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; vehement; fierce; as, a keen appetite. "Of full kene will." Piers Plowman. So keen and greedy to confound a man. Shak.

ccustomed to reason have got the true key of books. Locke. Who keeps the keys of all the creeds. Tennyson.

cking larger birds, even hawks and eagles, especially when they approach its nest in the breeding season. It is a typical tyrant flycatcher, taking various insects upon the wing. It is dark ash above, and blackish on the bead and tail. The quills and wing coverts are whitish at the edges. It is white beneath, with a wh…

d then synonymous with finial; -- called also knob, and knosp. Knop sedge (Bot.), the bur reed (Sparganium); - - so called from its globular clusters of seed vessels. Prior.

A reed instrument of music of the cornet kind, now obsolete (see Cornet, 1, a.)

se of the Civil War, and having for its aim the repression of the political power of the freedmen; -- called also Kuklux Klan.

One of the half-breed descendants of whites and Indians; a mestizo; -- so called throughout Central America. They are usually of a yellowish orange tinge. Am. Cyc.

of crabs which live much on the land, and resort to the water chiefly for the purpose of breeding. They are abundant in the West Indies and South America. Some of them grow to a large size. -- Land fish a fish on land; a person quite out of place.Shak. -- Land force, a military force serving on land, as distinguished…

like that produced by taking up drink with the tongue. I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, And the wild water lapping on the crag. Tennyson.

The movable swing frame of a loom, carrying the reed for separating the warp threads and beating up the weft; -- called also lay and batten. Blanchard lathe, a lathe for turning irregular forms after a given pattern, as lasts, gunstocks, and the like. -- Drill lathe, or Speed lathe, a small lathe which, from its high…

Room; space; freedom from confinement or restraint; hence, looseness; laxity; independence. In human actions there are no degrees and precise natural limits described, but a latitude is indulged. Jer. Taylor.

in his notions, or not restrained by precise settled limits in opinion; one who indulges freedom in thinking.

A latitudinarian system or condition; freedom of opinion in matters pertaining to religious belief. Fierce sectarianism bred fierce latitudinarianism. De Quincey. He [Ammonius Saccas] plunged into the wildest latitudinarianism of opinion. J. S. Harford.

Faith; creed; religious profession. [Obs.] Of the sect to which that he was born He kept his lay, to which that he was sworn. Chaucer.

Freedom from occupation or business; vacant time; time free from employment. The desire of leisure is much more natural than of business and care. Sir W. Temple.

accord; to agree; to suit. [Obs.] With such accommodation and besort As levels with her breeding. Shak.

cal or religious philosophy; independent in opinion; not conservative; friendly to great freedom in the constitution or administration of government; having tendency toward democratic or republican, as distinguished from monarchical or aristocratic, forms; as, liberal thinkers; liberal Christians; the Liberal party. I…

The quality or state of being liberal; liberal disposition or practice; freedom from narrowness or prejudice; generosity; candor; charity. That liberality is but cast away Which makes us borrow what we can not pay. Denham.

A manumitted slave; a freedman; also, the son of a freedman.

The state of a libertine or freedman. [R.] Hammond.