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Any succession of chords (or harmonic phrase) rising or falling by the regular diatonic degrees in the same scale; a succession of similar harmonic steps.

to the lowest condition of servitude. -- Your humble servant, or Your obedient servant, phrases of civility often used in closing a letter. Our betters tell us they are our humble servants, but understand us to be their slaves. Swift.

Regular; uniform; formal; as, a set discourse; a set battle. "The set phrase of peace." Shak.

"He shall go".) The same relation is transferred to either second or third person in such phrases as "You say, or think, you shall go;" "He says, or thinks, he shall go." After a conditional conjunction (as if, whether) shall is used in all persons to express futurity simply; as, if I, you, or he shall say they are rig…

A fragment of anything shattered; -- used chiefly or soley in the phrase into shatters; as, to break a glass into shatters. Swift.

Hence, the criterion, test, or watchword of a party; a party cry or pet phrase.

A ship's side; hence, by extension, a ship; -- found chiefly in adverbial phrases; as, on shipboard; a shipboard.

read of exhibition; loaves to set before God; -- the term used in translating the various phrases used in the Hebrew and Greek to designate the loaves of bread which the priest of the week placed before the Lord on the golden table in the sanctuary. They were made of fine flour unleavened, and were changed every Sabbat…

A word or phrase by which anything is likened, in one or more of its aspects, to something else; a similitude; a poetical or imaginative comparison. A good swift simile, but something currish. Shak.

Turned or twisted to one side; situated obliquely; skewed; -- chiefly used in technical phrases. Skew arch, an oblique arch. See under Oblique. -- Skew back. (Civil Engin.) (a) The course of masonry, the stone, or the iron plate, having an inclined face, which forms the abutment for the voussoirs of a segmental arch.…

A word employed in the phrase, To ride Skimmington; that is to ride on a horse with a woman, but behind her, facing backward, carrying a distaff, and accompanied by a procession of jeering neighbors making mock music; a cavalcade in ridicule of a henpecked man. The custom was in vogue in parts of England.…

Low, vulgar, unauthorized language; a popular but unauthorized word, phrase, or mode of expression; also, the jargon of some particular calling or class in society; low popular cant; as, the slang of the theater, of college, of sailors, etc.

A share; a part or portion; -- obsolete, except in the colloquial phrase, to go snacks, i. e., to share. At last he whispers, "Do, and we go snacks." Pope.

more recent version of soppy. Used esp. in phrase sopping wet.

into, to tend to; to partake of the nature of; to be consonant with. [Obs., except in the phrase To sound in damages, below.] Soun[d]ing in moral virtue was his speech. Chaucer. -- To sound in damages (Law), to have the essential quality of damages. This is said of an action brought, not for the recovery of a specific…

he side. Bouvier. The popular denomination of the whole science of pleading. Stephen. The phrase is sometimes popularly applied to the specious, but unsound, argumentation of one whose aim is victory, and not truth. Burrill. -- Special property (Law), a qualified or limited ownership possession, as in wild animals, th…

abl. of L. species sort, kind. Used in the phrase in specie, that is, in sort, in kind, in (its own) form. "[The king] expects a return in specie from them" [i. e., kindness for kindness]. Dryden. In specie (Law), in precise or definite form; specifically; according to the exact terms; of the very thing.…

A stanza, verse, or phrase supposed to be endowed with magical power; an incantation; hence, any charm. Start not; her actions shall be holy as You hear my spell is lawful. Shak.

h a pollen tube emitted by the microspore or (in a few gymnosperms) by spermatozoids. The phrase "flowering plants" is less distinctive than "seed plants," since the conifers, grasses, sedges, oaks, etc., do not produce flowers in the popular sense. For this reason the terms Anthrophyta, Phænogamia, and Panerogamia hav…

t from an accustomed order. To see how the squares go, to see how the game proceeds; -- a phrase taken from the game of chess, the chessboard being formed with squares. [Obs.] L'Estrange.