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Customary use or employment, as of a word or phrase in a particular sense or signification.

Vanity; emptiness; -- now used only in the phrase in vain. For vain. See In vain. [Obs.] Shak. -- In vain, to no purpose; without effect; ineffectually. " In vain doth valor bleed." Milton. " In vain they do worship me." Matt. xv. 9. -- To take the name of God in vain, to use the name of God with levity or profanenes…

Valor. [Written also valew.] [Obs.] Spenser. Value received, a phrase usually employed in a bill of exchange or a promissory note, to denote that a consideration has been given for it. Bouvier.

Ivory. -- Vegetable jelly. See Pectin. -- Vegetable kingdom. (Nat. Hist.) See the last Phrase, below. --

A word occurring in the phrase real vellon. See the Note under Its Real.

A formal phrase used in concluding a plea. Verification of an equation (Math.), the operation of testing the equation of a problem, to see whether it expresses truly the conditions of the problem. Davies & Peck. (Math. Dict.)

y mode, custom, or practice; popular reception for the time; -- used now generally in the phrase in vogue. One vogue, one vein, One air of thoughts usurps my brain. Herbert. Whatsoever its vogue may be, I still flatter myself that the parents of the growing generation will be satisfied with what Burke. Use may revive t…

A turning; a time; -- chiefly used in phrases signifying that the part is to be repeated one, two, or more times; as, una volta, once. Seconda volta, second time, points to certain modifications in the close of a repeated strain.

A vulgar phrase or expression. A fastidious taste will find offense in the occasional vulgarisms, or what we now call "slang," which not a few of our writers seem to have affected. Coleridge.

A word of uncertain signification, used only in the phrase with a wanion, apparently equivalent to with a vengeance, with a plague, or with misfortune. [Obs.] B. Jonson. Latimer.

To get or take in water; as, the ship put into port to water. The mouth waters, a phrase denoting that a person or animal has a longing desire for something, since the sight of food often causes one who is hungry to have an increased flow of saliva.

A corruption of Way, used only in the phrase under weigh. An expedition was got under weigh from New York. Thackeray. The Athenians . . . hurried on board and with considerable difficulty got under weigh. Jowett (Thucyd.).

To direct; to betake;- used chiefly in the phrase to wend one's way. Also used reflexively. "Great voyages to wend." Surrey.

est part or particle imaginable; a bit; a jot; an iota; -- generally used in an adverbial phrase in a negative sentence. "Samuel told him every whit." 1 Sam. iii. 18. "Every whit as great." South. So shall I no whit be behind in duty. Shak. It does not me a whit displease. Cowley.

One; any; one. [Obs., except in the archaic phrase, as who should say.] As who should say, it were a very dangerous matter if a man in any point should be found wiser than his forefathers were. Robynson (More's Utopia).

A woman; an adult female; -- now used in literature only in certain compounds and phrases, as alewife, fishwife, goodwife, and the like. " Both men and wives." Piers Plowman. On the green he saw sitting a wife. Chaucer.

aculty, or power of the mind; -- used in this sense chiefly in the plural, and in certain phrases; as, to lose one's wits; at one's wits' end, and the like. "Men's wittes ben so dull." Chaucer. I will stare him out of his wits. Shak.

A witty saying; a sentence or phrase which is affectedly witty; an attempt at wit; a conceit. Milton. He is full of conceptions, points of epigram, and witticisms; all which are below the dignity of heroic verse. Addison.

In a witty manner; wisely; ingeniously; artfully; with it; with a delicate turn or phrase, or with an ingenious association of ideas. Who his own harm so wittily contrives. Dryden.

A brief remark or observation; an expression; a phrase, clause, or short sentence. All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Gal. v. 14. She said; but at the happy word "he lives," My father stooped, re- fathered, o'er my wound. Tennyson. There is only one other point…