Search the Dictionary

A combining form, with the meaning of self, one's self, one's own, itself, its own.

To talk incoherently; to utter unmeaning words.

ation of Bible classes of young men; -- so named in allusion to the Hebrew word Berachah (Meaning blessing) occurring in 2 Chron. xx. 26 and 1 Chron. xii.

A foreigner. [Historical] Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.

A building for soldiers, especially when in garrison. Commonly in the pl., originally meaning temporary huts, but now usually applied to a permanent structure or set of buildings. He lodged in a miserable hut or barrack, composed of dry branches and thatched with straw. Gibbon.

refix, originally the same word as by; joined with verbs, it serves: (a) To intensify the meaning; as, bespatter, bestir. (b) To render an intransitive verb transitive; as, befall (to fall upon); bespeak (to speak for). (c) To make the action of a verb particular or definite; as, beget (to get as offspring); beset (to…

and Mohammedans, whence the phrases to tell beads, to at one's beads, to bid beads, etc., meaning, to be at prayer.

To have a certain meaning, intent, or effect. Her sentence bore that she should stand a certain time upon the platform. Hawthorne.

Purport; meaning; intended significance; aspect.

A sharp-witted, dashing, wild, or reckless, fellow; -- a word of somewhat indefinite meaning. He saw a turnkey in a trice Fetter a troublesome blade. Coleridge.

ake public far and wide. Thyself thou blazon'st. Shak. There pride sits blazoned on th' unmeaning brow. Trumbull. To blazon his own worthless name. Cowper.

High-sounding; inflated; big without meaning; magniloquent; bombastic. [He] evades them with a bombast circumstance, Horribly stuffed with epithets of war. Shak. Nor a tall metaphor in bombast way. Cowley.

Swelling words without much meaning; bombastic language; fustian. Bombastry and buffoonery, by nature lofty and light, soar highest of all. Swift.

applied to any subject, and retaining the literal idea more or less clearly, the precise meaning depending largely on the substantive. A broad mixture of falsehood. Locke.

Out of the common path; aside; -- used in composition, giving the meaning of something aside, secondary, or incidental, or collateral matter, a thing private or avoiding notice; as, by-line, by-place, by-play, by-street. It was formerly more freely used in composition than it is now; as, by-business, by-concernment, by…

e government of their members. In this sense the word has probably been influenced by by, meaning secondary or aside.

hidden sense; and it teaches the methods of interpretation for ascertaining these occult meanings. The cabalists pretend even to foretell events by this means.

Of or pertaining to the cabala; containing or conveying an occult meaning; mystic. The Heptarchus is a cabalistic of the first chapter of Genesis. Hallam.

ed; indeterminate; indefinite; one or some; -- sometimes used independenty as a noun, and meaning certain persons. It came to pass when he was in a certain city. Luke. v. 12. About everything he wrote there was a certain natural grace und decorum. Macaulay. For certain, assuredly. -- Of a certain, certainly.…

That which is charactered; the meaning. [Obs.] I will construe to thee All the charactery of my sad brows. Shak.