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of being inquisitive; the disposition to seek explanation and information; curiosity to learn what is unknown; esp., uncontrolled and impertinent curiosity. Mr. Boswell, whose inquisitiveness is seconded by great activity, scrambled in at a high window. Johnson. Curiosity in children nature has provided, to remove tha…

duce artfully; to infuse gently; to instill. All the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment. Locke. Horace laughs to shame all follies and insinuates virtue, rather by familiar examples than by the severity of…

Pressing; urgent; importunate; earnest. Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer. Rom. xii. 12. I am beginning to be very instant for some sort of occupation. Carlyle.

With urgency or importunity; earnestly; pressingly. "They besought him instantly." Luke vii. 4.

foot; as, to institute an inquiry; to institute a suit. And haply institute A course of learning and ingenious studies. Shak.

The quality or state of being intelligible; clearness; perspicuity; definiteness.

Strained; tightly drawn; kept on the stretch; strict; very close or earnest; as, intense study or application; intense thought.

nd toward of the mind toward an object; closeness of application; fixedness of attention; earnestness. Intention is when the mind, with great earnestness, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea. Locke.

The state of being intimate; close familiarity or association; nearness in friendship.

tyle was fit to convey the most intricate business to the understanding with the utmost clearness. Addison. The nature of man is intricate. Burke.

" Milton. He . . . did inure them to speak little. Sir T. North. Inured and exercised in learning. Robynson (More's Utopia). The poor, inured to drudgery and distress. Cowper.

The act or form of calling for the assistance or presence of some superior being; earnest and solemn entreaty; esp., prayer offered to a divine being. Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty and pathetical! Shak. The whole poem is a prayer to Fortune, and the invocation is divided between the two deities. Addison.…

To call on for aid or protection; to invite earnestly or solemnly; to summon; to address in prayer; to solicit or demand by invocation; to implore; as, to invoke the Supreme Being, or to invoke His and blessing. Go, my dread lord, to your great grandsire's tomb, . . . Invoke his warlike spirit. Shak.…

Heartiness; earnestness. What was wanted was more inwardness, more feeling. M. Arnold.

Weary; vexed; uneasy. [Obs.] Let us therefore learn not to be irksome when God layeth his cross upon us. Latimer.

The quality of being jealous; earnest concern or solicitude; painful apprehension of rivalship in cases nearly affecting one's happiness; painful suspicion of the faithfulness of husband, wife, or lover. I was jealous for jealousy. Zech. viii. 2. Jealousy is the . . . apprehension of superiority. Shenstone. Whoever had…

deserve it. Shak. In jest, for mere sport or diversion; not in truth and reality; not in earnest. And given in earnest what I begged in jest. Shak. -- Jest book, a book containing a collection of jests, jokes, and amusing anecdotes; a Joe Miller.

A man learned in the civil law; an expert in juridical science; a professor of jurisprudence; a jurist.

A placing or being placed in nearness or contiguity, or side by side; as, a juxtaposition of words. Parts that are united by a a mere juxtaposition. Glanvill. Juxtaposition is a very unsafe criterion of continuity. Hare.

support; provision; feed; as, the cattle have good keeping. The work of many hands, which earns my keeping. Milton.