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s and bushes hoar. Fairfax. And Heaven defend your good souls, that you think I will your serious and great business scant, For she with me. Shak.

Real; actual; serious; as in the phrases in good earnest; in good sooth. Love no man in good earnest. Shak.

Of importance; momentous; weighty; influential; sedate; serious; - - said of character, relations, etc.; as, grave deportment, character, influence, etc. Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors. Shak. A grave and prudent law, full of moral equity. Milton.

Importance, significance, dignity, etc; hence, seriousness; enormity; as, the gravity of an offense. They derive an importance from . . . the gravity of the place where they were uttered. Burke.

Great; palpable; serious; vagrant; shameful; as, a gross mistake; gross injustice; gross negligence.

A look or expression of heading. [R.] He did it with a serious mind; a heed Was in his countenance. Shak.

A discourse or sermon read or pronounced to an audience; a serious discourse. Shak.

A complicated and embarrassing state of things; a serious misunderstanding. Wrestling to free itself from the baleful imbroglio. Carlyle.

Importance; weight; consequence. Most serious design, and the great import. Shak.

Want of seriousness; aimlessness; frivolity.

otions; influence. Through all her train the soft infection ran. Pope. Mankind are gay or serious by infection. Rambler.

Sportive; not serious; fit for jests. He will find that these are no jesting matters. Macaulay .

Sportive; merry. "Jocular exploits." Cowper. The style is serious and partly jocular. Dryden.

Something not said seriously, or not actually meant; something done in sport. Inclose whole downs in walls, 't is all a joke. Pope. In joke, in jest; sportively; not meant seriously. -- Practical joke. See under Practical.

secretly, or so as not to be observed, especially while apparently preserving a grave or serious demeanor toward the person or persons laughed at. -- To laugh out, to laugh in spite of some restraining influence; to laugh aloud. -- To laugh out of the other corner (or side) of the mouth, to weep or cry; to feel regr…

Wanting sense or seriousness; trifling; trivolous; as, leer words.

Licentiousness of principle or opinion. That spirit of religion and seriousness vanished all at once, and a spirit of liberty and libertinism, of infidelity and profaneness, started up in the room of it. Atterbury.

To keep the mind in a state of contemplation; to dwell on anything in thought; to think seriously; to muse; to cogitate; to reflect. Jer. Taylor. In his law doth he meditate day and night. Ps. i. 2.

editating; close or continued thought; the turning or revolving of a subject in the mind; serious contemplation; reflection; musing. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. Ps. xix. 14.

Pensive maditation; serious thoughtfulness. [Obs.] "Hail, divinest Melancholy !" Milton.