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uperstition; full of idle fancies and scruples in regard to religion. Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. Acts xvii. 22.

A coming unperceived or suddenly.

Any affection which accompanies disease; a perceptible change in the body or its functions, which indicates disease, or the kind or phases of disease; as, the causes of disease often lie beyond our sight, but we learn their nature by the symptoms exhibited. Like the sick man, we are expiring with all sorts of good symp…

Sensitive mental touch; peculiar skill or faculty; nice perception or discernment; ready power of appreciating and doing what is required by circumstances. He had formed plans not inferior in grandeur and boldness to those of Richelieu, and had carried them into effect with a tact and wariness worthy of Mazarin. Macaul…

Of or pertaining to the organs, or the sense, of touch; perceiving, or perceptible, by the touch; capable of being touched; as, tactile corpuscles; tactile sensations. "Tactile sweets." Beaumont. "Tactile qualities." Sir M. Hale. Tactile sense (Physiol.), the sense of touch, or pressure sense. See Touch. The delicacy o…

The quality or state of being tactile; perceptibility by touch; tangibleness.

Perceptible to the touch; tactile; palpable. Bacon.

To try by the touch of the tongue; to perceive the relish or flavor of (anything) by taking a small quantity into a mouth. Also used figuratively. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine. John ii. 9. When Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse. Gibbon.…

The act of perceiving or tasting by the organs of taste; the faculty or sense by which we perceive or distinguish savors.

r during respiration. See Homoiothermal. -- Temperature sense (Physiol.), the faculty of perceiving cold and warmth, and so of perceiving differences of temperature in external objects. H. N. Martin.

should want. Behold, a greater than Solomon is here. Matt. xii. 42. Which when Beelzebub perceived, than whom, Satan except, none higher sat. Milton. It's wiser being good than bad; It's safer being meek than fierce; It's fitter being sane than mad. R. Browning.

To employ any of the intellectual powers except that of simple perception through the senses; to exercise the higher intellectual faculties. For that I am I know, because I think. Dryden.

A ringing, whistling, or other imaginary noise perceived in the ears; -- called also tinnitus aurium.

To perceive by the sense of feeling. Nothing but body can be touched or touch. Greech.

To take advantage of the ignorance of; to impose upon. [Prov. Eng.] I presently perceived she was (what is vernacularly termed) trailing Mrs. Dent; that is, playing on her ignorance. C. Bronte.

sation of the heart and the breathing, although still present, are almost or altogether imperceptible. He fell down in a trance. Chaucer.

Passing before the sight or perception, or, as it were, moving over or across a space or scene viewed, and then disappearing; hence, of short duration; not permanent; not lasting or durable; not stationary; passing; fleeting; brief; transitory; as, transient pleasure. "Measured this transient world." Milton.…

, rebuke, or contempt; as, tush, tush! do not speak of it. Tush, say they, how should God perceive it Bk. of Com. Prayer (Ps. lxxiii. 11).

To observe slyly; also, to perceive; to discover. "Now twig him; now mind him." Foote. As if he were looking right into your eyes and twigged something there which you had half a mind to conceal. Hawthorne.

The light perceived before the rising, and after the setting, of the sun, or when the sun is less than 18º below the horizon, occasioned by the illumination of the earth's atmosphere by the direct rays of the sun and their reflection on the earth.