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a machine or mechanism which is made to perform of or for itself what is usually done by human agency; automatic; as, a self-acting feed apparatus; a self-acting mule; a self-acting press.

Believing or teaching that the chief motives of human action are derived from love of self. Hobbes and the selfish school of philosophers. Fleming.

ianus, a French monk (died about 448), who modified the doctrines of Pelagius, by denying human merit, and maintaining the necessity of the Spirit's influence, while, on the other hand, he rejected the Augustinian doctrines of election, the inability of man to do good, and the certain perseverance of the saints.…

r Temperature. Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep. Shak. What surmounts the reach Of human sense I shall delineate. Milton. The traitor Sense recalls The soaring soul from rest. Keble.

The place in which the dead body of a human being is interred, or a place set apart for that purpose; a grave; a tomb. The stony entrance of this sepulcher. Shak. The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher. John xx. 1. A whited sepulcher. Fig.: Any person who is fair…

The act of depositing the dead body of a human being in the grave; burial; interment. Where we may royal sepulture prepare. Dryden.

A covering for the human foot, usually made of leather, having a thick and somewhat stiff sole and a lighter top. It differs from a boot on not extending so far up the leg. Your hose should be ungartered, . . . yourshoe untied. Shak. Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon. Shak.

d muscles connected with the shoulder joint; the upper part of the back; that part of the human frame on which it is most easy to carry a heavy burden; -- often used in the plural. Then by main force pulled up, and on his shoulders bore The gates of Azza. Milton. Adown her shoulders fell her length of hair. Dryden.…

aces, signatures, and images. I. Watts. The natural and indelible signature of God, which human souls . . . are supposed to be stamped with. Bentley.

To violate human rights, law, or propriety; to commit an offense; to trespass; to transgress. I am a man More sinned against than sinning. Shak. Who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against the eternal cause. Pope.

hing in numbers or verse; to celebrate something in poetry. Milton. Bid her . . . sing Of human hope by cross event destroyed. Prior.

To rest upon the haunches, or the lower extremity of the trunk of the body; -- said of human beings, and sometimes of other animals; as, to sit on a sofa, on a chair, or on the ground. And he came and took the book put of the right hand of him that sate upon the seat. Bible (1551) (Rev. v. 7.) I pray you, jest, sir, as…

A constituent of human fæces formed in the small intestines as a product of the putrefaction of albuminous matter. It is also found in reduced indigo. Chemically it is methyl indol, C9H9N.

e upon the emptiness of writers is given in his "Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Human Mind;" but that is a mere skit compared with this strange performance. Leslie Stephen.

Not affording firm ground for confidence; as, a slippery promise. The slippery tops of human state. Cowley.

inely commissioned, who had no existence before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary; that human sin was the imitation of Adam's sin, and that human salvation was the imitation and adoption of Christ's virtue; that the Bible was to be interpreted by human reason; and that its language was metaphorical, and not to be tak…

That branch of philosophy which treats of the constitution, phenomena, and development of human society; social science. H. Spencer.

answer turneth away wrath. Prov. xv. 1. A face with gladness overspread, Soft smiles, by human kindness bred. Wordsworth.

A treatise on the human body; anatomy. Dunglison.

That which is sung or uttered with musical modulations of the voice, whether of a human being or of a bird, insect, etc. "That most ethereal of all sounds, the song of crickets." Hawthorne.