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A disconnected series of sentences or statements composed under excitement, and without dependence or natural connection; rambling composition. "A rhapsody of words." Shak. "A rhapsody of tales." Locke.

Remarks concerning a subject or a person designed to excite laughter with a degree of contempt; wit of that species which provokes contemptuous laughter; disparagement by making a person an object of laughter; banter; -- a term lighter than derision. We have in great measure restricted the meaning of ridicule, which wo…

Fitted to excite ridicule; absurd and laughable; unworthy of serious consideration; as, a ridiculous dress or behavior. Agricola, discerning that those little targets and unwieldy glaives ill pointed would soon become ridiculous against the thrust and close, commanded three Batavian cohorts . . . to draw up and come to…

To become excited, opposed, or hostile; to go to war; to take up arms; to rebel. At our heels all hell should rise With blackest insurrection. Milton. No more shall nation against nation rise. Pope.

To excite to lively thought or action from a state of idleness, languor, stupidity, or indifference; as, to rouse the faculties, passions, or emotions. To rouse up a people, the most phlegmatic of any in Christendom. Atterbury.

Having power to awaken or excite; exciting. I begin to feel Some rousing motions in me. Milton.

or letter; to rub out a stain. -- To rub up. (a) To burnish; to polish; to clean. (b) To excite; to awaken; to rouse to action; as, to rub up the memory.

Freedom from agitation or excitement of mind; coolness in trying circumstances; indifference; calmness. Burke.

The quality of a body by which it excites the sensation of taste.

petite or of any sensual desire; fullness beyond desire; an excess of gratification which excites wearisomeness or loathing; repletion; satiation. In all pleasures there is satiety. Hakewill. But thy words, with grace divine Imbued, bring to their sweetness no satiety. Milton.

To excite scruples in; to cause to scruple. [R.] Letters which did still scruple many of them. E. Symmons.

ate, not amounting to insurrection; conduct tending to treason, but without an overt act; excitement of discontent against the government, or of resistance to lawful authority. In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition. Shak. Noisy demagogues who had been accused of se…

Of or pertaining to sedition; partaking of the nature of, or tending to excite, sedition; as, seditious behavior; seditious strife; seditious words.

A state of excited interest or feeling, or that which causes it. The sensation caused by the appearance of that work is still remembered by many. Brougham.

Suited or intended to excite temporarily great interest or emotion; melodramatic; emotional; as, sensational plays or novels; sensational preaching; sensational journalism; a sensational report.

ially irritable mechanism by which some one natural force or form of energy is enabled to excite sensory nerves; as the eye, ear, an end bulb or tactile corpuscle, etc. -- Sense organule (Anat.), one of the modified epithelial cells in or near which the fibers of the sensory nerves terminate.

g to sensation; depending on sensation; as, sensitive motions; sensitive muscular motions excited by irritation. E. Darwin. Sensitive fern (Bot.), an American fern (Onoclea sensibilis), the leaves of which, when plucked, show a slight tendency to fold together. -- Sensitive flame (Physics), a gas flame so arranged tha…

A painful sensation excited by a consciousness of guilt or impropriety, or of having done something which injures reputation, or of the exposure of that which nature or modesty prompts us to conceal. HIde, for shame, Romans, your grandsires' images, That blush at their degenerate progeny. Dryden. Have you no modesty, n…

Relative position; circumstances; temporary state or relation at a moment of action which excites interest, as of persons in a dramatic scene. There's situation for you! there's an heroic group! Sheridan.

To perceive by the olfactory nerves, or organs of smell; to have a sensation of, excited through the nasal organs when affected by the appropriate materials or qualities; to obtain the scent of; as, to smell a rose; to smell perfumes.