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A shoe for horses, consisting of a narrow plate of iron in form somewhat like the letter U, nailed to a horse's hoof.

To make a nasal sound, like that of the letter m prolonged, without opening the mouth, or articulating; to mumble in monotonous undertone; to drone. The cloudy messenger turns me his back, And hums. Shak.

lite or elegant learning; as language, rhetoric, poetry, and the ancient classics; belles-letters.

To make a rolling or burring sound. [Obs.] R is the dog's letter, and hurreth in the sound. B. Jonson.

Having the form of an arch, or of the Greek letter upsilon [

Resembling the Greek letter

I, the ninth letter of the English alphabet, takes its form from the Phoenician, through the Latin and the Greek. The Phoenician letter was probably of Egyptian origin. Its original value was nearly the same as that of the Italian I, or long e as in mete. Etymologically I is most closely related to e, y, j, g; as in di…

A paper having on it these letters, with a sum named, and duly signed; -- in use in England as an acknowledgment of a debt, and taken as evidence thereof, but not amounting to a promissory note; a due bill. Wharton. Story.

A phonetic symbol; a letter.

A person untaught or uninformed; one unlettered or unskilled; an ignoramous. Did I for this take pains to teach Our zealous ignorants to preach Denham.

Ignorant of letters or books; unlettered; uninstructed; uneducated; as, an illiterate man, or people.

To adorn, as a book or page with borders, initial letters, or miniature pictures in colors and gold, as was done in manuscripts of the Middle Ages.

To stamp or mark, as letters on paper, by means of type, plates, stamps, or the like; to print the mark (figures, letters, etc., upon something). Nature imprints upon whate'er we see, That has a heart and life in it, "Be free." Cowper.

mprobable story or event. He . . . sent to Elutherius, then bishop of Rome, an improbable letter, as some of the contents discover. Milton. -- Im*prob"a*ble*ness, n. -- Im*prob"a*bly, adv.

, or the like; to fold (a thing) within another or into the same parcel; as, to inclose a letter or a bank note. The inclosed copies of the treaty. Sir W. Temple.

The figure or letter which shows the power or root of a quantity; the exponent. [In this sense the plural is always indices.] Index error, the error in the reading of a mathematical instrument arising from the zero of the index not being in complete adjustment with that of the limb, or with its theoretically perfect po…

To write upon the back or outside of a paper or letter, as a direction, heading, memorandum, or address.

, an ineffective appeal. The word of God, without the spirit, [is] a dead and ineffective letter. Jer. Taylor.

o the jurisdiction of another court known as the superior, or higher, court. -- Inferior letter, Inferior figure (Print.), a small letter or figure standing at the bottom of the line (opposed to superior letter or figure), as in A2, Bn, 2 and n are inferior characters. -- Inferior tide, the tide corresponding to the…

Placed at the beginning; standing at the head, as of a list or series; as, the initial letters of a name.