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A want of niceness; indelicacy; impropriety.

To receive; to perceive. [Obs.] He the savor undernom Which that the roses and the lilies cast. Chaucer.

ide, barren plain; a wild; a waste; a desert; a pathless waste of any kind. The wat'ry wilderness yields no supply. Waller.

de to pronunciation, §§ 43-74. The regular long a, as in fate, etc., is a comparatively modern sound, and has taken the place of what, till about the early part of the 17th century, was a sound of the quality of ä (as in far).

abstract name which stands for an attribute of a thing. A practice has grown up in more modern times, which, if not introduced by Locke, has gained currency from his example, of applying the expression "abstract name" to all names which are the result of abstraction and generalization, and consequently to all general n…

taking surreptitiously for one's own use part of the property of another; purloining. [Modern]

[Obs.] Here the word "baron" is not to be taken in that restrictive sense to which the modern acception hath confined it. Fuller. Acception of persons or faces (Eccl.), favoritism; partiality. [Obs.] Wyclif.

e hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substance of extreme hardness; but in modern minerology it has no technical signification. It is now a rhetorical or poetical name for the embodiment of impenetrable hardness. Opposed the rocky orb Of tenfold adamant, his ample shield. Milton.

square shield, formerly worn on the shoulders of knights, -- being the prototype of the modern epaulet. Fairholt.

ized chorals, psalmody, part songs, etc., the part which bears the tune or melody -- in modern harmony usually the upper part -- is sometimes called the air.

nto gold, to find the panacea, or universal remedy for diseases, etc. It led the way to modern chemistry.

A foot of three syllables, the middle one long, the first and last short (as, h. In modern prosody the accented syllable takes the place of the long and the unaccented of the short; as, pro-phet''ic.

t; specifically applied to the times before the fall of the Roman empire; -- opposed to modern; as, ancient authors, literature, history; ancient days. Witness those ancient empires of the earth. Milton. Gildas Albanius . . . much ancienter than his namesake surnamed the Wise. Fuller.

ly; divine. "Angelic harps." Thomson."Angelical actions." Hooker. The union of womanly tenderness and angelic patience. Macaulay. Angelic Hymn, a very ancient hymn of the Christian Church; -- so called from its beginning with the song of the heavenly host recorded in Luke ii. 14. Eadie.

Old, as respects the present age, or a modern period of time; of old fashion; antiquated; as, an antique robe. "Antique words." Spenser.

A large constellation in the southern hemisphere, called also Argo Navis. In modern astronomy it is replaced by its three divisions, Carina, Puppis, and Vela.

or to a superior degree, from mean to noble objects, from particulars to generals, from modern to ancient times, from one note to another more acute, etc.; as, our inquiries ascend to the remotest antiquity; to ascend to our first progenitor.

d that point of the equator that comes to the horizon with a star. It is little used in modern astronomy.

The alloy or metal to be assayed. Ure. Assay and essay are radically the same word; but modern usage has appropriated assay chiefly to experiments in metallurgy, and essay to intellectual and bodily efforts. See Essay.]

ferocious system, that leaves nothing above us to excite awe, nor around us to awaken tenderness. R. Hall. Atheism and pantheism are often wrongly confounded. Shipley.