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Given to reading; fond of study; better acquainted with books than with men; learned from books. "A bookish man." Addison. "Bookish skill." Bp. Hall.

A stand to hold books for reading or reference.

Full of branches; having wide-spreading branches; consisting of branches. Beneath thy branchy bowers of thickest gloom. J. Scott.

An implement for braying and spreading ink in hand printing.

Having horns spreading widely.

Thick and spreading, like a bush. "Bushy eyebrows." Irving.

A fall of the voice in reading or speaking, especially at the end of a sentence.

A naming, or inviting; a reading over or reciting in order, or a call of names with a view to obtaining an answer, as in legislative bodies.

A machine for spreading out cotton cloths to prepare them for printing.

A corroding or sloughing ulcer; esp. a spreading gangrenous ulcer or collection of ulcers in or about the mouth; -- called also water canker, canker of the mouth, and noma.

A chanting; recitation or reading with musical modulations.

ding or selected cases, with or without the use of textbooks for reference and collateral reading.

The art of reading character as it is delineated in the hand. -- Chei*ros"o*phist (, n.

to write all his letters to England in cipher. Bp. Burnet. Cipher key, a key to assist in reading writings in cipher.

The act of pouring or spreading round; the state of being spread round. Swift.

elebrates the completion of its course by exercises conducted by the members, such as the reading of the class histories and poem, the delivery of the class oration, the planting of the class ivy, etc.

A parish officer, being a layman who leads in reading the responses of the Episcopal church service, and otherwise assists in it. [Eng.] Hook. And like unlettered clerk still cry "Amen". Shak.

, a cold collation; -- first applied to the refreshment on fast days that accompanied the reading of the collation in monasteries. A collation of wine and sweetmeats. Whiston. Collation of seals (Old Law), a method of ascertaining the genuineness of a seal by comparing it with another known to be genuine. Bouvier.…

d up; esp., the formal act of tacking command of a vessel for service, hoisting the flag, reading the orders, etc. -- To put a vessel out of commission (Naut.), to detach the officers and crew and retire it from active service, temporarily or permanently. -- To put the great seal, or the Treasury, into commission, to…

A memorandum; something to be frequently consulted or referred to. Whatever, in my reading, occurs concerning this our fellow creature, I do never fail to set it down by way of commonplace. Swift. Commonplace book, a book in which records are made of things to be remembered.