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A board or court of justice formerly held in the counting house of the British sovereign's household, composed of the lord steward and his officers, and having cognizance of matters of justice in the household, with power to correct offenders and keep the peace within the verge of the palace, which extends two hundred…

A name formerly applied rather loosely to certain dark-colored igneous rocks, including diorite, diabase, etc.

A man recently married, or about to be married; a bridegroom. Dryden. Groom porter, formerly an officer in the English royal household, who attended to the furnishing of the king's lodgings and had certain privileges.

nnial herb (Veronica officinalis) with small blue flowers, common in Europe and America, formerly thought to have curative properties. -- Ground of the heavens (Astron.), the surface of any part of the celestial sphere upon which the stars may be regarded as projected. -- Ground hemlock (Bot.), the yew (Taxus baccata…

A spectator in the pit of a theater, which formerly was on the ground, and without floor or benches. No comic buffoon to make the groundlings laugh. Coleridge.

Formerly, a kind of beer or ale. [Eng.]

A tool with a hardened steel point, formerly used instead of a diamond for cutting glass.

The pin of iron fastened in the end of a wooden shaft or axle, on which it turns; formerly, any journal, or pivot, or bearing, as the pintle and eye of a hinge, but esp. the end journal of a horizontal.

lot. Byron. He shall, by thy revenging hand, at once receive the just guerdon of all his former villainies. Knolles.

A district on the west coast of Africa (formerly noted for its export of gold and slaves) after which the Guinea fowl, Guinea grass, Guinea peach, etc., are named.

eaking or acting; custom; fashion; manner; behavior; mien; mode; practice; -- often used formerly in such phrases as: at his own guise; that is, in his own fashion, to suit himself. Chaucer. The swain replied, "It never was our guise To slight the poor, or aught humane despise." Pope.

. Islandicus, both of which are circumpolar. The black and the gray are varieties of the former. See Illust. of Accipiter. [Written also gerfalcon, gierfalcon, and jerfalcon.]

also, to modify the sounds of some other letters, as when placed after c and p, with the former of which it represents a compound sound like that of tsh, as in charm (written also tch as in catch), with the latter, the sound of f, as in phase, phantom. In some words, mostly derived or introduced from foreign languages,…

wood. It is obtained as a yellow crystalline substance, C16H14O6, with a sweetish taste. Formerly called also hematin.

Formerly, a mercenary foot soldier in Hungary, now, a halberdier of a Hungarian noble, or an attendant in German or Hungarian courts. [Written also hayduck, heiduc, heiduck, and heyduk.]

Cleared passageway in a crowd; -- formerly an exclamation. [Obs.] "A hall! a hall!" B. Jonson.

A low-grade actor or performer. [Theatrical Slang]

That part of a gunlock which strikes the percussion cap, or firing pin; the cock; formerly, however, a piece of steel covering the pan of a flintlock musket and struck by the flint of the cock to ignite the priming.

also adjectively; as, hammock land. [Southern U. S.] Bartlett. Hammock nettings (Naut.), formerly, nets for stowing hammocks; now, more often, wooden boxes or a trough on the rail, used for that purpose.

a servant, or laborer; a workman, trained or competent for special service or duty; a performer more or less skillful; as, a deck hand; a farm hand; an old hand at speaking. A dictionary containing a natural history requires too many hands, as well as too much time, ever to be hoped for. Locke. I was always reckoned a…