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To write one's name, esp. as a token of assent, responsibility, or obligation.

's signet in my purse. Shak. Signet ring, a ring containing a signet or private seal. -- Writer to the signet (Scots Law), a judicial officer who prepares warrants, writs, etc.; originally, a clerk in the office of the secretary of state.

Lit.), the latter part (a. d. 14-180) of the classical period of Latinity, -- the time of writers of inferior purity of language, as compared with those of the previous golden age, so-called. -- Silver-bell tree (Bot.), an American shrub or small tree (Halesia tetraptera) with white bell-shaped flowers in clusters or…

Linnæan genus of Quadrumana which included the types of numerous modern genera. By modern writers it is usually restricted to the genus which includes the orang-outang.

To write poor poetry. [R.] Tennyson.

One of three sea nymphs, -- or, according to some writers, of two, -- said to frequent an island near the coast of Italy, and to sing with such sweetness that they lured mariners to destruction. Next where the sirens dwell you plow the seas; Their song is death, and makes destruction please. Pope.

ibe; a sally; a brief satire; a squib. Tooke. A similar vein satire upon the emptiness of writers is given in his "Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Human Mind;" but that is a mere skit compared with this strange performance. Leslie Stephen.

wine; some water; some persons. Used also pronominally; as, I have some. Some theoretical writers allege that there was a time when there was no such thing as society. Blackstone.

A bar or key, in a typewriter or typesetting machine, used for spacing between letters.

ated with indigo and violet." Sir I. Newton. Wit, . . . the faculty of imagination in the writer, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent. Dryden.

; to undo. "Sped with spavins." Shak. A dire dilemma! either way I 'm sped. If foes, they write, if friends, they read, me dead. Pope.

To tell or name in their proper order letters of, as a word; to write or print in order the letters of, esp. the proper letters; to form, as words, by correct orthography. The word "satire" ought to be spelled with i, and not with y. Dryden.

Energy, vivacity, ardor, enthusiasm, courage, etc. "Write it then, quickly," replied Bede; and summoning all his spirits together, like the last blaze of a candle going out, he indited it, and expired. Fuller.

A writer of lampoons. [Obs.] The squibs are those who in the common phrase of the world are called libelers, lampooners, and pamphleteers. Tatler.

To write or report in stenographic characters.

One who is skilled in stenography; a writer of shorthand.

Mode of composition. See Style. [Obs.] May I not write in such a stile as this Bunyan.

rational language; nonsense; trash. Anger would indite Such woeful stuff as I or Shadwell write. Dryden.

ment of words in discourse; rhetorical expression. High style, as when that men to kinges write. Chaucer. Style is the dress of thoughts. Chesterfield. Proper words in proper places make the true definition of style. Swift. It is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work. I. Disraeli.…

The person who is treated of; the hero of a piece; the chief character. Writers of particular lives . . . are apt to be prejudiced in favor of their subject. C. Middleton.