Search the Dictionary

t; especially, an agreeable playfulness in conversation; a jocose or humorous remark; badinage. The grave abound in pleasantries, the dull in repartees and points of wit. Addison. The keen observation and ironical pleasantry of a finished man of the world. Macaulay.

lead, iron, or glass pipes, and other apparatus for the conveyance of water, gas, or drainage in buildings.

A tyne or snag of an antler.

The method by which any institution is administered; system of management; course.

Sagacious in promoting a policy; ingenious in devising and advancing a system of management; devoted to a scheme or system rather than to a principle; hence, in a good sense, wise; prudent; sagacious; and in a bad sense, artful; unscrupulous; cunning; -- said of persons. Politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy.…

litical party; -- used in a depreciatory sense; one addicted or attached to politics as managed by parties (see Politics, 2); a schemer; an intriguer; as, a mere politician. Like a scurvy politician, seem To see the things thou dost not. Shak. The politician . . . ready to do anything that he apprehends for his advanta…

The management of a political party; the conduct and contests of parties with reference to political measures or the administration of public affairs; the advancement of candidates to office; in a bad sense, artful or dishonest management to secure the success of political candidates or parties; political trickery. Whe…

Policy; art; management. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

poison. [Eng] Dr. Prior. -- Poor man's weatherglass (Bot.), the red-flowered pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis), which opens its blossoms only in fair weather. -- Poor rate, an assessment or tax, as in an English parish, for the relief or support of the poor. -- Poor soldier (Zoöl.), the friar bird. -- The poor, those…

Capacity for carrying; tonnage. [Obs.] Hakluyt.

Bulky; corpulent. "A portly personage." Dickens.

Skillful or artful management; dexterity in contrivance or the use of means; art; stratagem; artifice; plot; -- usually in a bad sense. [Obs.] Bacon. He sought to have that by practice which he could not by prayer. Sir P. Sidney.

s acceptance. Collier. Presence chamber, or Presence room, the room in which a great personage receives company. Addison." Chambers of presence." Bacon. -- Presence of mind, that state of the mind in which all its faculties are alert, prompt, and acting harmoniously in obedience to the will, enabling one to reach, as…

ry as a candidate for institution. The patron of a church may present his clerk to a parsonage or vicarage; that is, may offer him to the bishop of the diocese to be instituted. Blackstone.

Admitting the presentation of a clergyman; as, a presentative parsonage. Spelman.

One who manages, or attends to, a press, esp. a printing press.

licy of a priesthood; esp., in an ill sense, fraud or imposition in religious concerns; management by priests to gain wealth and power by working upon the religious motives or credulity of others. It is better that men should be governed by priestcraft than by violence. Macaulay.

the first year's whole profit of an ecclesiastical preferment. The primitias of your parsonage. Spenser.

One who is employed to manage to affairs of another. Specifically:

Management by a proctor, or as by a proctor; hence, control; superintendence; -- in contempt. "The fogging proctorage of money." Milton.