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A child's mane for a doll. Dolly shop, a shop where rags, old junk, etc., are bought and sold; usually, in fact, an unlicensed pawnbroker's shop, formerly distinguished by the sign of a black doll. [England]

nything small and like a speck comparatively; a small portion or specimen; as, a dot of a child.

Feebleness or imbecility of understanding or mind, particularly in old age; the childishness of old age; senility; as, a venerable man, now in his dotage. Capable of distinguishing between the infancy and the dotage of Greek literature. Macaulay.

One whose mind is impaired by age; one in second childhood. The sickly dotard wants a wife. Prior.

ove to excess; to be weakly affectionate; -- with on or upon; as, the mother dotes on her child. Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote. Shak. What dust we dote on, when 't is man we love. Pope.

Free from fear or suspicion. [Obs.] Pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure. Shak.

time of retiring to rest; time of repose. Cavendish. At the downlying, at the travail in childbirth. [Scot.]

To slaver, as a child or an idiot; to drivel.

To slaver; to let spittle drop or flow from the mouth, like a child, idiot, or dotard.

To drivel, or drop saliva; as, the child drools. His mouth drooling with texts. T. Parker.

; inebriety; -- used of the casual state or the habit. The Lacedemonians trained up their children to hate drunkenness by bringing a drunken man into their company. I. Watts.

A nurse who attends and feeds a child by hand; -- in distinction from a wet nurse, who suckles it.

One backward in book learning; a child or other person dull or weak in intellect; a dullard; a dolt. I never knew this town without dunces of figure. Swift.

To bring as, to educate a child; to educate the eye or the taste.

To make womanish; to make soft and delicate; to weaken. It will not corrupt or effeminate children's minds. Locke.

died in infancy; -- opposed to Ant: younger, and now commonly applied to a son, daughter, child, brother, etc. The elder shall serve the younger. Gen. xxv. 23. But ask of elder days, earth's vernal hour. Keble. Elder hand (Card Playing), the hand playing, or having the right to play, first. Hoyle.

ndship. Johnson. A trait of native elegance, seldom seen in the masculine character after childhood or early youth, was shown in the General's fondness for the sight and fragrance of flowers. Hawthorne.

erly attributed them to fairies; -- called also elf bolt, elf dart, and elf shot. -- Elf child, a child supposed to be left by elves, in room of one they had stolen. See Changeling. -- Elf fire, the ignis fatuus. Brewer. -- Elf owl (Zoöl.), a small owl (Micrathene Whitneyi) of Southern California and Arizona.…

to liberate; as: (a) To set free, as a minor from a parent; as, a father may emancipate a child. (b) To set free from bondage; to give freedom to; to manumit; as, to emancipate a slave, or a country. Brasidas . . . declaring that he was sent to emancipate Hellas. Jowett (Thucyd. ).

ural of many nouns, as in ashen, eyen, oxen, all obs. except oxen. In some cases, such as children and brethren, it has been added to older plural forms.