Search the Dictionary

e one's footing or one's hold; not to tread firmly; as, it is necessary to walk carefully lest the foot should slip.

not large-minded; -- sometimes, in reproach, paltry; mean. A true delineation of the smallest man is capable of interesting the reatest man. Carlyle.

re; to insnare; to entangle; hence, to bring into unexpected evil, perplexity, or danger. Lest that too heavenly form . . . snare them. Milton. The mournful crocodile With sorrow snares relenting passengers. Shak.

Especially, the hollow tube or place in which a candle is fixed in the candlestick. And in the sockets oily bubbles dance. Dryden. Socket bolt (Mach.), a bolt that passes through a thimble that is placed between the parts connected by the bolt. -- Socket chisel. Same as Framing chisel. See under Framing. -- Socket pi…

spots. See Sun spots, under Sun. -- Solar system (Astron.), the sun, with the group of celestial bodies which, held by its attraction, revolve round it. The system comprises the major planets, with their satellites; the minor planets, or asteroids, and the comets; also, the meteorids, the matter that furnishes the zod…

; as, some of our provisions. Your edicts some reclaim from sins, But most your life and blest example wins. Dryden. All and some, one and all. See under All, adv. [Obs.]

rcy to. Spare us, good Lord. Book of Common Prayer. Dim sadness did not spare That time celestial visages. Milton. Man alone can whom he conquers spare. Waller.

to fare. Shak. Ships heretofore in seas lke fishes sped; The mightiest still upon the smallest fed. Waller.

Hence, any globe or globular body, especially a celestial one, as the sun, a planet, or the earth. Of celestial bodies, first the sun, A mighty sphere, he framed. Milton.

in by mean arts, by intrusion, or hanging on; as, an idler sponges on his neighbor. E. Eggleston. The fly is an intruder, and a common smell-feast, that sponges upon other people's trenchers. L'Estrange.

if they spread much, are seldom tall. Bacon. Govrnor Winthrop, and his associates at Charlestown, had for a church a large, spreading tree. B. Trumbull.

The polestar; the north star. Shak.

A small column or pillar, used as a monument, milestone, etc.

edges of a kind of open box. They are unequal in size, gradually increasing from the smallest to the largest, and are tuned to the diatonic scale. The tones are produced by striking the pieces of wood with hard balls attached to flexible sticks.

betrays an ambitious man into indecencies that lessen his reputation; he is still afraid lest any of his actions should be thrown away in private. Addison. Chemists would be rich if they could still do in great quantities what they have sometimes done in little. Boyle.

retch of cultivated country. W. Black. But all of them left me a week at a stretch. E. Eggleston.

he calcium group, always naturally occurring combined, as in the minerals strontianite, celestite, etc. It is isolated as a yellowish metal, somewhat malleable but harder than calcium. It is chiefly employed (as in the nitrate) to color pyrotechnic flames red. Symbol Sr. Atomic weight 87.3. A radioactive isotope of str…

s this crook drew hazel bought adown, And stuffed her apron wide with nuts so brown. Gay. Lest the gods, for sin, Should with a swelling dropsy stuff thy skin. Dryden.

inate, to some other verb, and in English is often connected with it by if, that, though, lest, unless, except, until, etc., as in the following sentence: "If there were no honey, they [bees] would have no object in visiting the flower." Lubbock. In some languages, as in Latin and Greek, the subjunctive is often indepe…

That which sullies or defiles. [Obs.] It is the privilege of the celestial luminaries to receive no tincture, sullage, or difilement from the most noisome sinks and dunghills here below. South.