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ament; dullness; want of interest; indifference; coldness. They judge with fury, but they write with phlegm. Pope.

One skilled in phytology; a writer on plants; a botanist. Evelyn.

ers, toucans, trogons, hornbills, kingfishers, motmots, rollers, and goatsuckers. By some writers it is made to include also the cuckoos, swifts, and humming birds.

Hence, an analogous part of a typewriter, on which the paper rests to receive an impression.

; frolicsome; indulging a sportive fancy; humorous; merry; as, a playful child; a playful writer. -- Play"ful*ly, adv. -- Play"ful*ness, n.

By some recent writers applied to the Merostomata.

rticular genius for metrical composition; the author of a poem; an imaginative thinker or writer. The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. Shak. A poet is a maker, as the word signifies. Dryden. Poet laureate. See under Laureate.

An inferior rhymer, or writer of verses; a dabbler in poetic art. The talk of forgotten poetasters. Macaulay.

To write as a poet; to compose verse; to idealize. I versify the truth, not poetize. Donne.

Engaged in, or addicted to, polemics, or to controversy; disputations; as, a polemic writer. South.

c policy, or to politics; relating to affairs of state or administration; as, a political writer. "The political state of Europe." Paley.

A political writer. [R.]

An instrument for multiplying copies of a writing; a manifold writer; a copying machine.

Papal; pontifical. [Obs.] "Pontificial writers." Burton.

By analogy with the French portail, used by recent writers for the whole architectural composition which surrounds and includes the doorways and porches of a church.

To write marginal or explanatory notes on; to gloss. Bacon.

One who writers marginal notes; one who illustrates the text of a book by notes in the margin. Sir T. Browne.

To write postils; to comment.

A paragraph added to a letter after it is concluded and signed by the writer; an addition made to a book or composition after the main body of the work has been finished, containing something omitted, or something new occurring to the writer. [Abbrev. P. S.]

ssity, by the use of may, can, must, might, could, would, or should; as, I may go; he can write.