Search the Dictionary

sent the serjeant, saying, Let those men go. Acts xvi. 35. This fell sergeant, Death, Is strict in his arrest. Shak.

Very strict in judgment, discipline, or government; harsh; not mild or indulgent; rigorous; as, severe criticism; severe punishment. "Custody severe." Milton. Come! you are too severe a moraler. Shak. Let your zeal, if it must be expressed in anger, be always more severe against thyself than against others. Jer. Taylor…

Gravity or austerity; extreme strictness; rigor; harshness; as, the severity of a reprimand or a reproof; severity of discipline or government; severity of penalties. "Strict age, and sour severity." Milton.

rritorial division, usually identical with a county, but sometimes limited to a smaller district; as, Wiltshire, Yorkshire, Richmondshire, Hallamshire. An indefinite number of these hundreds make up a county or shire. Blackstone.

, or other material; -- formerly used of the under- garment of either sex, now commonly restricted to that worn by men and boys. Several persons in December had nothing over their shoulders but their shirts. Addison. She had her shirts and girdles of hair. Bp. Fisher.

Indians, comprising many tribes, which extends from Montana and Idaho into Mexico. In a restricted sense the name is applied especially to the Snakes, the most northern of the tribes.

Originally, a brawling, turbulent, vexatious person of either sex, but now restricted in use to females; a brawler; a scold. A man . . . grudgeth that shrews [i. e., bad men] have prosperity, or else that good men have adversity. Chaucer. A man had got a shrew to his wife, and there could be no quiet in the house for h…

psed since a transit of the vernal equinox, reckoned in parts of a sidereal day. This is, strictly, apparent sidereal time, mean sidereal time being reckoned from the transit, not of the true, but of the mean, equinoctial point.

on eel. -- Silver fir (Bot.), a coniferous tree (Abies pectinata) found in mountainous districts in the middle and south of Europe, where it often grows to the height of 100 or 150 feet. It yields Burgundy pitch and Strasburg turpentine. -- Silver foil, foil made of silver. -- Silver fox (Zoöl.), a variety of the co…

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

ury. It was often comic, had modern characters, and patterned its music on folk song with strictly subordinated accompaniment.

In a restricted sense, same as Sipunculacea.

A district or province; a circar. [India]

The lord's power or privilege of holding a court in a district, as in manor or lordship; jurisdiction of causes, and the limits of that jurisdiction.

A district held by socage.

m and Prince Henry of Prussia, and so called because these yachts do not conform to the restrictions for the regular classes established by the rules of the International Yacht Racing Union. In yachts of the sonderclass, as prescribed for the season of 1911, the aggregate of the length on water line, extreme beam, and…

s in fine particles, and adheres to the sides of the chimney or pipe conveying the smoke; strictly, the fine powder, consisting chiefly of carbon, which colors smoke, and which is the result of imperfect combustion. See Smoke.

the body are sounded or explored, especially the bladder for stone, or the urethra for a stricture.

It is sometimes fatal. Called also laryngismus stridulus, and childcrowing. -- Spasmodic stricture, a stricture caused by muscular spasm without structural change. See Organic stricture, under Organic.

not. Shak. During the century and a half which followed the Conquest, there is, to speak strictly, no English history. Macaulay.