Search the Dictionary

upt change in feeling, opinion, or action, proceeding from some whim or fancy; a freak; a notion. "Caprices of appetite." W. Irving.

Confused; indistinct; obscure; dark. Cloudy and confused notions of things. Watts.

The complement of attributes which make up the notion signified by a general term.

A fanciful, odd, or extravagant notion; a quant fancy; an unnatural or affected conception; a witty thought or turn of expression; a fanciful device; a whim; a quip. On his way to the gibbet, a freak took him in the head to go off with a conceit. L'Estrange. Some to conceit alone their works confine, And glittering tho…

An abstract general conception; a notion; a universal. The words conception, concept, notion, should be limited to the thought of what can not be represented in the imagination; as, the thought suggested by a general term. Sir W. Hamilton.

ption, I shall confine myself to that faculty whose province it is to enable us to form a notion of our past sensations, or of the objects of sense that we have formerly perceived. Stewart.

Congenital; existing from birth. "Connate notions." South. A difference has been made by some; those diseases or conditions which are dependent on original conformation being called congenital; while the diseases of affections that may have supervened during gestation or delivery are called connate. Dunglison.…

l; to designate by implication; to include in the meaning; to imply. Good, in the general notion of it, connotes also a certain suitableness of it to some other thing. South.

ch, by the forest laws, must have its tail cut short, partly as a mark, and partly from a notion that the tail is necessary to a dog in running; hence, a dog not fit for sporting. Hope is a curtail dog in some affairs. Shak.

f being deduced from premises; deducible. All knowledge of causes is deductive. Glanvill. Notions and ideas . . . used in a deductive process. Whewell.

r polluting matter; to clear; to purify, as from that which materializes. We defecate the notion from materiality. Glanvill. Defecated from all the impurities of sense. Bp. Warburton.

The number of simple elements which an abstract conception or notion includes; the comprehension or content.

The act of defining a concept or notion by giving its essential constituents.

words or clauses, expressing at the same time an opposition or separation inherent in the notions or thoughts; as, either, or, neither, nor, but, although, except, lest, etc. -- Disjunctive proposition, one in which the parts are connected by disjunctive conjunctions; as it is either day or night. -- Disjunctive syll…

, to have concern, business or intercourse with; to deal with. When preceded by what, the notion is usually implied that the affair does not concern the person denoted by the subject of have. "Philology has to do with language in its fullest sense." Earle. "What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah 2 Sam. xvi. 10.…

der of a new set of opinions; a dogmatic theorist. Used also adjectively; as, doctrinaire notions.

A doctrinal notion asserted without regard to evidence or truth; an arbitrary dictum.

every or vagary; to anticipate vaguely as a coming and happy reality; to have a visionary notion or idea; to imagine. Here may we sit and dream Over the heavenly theme. Keble. They dream on in a constant course of reading, but not digesting. Locke.

To destroy, as a mental impression; to wear away. Efface from his mind the theories and notions vulgarly received. Bacon.

To increase; to add to; to augment; -- now commonly used with out, the notion conveyed being to add to, or piece out by a laborious, inferior, or scanty addition; as, to eke out a scanty supply of one kind with some other. "To eke my pain." Spenser. He eked out by his wits an income of barely fifty pounds. Macaulay.…