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o retaliate. Obey his voice, provoke him not. Ex. xxiii. 21. Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. Eph. vi. 4. Such acts Of contumacy will provoke the Highest To make death in us live. Milton. Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust Gray. To the poet the meaning is what he pleases to make it, what it provok…

The earliest age at which persons are capable of begetting or bearing children, usually considered, in temperate climates, to be about fourteen years in males and twelve in females.

Boyish; childish; trifling; silly. The French have been notorious through generations for their puerile affectation of Roman forms, models, and historic precedents. De Quincey.

In a puerile manner; childishly.

The quality of being puerile; childishness; puerileness. Sir T. Browne.

Of or pertaining to childbirth; as, a puerperal fever.

Bearing children. [R.]

To whimper; to whine, as a complaining child. It becometh not such a gallant to whine and pule. Barrow.

Whimpering; whining; childish.

A short, fat fellow; anything short and thick. I . . . did hear them call their fat child punch, which pleased me mightily, that word being become a word of common use for all that is thick and short. Pepys.

ffer in retribution; to chasten; as, to punish traitors with death; a father punishes his child for willful disobedience. A greater power Now ruled him, punished in the shape he sinned. Milton.

To procure; to get. I mean to purvey me a wife after the fashion of the children of Benjamin. Sir W. Scot.

A child's game played with pins. L. Estrange.

st by obstacles or difficulties. -- To put to bed. (a) To undress and place in bed, as a child. (b) To deliver in, or to make ready for, childbirth. -- To put to death, to kill. -- To put together, to attach; to aggregate; to unite in one. -- To put this and that (or two and two) together, to draw an inference; to…

Commonly thought or deemed; supposed; reputed; as, the putative father of a child. "His other putative (I dare not say feigned) friends." E. Hall. Thus things indifferent, being esteemed useful or pious, became customary, and then came for reverence into a putative and usurped authority. Jer. Taylor.…

pl. Four children born in the same labor.

hing; attempt to find or obtain; search; pursuit; as, to rove in quest of game, of a lost child, of property, etc. Upon an hard adventure yet in quest. Spenser. Cease your quest of love. Shak. There ended was his quest, there ceased his care. Milton.

Pregnant; with child. Shak. Quick grass. (Bot.) See Quitch grass. -- Quick match. See under Match. -- Quick vein (Mining), a vein of ore which is productive, not barren. -- Quick vinegar, vinegar made by allowing a weak solution of alcohol to trickle slowly over shavings or other porous material. -- Quick water, qu…

pl. Five children born in the same labor.

The voluntary 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.