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The signs, abbreviations, letters, or characters standing for words, shorthand, etc., in ancient manuscripts, or on coins, medals, etc. W. Savage.

A remarkable event, considered by the ancients as indicating the will of some deity; a prodigy; an omen.

Of or pertaining to the country of the ancient Silures; -- a term applied to the earliest of the Paleozoic eras, and also to the strata of the era, because most plainly developed in that country.

g. Gen. xxx. 30. I have a model by which he build a nobler poem than any extant since the ancients. Dryden.

A brickred ferruginous clay used by the ancients for red paint.

A tortoise; in ancient warfare, a movable roof or shed to protect besiegers; a testudo. [Obs.] They had also all manner of gynes [engines] . . . that needful is [in] taking or sieging of castle or of city, as snails, that was naught else but hollow pavises and targets, under the which men, when they fought, were heled…

, or His nails, that is, the nails with which the Savior was fastened to the cross; -- an ancient form of oath, corresponding to 'Od's bodikins (dim. of body, i.e., God's dear body). Beau & Fl.

The shoe worn by actors of comedy in ancient Greece and Rome, -- used as a sumbol of comedy, of the comic drams, as distinguished from tragedy, which is symbolized by the buskin. Great Fletcher never treads in buskin here, Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear. Dryden.

An apartment freely exposed to the sun; anciently, an apartment or inclosure on the roof of a house; in modern times, an apartment in a hospital, used as a resort for convalescents.

stant; hence, in the plural, descendants in general. I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings. Isa. xix. 11. I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Mal. iii. 6.

ain; a poem. The bard that first adorned our native tongue Tuned to his British lyre this ancient song. Dryden.

One of a class of men who taught eloquence, philosophy, and politics in ancient Greece; especially, one of those who, by their fallacious but plausible reasoning, puzzled inquirers after truth, weakened the faith of the people, and drew upon themselves general hatred and contempt. Many of the Sophists doubdtless card n…

Sortes Homericæ or Virgilianæ Etym: [L., Homeric or Virgilian lots], a form of divination anciently practiced, which consisted in taking the first passage on which the eye fell, upon opening a volume of Homer or Virgil, or a passage drawn from an urn which several were deposited, as indicating future events, or the pro…

o conjoin; to put together in distribution; to class. Shellfish have been, by some of the ancients, compared and sorted with insects. Bacon. She sorts things present with things past. Sir J. Davies.

of or pertaining to Sparta, especially to ancient Sparta; hence, hardy; undaunted; as, Spartan souls; Spartan bravey. -- n.

In ancient astronomy, one of the concentric and eccentric revolving spherical transparent shells in which the stars, sun, planets, and moon were supposed to be set, and by which they were carried, in such a manner as to produce their apparent motions.

Of or pertaining to the heavenly orbs, or to the sphere or spheres in which, according to ancient astronomy and astrology, they were set. Knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance. Shak. Though the stars were suns, and overburned Their spheric limitations. Mrs. Browning. Spherical angle, Spherical coördi…

s the Aralia racemosa, often called spignet, and used as a medicine. The spikenard of the ancients is the Nardostachys Jatamansi, a native of the Himalayan region. From its blackish roots a perfume for the hair is still prepared in India.

Any fern of the genus Asplenium, some species of which were anciently used as remedies for disorders of the spleen.

Splint, or splent, coal. See Splent coal, under Splent. Splint armor,a kind of ancient armor formed of thin plates of metal, usually overlapping each other and allowing the limbs to move freely. -- Splint bone (Anat.), one of the rudimentary, splintlike metacarpal or metatarsal bones on either side of the cannon bone…