Search the Dictionary

To explore; to view; inspect; and examine secretly, as a country; -- usually with out. Moses sent to spy Jaazer, and they took the villages thereof. Num. xxi. 32.

To turn informer; to betray a secret. [Slang]

Fig.: To injure secretly or by malicious falsehood or slander; as, to stab a person's reputation.

ity; -- the opposite of wildness, or Ant: levity. If sometimes he appears too gray, yet a secret gracefulness of youth accompanies his writings, though the staidness and sobriety of age wanting. Dryden.

Fig.: Something used to cover up a secret project; a mask; a pretense. Hypocrisy is the devil's stalking-horse under an affectation of simplicity and religion. L'Estrange. How much more abominable is it to make of him [Christ] and religion a stalking-horse, to get and enjoy the world! Bunyan.

To keep close; to keep secret. [Obs.] Stall this in your bosom. Shak.

The male organ of flowers for secreting and furnishing the pollen or fecundating dust. It consists of the anther and filament.

Close; secret; private. [Obs.] This to be kept stanch. Locke.

To accomplish in a concealed or unobserved manner; to try to carry out secretly; as, to steal a look. Always, when thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, . . . and do not think to steal it. Bacon. To steal a march, to march in a covert way; to gain an advantage unobserved; -- formerly followed by of…

The bringing to pass anything in a secret or concealed manner; a secret procedure; a clandestine practice or action; -- in either a good or a bad sense. Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. Pope. The monarch, blinded with desire of wealth, With steel invades the brother's life by stealth. Dryden. I told him o…

Done by stealth; accomplished clandestinely; unperceived; secret; furtive; sly. [Withered murder] with his stealthy pace, . . . Moves like a ghost. Shak.

A sharp-pointed hollow hair seated on a gland which secrets an acrid fluid, as in nettles. The points of these hairs usually break off in the wound, and the acrid fluid is pressed into it.

e or trick in war for deceiving the enemy; hence, in general, artifice; deceptive device; secret plot; evil machination. Fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. Shak. Those oft are stratagems which error seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. Pope.

To aid secretly; to assist in a private manner, or indirectly. [R.] Daniel.

Put secretly in the place of something else; foisted in. [R.]

Secret entrance. [R.] Boyle.

To procure privately, or by collusion; to procure by indirect means; to incite secretly; to instigate. Thou art suborned against his honor. Shak. Those who by despair suborn their death. Dryden.

To attest by writing one's name beneath; as, officers subscribe their official acts, and secretaries and clerks subscribe copies or records.

. Succus entericus (. Etym: [NL., literally, juice of the intestines.] (Physiol.) A fluid secreted in small by certain glands (probably the glands of Lieberkühn) of the small intestines. Its exact action is somewhat doubtful.

Producing, or secreting, sweat; sudoriparous. Sudoriferous glands (Anat.), small convoluted tubular glands which are situated in the subcutaneous tissues and discharge by minute orifices in the surface of the skin; the sweat glands.