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Misstep; misbehavior. "To punish my mistreadings." Shak.

h, severe, afflictive, or calamitous; as, the mitigation of pain, grief, rigor, severity, punishment, or penalty.

small quantity; a measured simply. "Modicums of wit." Shak. Her usual modicum of beer and punch. Thackeray.

taining, within the sheathlike labium, six fine, sharp, needlelike organs with which they puncture the skin of man and animals to suck the blood. These bites, when numerous, cause, in many persons, considerable irritation and swelling, with some pain. The larvæ and pupæ, called wigglers, are aquatic. [Written also musq…

A knob made on a rope with spun yarn or parceling to prevent a running eye from slipping.

A turn or lashing of spun yarn or small stuff, or a metallic clasp or fastening, uniting the point and shank of a hook to prevent its unhooking or straighening out.

A fine or penalty, esp. a pecuniary punishment or penalty.

ng a pecuniary penalty; consisting of, or paid as, a fine. Fines, or some known mulctuary punishments. Sir W. Temple.

its motion between shafts that are not parallel. -- Mule twist, cotton yarn in cops, as spun on a mule; -- in distinction from yarn spun on a throstle frame.

To increase in number; to make more numerous; to add quantity to. Impunity will multiply motives to disobedience. Ames.

oil (Chem.), a substance obtained from mustard, as a transparent, volatile and intensely pungent oil. The name is also extended to a number of analogous compounds produced either naturally or artificially.

Having the rank, pungent, offencive odor and taste which substances of organic origin acquire during warm, moist weather; foul or sour and fetid; moldy; as, musty corn; musty books. Harvey.

tiny betwixt yourselves. Shak. Mutiny act (Law), an English statute reënacted annually to punish mutiny and desertion. Wharton.

usually of a yellowish brown or amber color, of an aromatic odor, and a bitter, slightly pungent taste. It is valued for its odor and for its medicinal properties. It exuds from the bark of a shrub of Abyssinia and Arabia, the Balsamodendron Myrrha. The myrrh of the Bible is supposed to have been partly the gum above…

uding several species of cress. They are found chiefly in wet or damp grounds, and have a pungent biting taste.

mon British species are the crested newt (Triton cristatus) and the smooth newt (Lophinus punctatus). In America, Diemictylus viridescens is one of the most abundant species.

A kind of cress, a pungent cruciferous plant, including several species of the genus Nasturtium.

e obliging power of the law is neither founded in, nor to be measured by, the rewards and punishments annexed to it. South. Religion obliges men to the practice of those virtues which conduce to the preservation of our health. Tillotson.

Liable to censure; exposed to punishment; reprehensible; blameworthy. "The contrived and interested schemes of ...obnoxious authors." Bp. Fell. All are obnoxious, and this faulty land, Like fainting Hester, does before you stand Watching your scepter. Waller.

To reduce the edge, pungency, or violent action of; to dull; to blunt; to deaden; to quell; as, to obtund the acrimony of the gall. [Archaic] Harvey. They...have filled all our law books with the obtunding story of their suits and trials. Milton.