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f soil; an earthy mixture of clay and sand, with organic matter to which its fertility is chiefly due. We wash a wall of loam; we labor in vain. Hooker.

Long duration of life; length of life. The instances of longevity are chiefly amongst the abstemious. Arbuthnot.

hemselves to the cause of education and the care of destitute orphans, their labors being chiefly confined to the Western United States.

; as, a sorry lot; a bad lot. I, this winter, met with a very large lot of English heads, chiefly of the reign of James I. Walpole.

Courtship; -- chiefly in the phrase to make love, i. e., to court, to woo, to solicit union in marriage. Demetrius . . . Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena, And won her soul. Shak.

To please; -- chiefly used impersonally. [Obs.] " Sith it lyketh you." Chaucer.

A verse of the kind usually employed in lyric poetry; -- used chiefly in the plural. 4. pl.

Long slender tubes made of a paste chiefly of wheat flour, and used as an article of food; Italian or Genoese paste.

A small cake, composed chiefly of the white of eggs, almonds, and sugar.

riodically containing miscellaneous papers or compositions. Magazine dress, clothing made chiefly of woolen, without anything metallic about it, to be worn in a powder magazine. -- Magazine gun, a portable firearm, as a rifle, with a chamber carrying cartridges which are brought automatically into position for firing.…

A celebrated epic poem of the Hindoos. It is of great length, and is chiefly devoted to the history of a civil war between two dynasties of ancient India.

Principally; chiefly.

of malt, or of the grain used in making malt; -used as a fertilizer. " Malt dust consists chiefly of the infant radicle separated from the grain." Sir H. Davy. -- Malt floor, a floor for drying malt. -- Malt house, or Malthouse, a house in which malt is made. -- Malt kiln, a heated chamber for drying malt.…

Employed, or chiefly employed, in manufacture; as, a manufacturing community; a manufacturing town.

territorial border or frontier; a region adjacent to a boundary line; a confine; -- used chiefly in the plural, and in English history applied especially to the border land on the frontiers between England and Scotland, and England and Wales. Geneva is situated in the marches of several dominions -- France, Savoy, and…

.), any species of small American wrens of the genus Cistothorus, and allied genera. They chiefly inhabit salt marshes.

A golf club like the iron, but with a shorter head, slightly more lofted, used chiefly for short approaches.

Furnished with a mast or masts; -- chiefly in composition; as, a three-masted schooner.

A mowing, or that which is gathered by mowing; -- chiefly used in composition; as, an aftermath. [Obs.] The first mowing thereof, for the king's use, is wont to be sooner than the common math. Bp. Hall.

Affair worthy of account; thing of consequence; importance; significance; moment; -- chiefly in the phrases what matter no matter, and the like. A prophet some, and some a poet, cry; No matter which, so neither of them lie. Dryden.