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llectual taste; fancy. A choice of it may be made according to the gust and manner of the ancients. Dryden.

The part of a large house, among the ancients, exclusively appropriated to women. [Written also gyneceum, gynecium.] Tennyson.

The act or practice of making trivial distinctions. The ancient hairsplitting technicalities of special pleading. Charles Sumner.

An ancient long-handled weapon, of which the head had a point and several long, sharp edges, curved or straight, and sometimes additional points. The heads were sometimes of very elaborate form. [Written also halbert.]

Pertaining to, or resembling, the halcyon, which was anciently said to lay her eggs in nests on or near the sea during the calm weather about the winter solstice.

cery in which writs relating to the business of the public, and the returns to them, were anciently kept in a hanaper or hamper. Blackstone.

Help! Halloo! An exclamation of distress; a call for succor;- the ancient Norman hue and cry. "Harrow and well away!" Spenser. Harrow! alas! here lies my fellow slain. Chaucer.

A diviner of ancient Rome. Same as Aruspice.

A plant of the genus Hieracium; -- so called from the ancient belief that birds of prey used its juice to strengthen their vision.

A common herb of the Mint family (Brunela vulgaris), destitute of active properties, but anciently thought a panacea.

lossoming in winter or earliest spring. H. officinalis was the officinal hellebore of the ancients.

A native of either ancient or modern Greece; a Greek. Brewer.

The type of character of the ancient Greeks, who aimed at culture, grace, and amenity, as the chief elements in human well-being and perfection.

A slave in ancient Sparta; a Spartan serf; hence, a slave or serf. Those unfortunates, the Helots of mankind, more or less numerous in every community. I. Taylor.

Of or pertaining to the Helvetii, the ancient inhabitant of the Alps, now Switzerland, or to the modern states and inhabitant of the Alpine regions; as, the Helvetic confederacy; Helvetic states.

Any messenger. "My herald is returned." Shak. Heralds' College, in England, an ancient corporation, dependent upon the crown, instituted or perhaps recognized by Richard III. in 1483, consisting of the three Kings-at-Arms and the Chester, Lancaster, Richmond, Somerset, Windsor, and York Heralds, together with the Earl…

an epic hero. Dryden. Hero worship, extravagant admiration for great men, likened to the ancient worship of heroes. Hero worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist, universally among mankind. Carlyle.

secrated to sacred uses; sacerdotal; pertaining to priests. Hieratic character, a mode of ancient Egyptian writing; a modified form of hieroglyphics, tending toward a cursive hand and formerly supposed to be the sacerdotal character, as the demotic was supposed to be that of the people. It was a false notion of the Gre…

A sacred character; a character in picture writing, as of the ancient Egyptians, Mexicans, etc. Specifically, in the plural, the picture writing of the ancient Egyptian priests. It is made up of three, or, as some say, four classes of characters: first, the hieroglyphic proper, or figurative, in which the representatio…

A treatise on sacred things; especially, the science which treats of the ancient writings and inscriptions of the Egyptians, or a treatise on that science.