Search the Dictionary

To stand in doubt whether to proceed, or what to do; to h How long halt ye between two opinions 1 Kings xviii. 21

rence or taking place; chance; fortune; accident; casual event; fate; luck; lot. Chaucer. Whether art it was or heedless hap. Spenser. Cursed be good haps, and cursed be they that build Their hopes on haps. Sir P. Sidney. Loving goes by haps: Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. Shak.

d as a means of giving public notification of the death of the deceased, his or her rank, whether married, widower, widow, etc. Called also achievement. His obscure funeral; No trophy, sword, or hatchment o'er his bones. Shak.

Holing a ball, whether the object ball (winning hazard) or the player's ball (losing hazard).

head; a headtire. Among birds the males very often appear in a most beautiful headdress, whether it be a crest, a comb, a tuft of feathers, or a natural little plume. Addison.

Without health, whether of body or mind; in firm. "A healthless or old age." Jer. Taylor.

Vigorous and efficient activity; power of fertile production; condition of the soil, whether good or bad. That the spent earth may gather heart again. Dryden.

ood. -- Heat rays, a term formerly applied to the rays near the red end of the spectrum, whether within or beyond the visible spectrum. -- Heat weight (Mech.), the product of any quantity of heat by the mechanical equivalent of heat divided by the absolute temperature; -- called also thermodynamic function, and entro…

matter in these sighs, these profound heaves, You must translate. Shak. None could guess whether the next heave of the earthquake would settle . . . or swallow them. Dryden.

Having one of the two florets in the same spikelet neuter, and the other unisexual, whether male or female; -- said of grasses.

ision or action; to be in suspense or uncertainty as to a determination; as, he hesitated whether to accept the offer or not; men often hesitate in forming a judgment. Pope.

Elevated in character or quality, whether moral or intellectual; preëminent; honorable; as, high aims, or motives. "The highest faculty of the soul." Baxter.

The act of holding, as in or with the hands or arms; the manner of holding, whether firm or loose; seizure; grasp; clasp; gripe; possession; -- often used with the verbs take and lay. Ne have I not twelve pence within mine hold. Chaucer. Thou should'st lay hold upon him. B. Jonson. My soul took hold on thee. Addison. T…

Flat; even; -- a term applied to surfaces and to spaces, whether real or imagined, in which the definitions, axioms, and postulates of Euclid respecting parallel straight lines are assumed to hold true.

One who receives or entertains another, whether gratuitosly or for compensation; one from whom another receives food, lodging, or entertainment; a landlord. Chaucer. "Fair host and Earl." Tennyson. Time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand. Shak.

t of breaking open and entering, with a felonious purpose, the dwelling house of another, whether done by day or night. See Burglary, and To break a house, under Break.

In whetever manner, way, or degree. However yet they me despise and spite. Spenser. Howe'er the business goes, you have made fault. Shak.

State of mind, whether habitual or temporary (as formerly supposed to depend on the character or combination of the fluids of the body); disposition; temper; mood; as, good humor; ill humor. Examine how your humor is inclined, And which the ruling passion of your mind. Roscommon. A prince of a pleasant humor. Bacon. I…

, as usually limited, which treats of the laws of motion and action of nonelastic fluids, whether as investigated mathematically, or by observation and experiment; the principles of dynamics, as applied to water and other fluids.

An instrument which shows whether there is more or less moisture in the atmosphere, without indicating its amount.