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Tending to excite laughter or contempt by extravagant images, or by a contrast between the subject and the manner of treating it, as when a trifling subject is treated with mock gravity; jocular; ironical. It is a dispute among the critics, whether burlesque poetry runs best in heroic verse, like that of the Dispensary…

to sear; as, to burn steel in forging; to burn one's face in the sun; the sun burns the grass.

olish; specifically, to polish by rubbing with something hard and smooth; as, to burnish brass or paper. The frame of burnished steel, that east a glare From far, and seemed to thaw the freezing air. Dryden. Now the village windows blaze, Burnished by the setting sun. Cunningham. Burnishing machine, a machine for smoot…

ers. -- To bury the hatchet, to lay aside the instruments of war, and make peace; -- a phrase used in allusion to the custom observed by the North American Indians, of burying a tomahawk when they conclude a peace.

uerrilla; a marauding assassin; one who pretends to be a peaceful citizen, but secretly harasses a hostile force or its sympathizers. [U.S.] Farrow.

n on or upon the bye, i.e., in passing; indirectly; by implication. [Obs. except in the phrase by the bye.] The Synod of Dort condemneth upon the bye even the discipline of the Church of England. Fuller.

tantinople by the Turks, A.D. 1453. -- Byzantine historians, historians and writers (Zonaras, Procopius, etc.) who lived in the Byzantine empire. P. Cyc. Byzantine style (Arch.), a style of architecture developed in the Byzantine empire.

An esculent vegetable of many varieties, derived from the wild Brassica oleracea of Europe. The common cabbage has a compact head of leaves. The cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, etc., are sometimes classed as cabbages.

The whole collection; the entire quantity or number; -- usually in the phrase the whole caboodle. [Slang, U.S.] Bartlett.

yellow massive mineral with metallic luster; a telluride of gold; -- first found in Calaveras County California.

A large kettle or boiler of copper, brass, or iron. [Written also cauldron.] "Caldrons of boiling oil." Prescott.

onic and antiseptic. [Written also colombo, columbo, and calombo.] American calumba, the Frasera Carolinensis, also called American gentian. Its root has been used in medicine as bitter tonic in place of calumba.

h young; to produce offspring. Canst thou mark when the hinds do calve Job xxxix. 1. The grassy clods now calved. Molton.

Of a pale yellowish color; as, Canary stone. Canary grass, a grass of the genus Phalaris (P. Canariensis), producing the seed used as food for canary birds. -- Canary stone (Min.), a yellow species of carnelian, named from its resemblance in color to the plumage of the canary bird. -- Canary wood, the beautiful wood…

elled; that is, to have lines drawn over it in the form of latticework or cancelli; the phrase is now used figuratively for any manner of obliterating or defacing it. Blackstone.

A weight, at Madras 500 pounds, at Bombay 560 pounds.

Stems of other plants are sometimes called canes; as, the canes of a raspberry. Like light canes, that first rise big and brave. B. Jonson.

The use of religious phraseology without understanding or sincerity; empty, solemn speech, implying what is not felt; hypocrisy. They shall hear no cant fromF. W. Robertson

India rubber (because it was first brought from India, and was formerly used chiefly for erasing pencil marks) and gum elastic. See Vulcanization. Mineral caoutchouc. See under Mineral.

To cover with, or as with, a hood; hence, to hoodwink or blind. Hudibras.