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A surface of ice or snow on which children slide for amusement.

To express amusement, pleasure, moderate joy, or love and kindness, by the features of the face; to laugh silently. He doth nothing but frown . . . He hears merry tales and smiles not. Shak. She led to see the doughty hero slain. Pope. When last I saw thy young blue eyes, they smiled. Byron.

ranslation of F. vers de société], the lightest kind of lyrical poetry; verses for the amusement of polite society.

ifically in attack or defense; to contend or combat with the fists, as for exercise or amusement; to box. Made believe to spar at Paul with great science. Dickens.

The male fecundating fluid; semen. See Semen. Sperm cell (Physiol.), one of the cells from which the spermatozoids are developed. -- Sperm morula. (Biol.) Same as Spermosphere.

Of or pertaining to semen; as, the spermatic fluid, the spermatic vessels, etc. Spermatic cord (Anat.), the cord which suspends the testicle within the scrotum. It is made up of a connective tissue sheath inclosing the spermatic duct and accompanying vessels and nerves.

A substance allied to alkali albumin and to mucin, present in semen, to which it is said to impart the mucilaginous character.

The emission of sperm, or semen.

Combining forms from Gr. seed, sperm, semen (of plants or animals); as, spermatoblast, spermoblast.

Spermlike; resembling sperm, or semen.

Abnormally frequent involuntary emission of the semen without copulation.

Of or pertaining to sperm, or semen.

A believer in the doctrine, formerly current, of encasement in the male (see Encasement), in which the seminal thread, or spermatozoid, was considered as the real animal germ, the head being the true animal head and the tail the body.

That which diverts, and makes mirth; pastime; amusement. It is as sport a fool do mischief. prov. x. 23. Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge upon the stream of delight. Sir P. Sidney. Think it but a minute spent in sport. Shak.

in the singular only. "I a winding stair found." Chaucer's Dream. Below stairs, in the basement or lower part of a house, where the servants are. -- Flight of stairs, the stairs which make the whole ascent of a story. -- Pair of stairs, a set or flight of stairs. -- pair, in this phrase, having its old meaning of a…

To help; to support; to benefit; to assist. Perhaps my succour or advisement meet, Mote stead you much your purpose to subdue. Spenser. It nothing steads us To chide him from our eaves. Shak.

olored flowers; hardhack. -- Steeple chase, a race across country between a number of horsemen, to see which can first reach some distant object, as a church steeple; hence, a race over a prescribed course obstructed by such obstacles as one meets in riding across country, as hedges, walls, etc. -- Steeple chaser, on…

The lower part or basement of a building or pedestal; -- used loosely for several different forms of basement.

train. Because heretics have a strain of madness, he applied her with some corporal chastisements. Hayward.

ding; the foundation, or any preliminary structure intended to raise the lower floor or basement of a building above the natural level of the ground. It is a magnificent strong building, with a substruction very remarkable. Evelyn.