Search the Dictionary

ew to obtaining a fellowship. [Eng. Univ.] -- To sit out. (a) To be without engagement or employment. [Obs.] Bp. Sanderson. (b) To outstay. -- To sit under, to be under the instruction or ministrations of; as, to sit under a preacher; to sit under good preaching. -- To sit up, to rise from, or refrain from, a recumbe…

Permanent position or employment; place; office; as, a situation in a store; a situation under government.

A word employed in the phrase, To ride Skimmington; that is to ride on a horse with a woman, but behind her, facing backward, carrying a distaff, and accompanied by a procession of jeering neighbors making mock music; a cavalcade in ridicule of a henpecked man. The custom was in vogue in parts of England.…

One employed in slaughtering. Shak.

search after fugitive slaves, often conducted with bloodhounds. -- Slave ship, a vessel employed in the slave trade or used for transporting slaves; a slaver. -- Slave trade, the busines of dealing in slaves, especially of buying them for transportation from their homes to be sold elsewhere. -- Slave trader, one wh…

To be, or appear to be, in repose; to be quiet; to be unemployed, unused, or unagitated; to rest; to lie dormant; as, a question sleeps for the present; the law sleeps. How sweet the moonlight sleep upon this bank! Shak.

A vessel employed in smuggling.

mast snaps; a needle snaps. But this weapon will snap short, unfaithful to the hand that employs it. Burke.

ust and equitable distribution of property and labor. In popular usage, the term is often employed to indicate any lawless, revolutionary social scheme. See Communism, Fourierism, Saint-Simonianism, forms of socialism. [Socialism] was first applied in England to Owen's theory of social reconstruction, and in France to…

A substance (usually liquid) suitable for, or employed in, solution, or in dissolving something; as, water is the appropriate solvent of most salts, alcohol of resins, ether of fats, and mercury or acids of metal, etc.

rld has something to do, something to talk of, something to wish for, and something to be employed about. Pope. Something attemped, something done, Has earned a night's repose. Longfellow.

t a sorrow suffereth now Arcite! Chaucer. The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment. Rambler.

To bestow; to employ; -- often with on or upon. I . . . am never loath To spend my judgment. Herbert.

Circuit or range of action, knowledge, or influence; compass; province; employment; place of existence. To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in 't. Shak. Taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself. Hawthorne. Each in his hidden sphere of joy o…

erly a common name for a house of correction in England, the women confined therein being employed in spinning. -- Spinning jenny (Mach.), an engine or machine for spinning wool or cotton, by means of a large number of spindles revolving simultaneously. -- Spinning mite (Zoöl.), the red spider. -- Spinning wheel, a…

One who professes a regard for spiritual things only; one whose employment is of a spiritual character; an ecclesiastic.

give up a contest; to acknowledge defeat; -- from a custom of the prize ring, the person employed to sponge a pugilist between rounds throwing his sponge in the air in token of defeat. [Cant or Slang] "He was too brave a man to throw up the sponge to fate." Lowell. -- Vegetable sponge. (Bot.) See Loof. -- Velvet spo…

One employed in gathering sponges.

-- Spring bed, a mattress, under bed, or bed bottom, in which springs, as of metal, are employed to give the required elasticity. -- Spring beetle (Zoöl.), a snapping beetle; an elater. -- Spring box, the box or barrel in a watch, or other piece of mechanism, in which the spring is contained. -- Spring fly (Zoöl.)…

One employed to inspect yarn, to see that it is well spun, and fit for the loom. [Prov. Eng.]