sensible of it. Locke. They are now sensible it would have been better to comply than to refuse. Addison.

ervant, or Your obedient servant, phrases of civility often used in closing a letter. Our betters tell us they are our humble servants, but understand us to be their slaves. Swift.

Dress for disguise; guise. [Obs.] Look better on this virgin, and consider This Persian shape laid by, and she appearing In a Greekish dress. Messinger.

e indirect or evasive methods. All those schoolmen, though they were exceeding witty, yet better teach all their followers to shift, than to resolve by their distinctions. Sir W. Raleigh.

A broad, triangular piece of plank placed upon the fluke to give it a better hold in soft ground. -- Shoe block (Naut.), a block with two sheaves, one above the other, and at right angles to each other. -- Shoe bolt, a bolt with a flaring head, for fastening shoes on sleigh runners. -- Shoe pac, a kind of moccasin.…

ischarge a missile; -- said of a person or an agent; as, they shot at a target; he shoots better than he rides. The archers have . . . shot at him. Gen. xlix. 23.

pearance, as well or ill, fit or unfit; to become or suit; to appear. My lord of York, it better showed with you. Shak. To show off, to make a show; to display one's self.

de. When the scene of life is shut up, the slave will be above his master if he has acted better. Collier.

ined to familiar approach. What makes you so shy, my good friend There's nobody loves you better than I. Arbuthnot. The embarrassed look of shy distress And maidenly shamefacedness. Wordsworth.

y or dissimulation; as, a sincere friend; a sincere person. The more sincere you are, the better it will fare with you at the great day of account. Waterland.

lergy. Nares. Instead of a faithful and painful teacher, they hire a Sir John, which hath better skill in playing at tables, or in keeping of a garden, than in God's word. Latimer.

The wheather; the climate. Thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Shak.

Smooth, even passage or progress. A better slide into their business. Bacon.

A vulgar person who affects to be better, richer, or more fashionable, than he really is; a vulgar upstart; one who apes his superiors. Thackeray. Essentially vulgar, a snob. -- a gilded snob, but none the less a snob. R. G. White.

not for truth or morality, and merely professed to teach how to make the worse appear the better reason; but there scems no reason to hold that they were a special class, teaching special opinions; even Socrates and Plato were sometimes styled Sophists. Liddell & Scott.

A shoemaker; a cobbler. [Obs.] Chaucer. There is no work better than another to please God: . . . to wash dishes, to be a souter, or an apostle, -- all is one. Tyndale.

angry Jove did never spare One breath of kind and temperate air. Roscommon. I could have better spared a better man. Shak. To spare one's self. (a) To act with reserve. [Obs.] Her thought that a lady should her spare. Chaucer.

r style in speaking; -- often in composition; as, a pleasant-spoken man. Methinks you 're better spoken. Shak.

Fat; thick; plump; bulky. Nor the squab daughter nor the wife were nice. Betterton.