Search the Dictionary

Originally, a small prayer book for church service, containing the little office of the Virgin Mary; also, a work of elementary religious instruction. The primer, or office of the Blessed Virgin. Bp. Stillingfleet.

In a primeval manner; in or from the earliest times; originally. Darwin.

Originally; at first.

Originally or earliest formed in the growth of an individual or organ; as, a primordial leaf; a primordial cell. Primordial utricle (Bot.), the interior lining of a young vegetable cell.

At the beginning; under the first order of things; originally.

of highest rank; one holding the highest place and authority; a sovereign; a monarch; -- originally applied to either sex, but now rarely applied to a female. Wyclif (Rev. i. 5). Go, Michael, of celestial armies prince. Milton. Queen Elizabeth, a prince admirable above her sex. Camden.

A body now known as alkali albumin, but originally considered to be the basis of all albuminous substances, whence its name. Protein crystal. (Bot.) See Crystalloid, n., 2.

One who protests; -- originally applied to those who adhered to Luther, and protested against, or made a solemn declaration of dissent from, a decree of the Emperor Charles V. and the Diet of Spires, in 1529, against the Reformers, and appealed to a general council; -- now used in a popular sense to designate any Chris…

A punch; a buffoon; originally, in a puppet show, a character represented as fat, short, and humpbacked. Spectator.

A kind of plain sleigh drawn by one horse; originally, a rude oblong box on runners. [U.S.] Sledges or pungs, coarsely framed of split saplings, and surmounted with a large crockery crate. Judd. They did not take out the pungs to-day. E. E. Hale.

sages, and advocated simpler forms of faith and worship than those established by law; -- originally, a term of reproach. The Puritans formed the bulk of the early population of New England.

Originally, the ground near a royal forest, which, having been unlawfully added to the forest, was afterwards severed from it, and disafforested so as to remit to the former owners their rights. Then as a tiger, who by chance hath spied In some purlieu two gentle fawns at play. Milton.

ye have leave. Chaucer. Put the perception and you put the mind. Berkeley. These verses, originally Greek, were put in Latin. Milton. All this is ingeniously and ably put. Hare.

wing of a heavy stone, shot, etc., with the hand raised or extended from the shoulder; -- originally, a Scottish game. Putting stone, a heavy stone used in the game of putting.

d, about 1650, -- the members of which call themselves Friends. They were called Quakers, originally, in derision. See Friend, n., 4. Fox's teaching was primarily a preaching of repentance . . . The trembling among the listening crowd caused or confirmed the name of Quakers given to the body; men and women sometimes fe…

Specifically, the term, originally of forty days, during which a ship arriving in port, and suspected of being infected a malignant contagious disease, is obliged to forbear all intercourse with the shore; hence, such restraint or inhibition of intercourse; also, the place where infected or prohibited vessels are stati…

Originally, a book of the size of the fourth of sheet of printing paper; a size leaves; in present usage, a book of a square or nearly square form, and usually of large size.

ibuted in the vegetable kingdom, as is apple-tree bark, horse- chestnut leaves, etc., but originally obtained by the decomposition of quercitrin. Called also meletin.

Originally, a solid exterior angle, as of a building; now, commonly, one of the selected pieces of material by which the corner is marked.

egree indicated by the radical sign; a surd. -- Radical sign (Math.), the sign sq. root (originally the letter r, the initial of radix, root), placed before any quantity, denoting that its root is to be extracted; thus, sq. roota, or sq. root(a + b). To indicate any other than the square root, a corresponding figure i…