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A puppet, or little baby. [Obs.] Palsgrave.

To talk much and to little purpose; to be loquacious; to speak foolishly; to babble. To prate and talk for life and honor. Shak. And make a fool presume to prate of love. Dryden.

To utter as prattle; to babble; as, to prattle treason. Addison.

esignating, a tetrabasic acid of benzene obtained as a white crystalline substance; -- probably so called from the resemblance of the wartlike crystals to the mammillæ on the surface of prehnite.

. . . reject or receive proportionably to the preponderancy of the greater grounds of probability. Locke. In a few weeks he had changed the relative position of all the states in Europe, and had restored the equilibrium which the preponderance of one power had destroyed. Macaulay.

to be true, or entitled to belief, without examination or proof, or on the strength of probability; to take for granted; to infer; to suppose. Every man is to be presumed innocent till he is proved to be guilty. Blackstone. What rests but that the mortal sentence pass, . . . Which he presumes already vain and void, Bec…

The act of presuming, or believing upon probable evidence; the act of assuming or taking for granted; belief upon incomplete proof.

Based on presumption or probability; grounded on probable evidence; probable; as, presumptive proof.

By presumption, or supposition grounded or probability; presumably.

Approved; probable. [Obs.] Shak.

Probability. [Obs.] "With as great probality." Holland.

duce purchased, this limit varying with different goods. See Prompt-note. To cover any probable difference of price which might arise before the expiration of the prompt, which for this article [tea] is three months. J. S. Mill.

That which is hoped for; ground for hope or expectation; expectation; probable result; as, the prospect of success. "To brighter prospects born." Cowper. These swell their prospectsd exalt their pride, When offers are disdain'd, and love deny'd. Pope.

in which are placed a number of low microscopic organisms of doubtful nature. Some are probably plants, others animals.

A quadruped, probably the addax, an antelope having a white rump. Deut. xiv. 5.

A word occurring in a corrupt passage of Bacon's Essays, and probably meaning, to stir, to move.

at lead is the stable end product. At the same time the light gas helium is formed; it probably consists of the expelled alpha particles. The heat effect mentioned above is ascribed to the impacts of these particles. Radium, in turn, is believed to be formed indirectly by an immeasurably slow disintegration of uranium.…

-- Rattlesnake weed (Bot.), a plant of the composite genus Hieracium (H. venosum); -- probably so named from its spotted leaves. See also Snakeroot.

e our law; interposing his own private reason, which to us is no law. Milton. The most probable way of bringing France to reason would be by the making an attempt on the Spanish West Indies. Addison.

adow reed grass (Bot.), the Glyceria aquatica, a tall grass found in wet places. -- Reed babbler. See Reedbird. -- Reed bunting (Zoöl.) A European sparrow (Emberiza schoeniclus) which frequents marshy places; -- called also reed sparrow, ring bunting. (b) Reedling. -- Reed canary grass (Bot.), a tall wild grass (Pha…