Search the Dictionary

Pleasing; delightful; sweet. [R.] The soothest shepherd that ever piped on plains. Milton. With jellies soother than the creamy curd. Keats.

ho happen to be together; a troop; also, an assemblage of animals. [Obs.] "A sort of shepherds." Spenser. "A sort of steers." Spenser. "A sort of doves." Dryden. "A sort of rogues." Massinger. A boy, a child, and we a sort of us, Vowed against his voyage. Chapman.

A herd of wild hogs.

An Anglo-Saxon battle-ax, or halberd. [Obs.] He hath a sparth of twenty pound of weight. Chaucer.

particular person, place, or interest; -- in distinction from a general law. -- Special verdict (Law), a special finding of the facts of the case, leaving to the court the application of the law to them. Wharton (Law Dict.).

A kind of half-pike, or halberd, formerly borne by inferior officers of the British infantry, and used in giving signals to the soldiers.

h or play; playful; wanton; as, a sportful companion. Down he alights among the sportful herd. Milton.

fowl (Zoöl.), any one of several species of Asiatic gallinaceous birds of the genus Galloperdix, allied to the jungle fowl. The males have two or more spurs on each leg. -- Spur gear (Mach.), a cogwheel having teeth which project radially and stand parallel to the axis; a spur wheel. -- Spur gearing, gearing in which…

To disperse by causing sudden fright, as a herd or drove of animals.

or upon, and sometimes by over; as, to steal a march upon one's political rivals. She yesterday wanted to steal a march of poor Liddy. Smollett. Fifty thousand men can not easily steal a march over the sea. Walpole.

A herdsman; a ranchman; one owning, or having charge of, herds of live stock. [Australia & U.S.] W. Howitt.

ngs or business houses. He removed [the body of] Amasa from the street unto the field. Coverdale. At home or through the high street passing. Milton.

To bowl down the stumps of, as, of a wicket. A herd of boys with clamor bowled, And stumped the wicket. Tennyson. To stump it. (a) To go afoot; hence, to run away; to escape. [Slang] Ld. Lytton. (b) To make electioneering speeches. [Colloq. U.S.]

The sixth tone of the scale; the under mediant, or third below the keynote; the superdominant.

t impossible for poets to succeed without ambition. Dryden. Spenser endeavored it in Shepherd's Kalendar; but neither will it succeed in English. Dryden.

mend them, or, not such as I can recommend; these apples are not such as those we saw yesterday; give your children such precepts as tend to make them better. And in his time such a conqueror That greater was there none under the sun. Chaucer. His misery was such that none of the bystanders could refrain from weeping.…

A method of hunting some animals, as the buffalo, by surrounding a herd, and driving them over a precipice, into a ravine, etc. [U.S.] Baird.

apprehension; indetermination; indecision; as, the suspense of a person waiting for the verdict of a jury. Ten days the prophet in suspense remained. Denham. Upon the ticklish balance of suspense. Cowper.

A court held before the verders of the forest as judges, by the steward of the court, thrice every year, the swains, or freeholders, within the forest composing the jury. [Written also swanimote, and sweinmote.] Blackstone.

friction wears off a small quantity of the metal. The only use of it [money] which is interdicted is to put it in circulation again after having diminished its weight by "sweating", or otherwise, because the quantity of metal contains is no longer consistent with its impression. R. Cobden.