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formerly used to flog offenders on the bare back. -- Cat's cradle, game played, esp. by children, with a string looped on the fingers so, as to resemble small cradle. The string is transferred from the fingers of one to those of another, at each transfer with a change of form. See Cratch, Cratch cradle. -- To let th…

or burden; to load; to fill. A carte that charged was with hay. Chaucer. The charging of children's memories with rules. Locke.

e with care; to protect and aid. We were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children. 1 Thess. ii. 7.

o denote knowledge, as distinguished from the seraphim (see Seraph), and in later art the children's heads with wings are generally called cherubs.

A mild, eruptive disease, generally attacking children only; varicella.

A descendant, however remote; -- used esp. in the plural; as, the children of Israel; the children of Edom.

A scientific study of children, undertaken for the purpose of discovering the laws of development of the body and the mind from birth to manhood.

The act of producing or bringing forth children; parturition. Milton. Addison.

The crowing noise made by children affected with spasm of the laryngeal muscles; false croup.

A day (December 28) observed by mass or festival in commemoration of the children slain by Herod at Bethlehem; -- called also Holy Innocent's Day.

The state of being a child; the time in which persons are children; the condition or time from infancy to puberty. I have walked before you from my childhood. 1. Sam. xii. 2.

Bearing Children; (Fig.) productive; fruitful. [R.] Shak.

Resembling a child, or that which belongs to children; becoming a child; meek; submissive; dutiful. "Childlike obedience." Hooker.

Crying earnestly, beseeching clamorousky. "Clamant children." Thomson.

A game played by children with nuts.

called also huckle bone. [Obs.] Nares. A little transverse bone Which boys and bruckeled children call (Playing for points and pins) cockal. Herrick.

the common people; one having no rank of nobility. All below them [the peers] even their children, were commoners, and in the eye law equal to each other. Hallam.

n. "Metaphorical compellations." Milton. He useth this endearing compellation, "My little children." Bp. Beveridge. The peculiar compellation of the kings in France is by "Sire," which is nothing else but father. Sir W. Temple.

rah, the concubines of Abraham; and such concubines were allowed by the Roman laws. Their children were not heirs of their father.

It was conditioned between Saturn and Titan, that Saturn should put to death all his male children. Sir W. Raleigh.