Search the Dictionary

a worm or reptile; to move as a child on the hands and knees; to crawl. Ye that walk The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep. Milton.

Easily crumbled; friable; brittle. [R.] Now the fowler . . . treads the crimp earth. J. Philips.

Any piece of crockery, especially of coarse earthenware; an earthen pot or pitcher. Like foolish flies about an honey crock. Spenser.

Earthenware; vessels formed of baked clay, especially the coarser kinds.

grain or fruit, or in a single season; especially, the product of what is planted in the earth; fruit; harvest. Lab'ring the soil, and reaping plenteous crop, Corn, wine, and oil. Milton.

Causing, or fitted to cause, pain, grief, or misery. Cruel wars, wasting the earth. Milton. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath for it was cruel. Gen. xlix. 7.

incumbent weight. To crush the pillars which the pile sustain. Dryden. Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again. Bryant.

The exterior portion of the earth, formerly universally supposed to inclose a molten interior.

agricultural implement used in the tillage of growing crops, to loosen the surface of the earth and kill the weeds; esp., a triangular frame set with small shares, drawn by a horse and by handles.

The act or practice of cultivating, or of preparing the earth for seed and raising crops by tillage; as, the culture of the soil.

To furnish wich a curb, as a well; also, to restrain by a curb, as a bank of earth.

Shortened or reduced; -- said of the distance of a planet from the sun or earth, as measured in the plane of the ecliptic, or the distance from the sun or earth to that point where a perpendicular, let fall from the planet upon the plane of the ecliptic, meets the ecliptic. Curtate cycloid. (Math.) See Cycloid.…

d fruit trees and eat off the flower buds. During the day, they conceal themselves in the earth. The common cutworms are the larvæ of various species of Agrotis and related genera of noctuid moths.

d in our dædalian arms. Chapman. The dædal hand of Nature. J. Philips. The doth the dædal earth throw forth to thee, Out of her fruitful, abundant flowers. Spenser.

A barrier to prevent the flow of a liquid; esp., a bank of earth, or wall of any kind, as of masonry or wood, built across a water course, to confine and keep back flowing water.

e of light; to obscure; as, a darkened room. They [locusts] covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened. Ex. x. 15. So spake the Sovran Voice; and clouds began To darken all the hill. Milton.

The hypothetical line on the surface of the earth fixed by international or general agreement as a boundary on one side of which the same day shall have a different name and date in the calendar from its name and date on the other side.

The period of the earth's revolution on its axis. -- ordinarily divided into twenty-four hours. It is measured by the interval between two successive transits of a celestial body over the same meridian, and takes a specific name from that of the body. Thus, if this is the sun, the day (the interval between two success…

to confuse the sight of by brilliance of light. Those heavenly shapes Will dazzle now the earthly, with their blaze Insufferably bright. Milton. An unreflected light did never yet Dazzle the vision feminine. Sir H. Taylor.

Marked by scarcity or dearth, and exorbitance of price; as, a dear year.