Search the Dictionary

Done with hold design, rash confidence, or in violation of known duty; willful. "Keep back the servant also from presumptuous sins." Ps. xix. 13.

Acquisition beyond expenditure; excess of value received for producing, keeping, or selling, over cost; hence, pecuniary gain in any transaction or occupation; emolument; as, a profit on the sale of goods. Let no man anticipate uncertain profits. Rambler.

The act of driving away or repelling; a keeping at a distance. [Obs.] Bp. Hall.

d; as, the prosecution of a scheme, plan, design, or undertaking; the prosecution of war. Keeping a sharp eye on her domestics . . . in prosecution of their various duties. Sir W. Scott.

The keeper of a prison. [Obs.] Shak.

The keeper of an inn or public house; one licensed to retail beer, spirits, or wine.

om moral defilement or quilt; hence, innocent; guileless; chaste; -- applied to persons. "Keep thyself pure." 1 Tim. v. 22. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience. 1 Tim. i. 5.

A clerk on steam passenger vessels whose duty it is to keep the accounts of the vessels, such as the receipt of freight, tickets, etc.

urn, set, or thrust, aside. "Smiling put the question by." Tennyson. (b) To lay aside; to keep; to sore up; as, to put by money. -- To put down. (a) To lay down; to deposit; to set down. (b) To lower; to diminish; as, to put down prices. (c) To deprive of position or power; to put a stop to; to suppress; to abolish; t…

A keeper of a brothel; a procurer. [Obs.] Chaucer.

To drink largely or luxuriously. Twelve days the gods their solemn revels keep, And quaff with blameless Ethiops in the deep. Dryden.

Friendship; amity; concord. [Obs.] To keep quarter, to keep one's proper place, and so be on good terms with another. [Obs.] In quarter, and in terms like bride and groom. Shak. I knew two that were competitors for the secretary's place, . . . and yet kept good quarter between themselves. Bacon. False quarter, a cleft…

ain. It is large size and oblong shape with a small but long pit; it is cured when green, keeps well, and has a delicate flavor. Loosely, any olive of similar character.

ary failure of the members of a race or people to have a number of children sufficient to keep the birth rate equal to the death rate.

A frame on which articles are deposited for keeping or arranged for display; as, a clothes rack; a bottle rack, etc.

sting of a woodmen bar, with a row of upright pegs set in it, used by domestic weavers to keep the warp of a proper width, and prevent tangling when it is wound upon the beam of the loom.

Hence, mean or tattered attire; worn-out dress. And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm. Dryden.

To have a certain direction; to correspond in direction; to be or keep in a corresponding line; to trend or run; -- often followed by with; as, the front of a house ranges with the street; to range along the coast. Which way the forests range. Dryden.

The keeper of a public park or forest; formerly, a sworn officer of a forest, appointed by the king's letters patent, whose business was to walk through the forest, recover beasts that had strayed beyond its limits, watch the deer, present trespasses to the next court held for the forest, etc. [Eng.]…

The office of the keeper of a forest or park. [Eng.]