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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…

Soundly. So sound he slept that naught might him awake. Spenser.

his spence, or "pantry" were hung the carcasses of a sheep or ewe, and two cows lately slaughtered. Sir W. Scott. Bluff Harry broke into the spence, And turned the cowls adrift. Tennyson.

er, cloves, etc., which are used in cookery and to flavor sauces, pickles, etc. Hast thou aught in thy purse [bag] any hot spices Piers Plowman.

ened with spikes; stopped with spikes. A youth, leaping over the spiked pales, . . . was caught by those spikes. Wiseman.

to flow out and be lost or wasted; to shed, or suffer to be shed, as in battle or in manslaughter; as, a man spills another's blood, or his own blood. And to revenge his blood so justly spilt. Dryden.

The form of Pantheism taught by Benedict Spinoza, that there is but one substance, or infinite essence, in the universe, of which the so-called material and spiritual beings and phenomena are only modes, and that one this one substance is God. [Written also Spinosism.]

d by the Deity, as maintained by Berkeley, or else the mere educt of the mind itself, as taught by Fichte.

A fit of immoderate laughter or merriment. [Obs.] Thy silly thought enforces my spleen. Shak.

To burst with laughter. [Colloq.] Each had a gravity would make you split. Pope.

Fat; thick; plump; bulky. Nor the squab daughter nor the wife were nice. Betterton.

Pertaining to, or taught by, Stahl, a German physician and chemist of the 17th century; as, the Stahlian theory of phlogiston.

ight. He pronounces the citation stark nonsense. Collier. Rhetoric is very good or stark naught; there's no medium in rhetoric. Selden.

's opinion, etc. To state it. To assume state or dignity. [Obs.] "Rarely dressed up, and taught to state it." Beau. & Fl.

A prefix used before father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, child, etc., to indicate that the person thus spoken of is not a blood relative, but is a relative by the marriage of a parent; as, a stepmother to X is the wife of the father of X, married by him after the death of the mother of X. See Stepchild, Ste…

A son or daughter of one's wife or husband by a former marriage.

A daughter of one's stepfather or stepmother by a former marriage.

characterization. The blackest stigma that can be fastened upon him. Bp. Hall. All such slaughters were from thence called Bartelmies, simply in a perpetual stigma of that butchery. Sir G. Buck.

Like a stock; stupid; blockish. Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature. Shak.

Pride; haughtiness; arrogance. [Obs.] He was a man Of an unbounded stomach. Shak. Stomach pump (Med.), a small pump or syringe with a flexible tube, for drawing liquids from the stomach, or for injecting them into it. -- Stomach tube (Med.), a long flexible tube for introduction into the stomach. -- Stomach worm (Zoö…