Search the Dictionary

Not regular; not bound by monastic vows or rules; not confined to a monastery, or subject to the rules of a religious community; as, a secular priest. He tried to enforce a stricter discipline and greater regard for morals, both in the religious orders and the secular clergy. Prescett.

The half of a circle; the part of a circle bounded by its diameter and half of its circumference.

ject state seem to have been called serfs, and distinguished from villeins, who were only bound to fixed payments and duties in respect of their lord, though, as it seems, without any legal redress if injured by him. Hallam.

ten also serjeanty.] Grand sergeanty, a particular kind of tenure by which the tenant was bound to do some special honorary service to the king in person, as to carry his banner, his sword, or the like. Tomlins. Cowell. Blackstone. -- Petit sergeanty. See under Petit.

The state of voluntary or compulsory subjection to a master; the condition of being bound to service; the condition of a slave; slavery; bondage; hence, a state of slavish dependence. You would have sold your king to slaughter, His princes and his peers to servitude. Shak. A splendid servitude; . . . for he that rises…

To make hairy or shaggy; hence, to make rough. Shag the green zone that bounds the boreal skies. J. Barlow.

A boundary; a division. [Obs. & R.] Spenser.

A quantity of the stalks and ears of wheat, rye, or other grain, bound together; a bundle of grain or straw. The reaper fills his greedy hands, And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands. Dryden.

omeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood Shak. Twice seven consenting years have shed Their utmost bounty on thy head. Wordsworth.

To divide; to distribute; to apportion. [Obs.] To which God of his bounty would shift Crowns two of flowers well smelling. Chaucer.

d headings sufficient in number for one hogshead, cask, barrel, or the like, trimmed, and bound together in compact form.

n shape), one of the longer edges as distinguished from the shorter edges, called ends; a bounding line of a geometrical figure; as, the side of a field, of a square or triangle, of a river, of a road, etc.

his sinister cheek." Shak. My mother's blood Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister Bounds in my father's Shak.

A light leap or bound.

vulgar language. [Colloq.] Every gentleman abused by a cabman or slanged by a bargee was bound there and then to take off his coat and challenge him to fisticuffs. London Spectator.

not thorough) examination; slight (i. e., not severe) pain, and the like. "At one slight bound." Milton. Slight is the subject, but not so the praise. Pope. Some firmly embrace doctrines upon slight grounds. Locke.

To move along the surface of a thing without bounding, rolling, or stepping; to slide; to glide.

Enveloped in, or confined by, snow. Whittier.

bruised leaves, when agitated in water, produce a lather like that from soap. Called also Bouncing Bet.

A magnitude which has length, breadth, and thickness; a part of space bounded on all sides. Solid of revolution. (Geom.) See Revolution, n., 5.