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ivial distinctions. The ancient hairsplitting technicalities of special pleading. Charles Sumner.

ely a half, whether more or less; partial; imperfect; as, a half dream; half knowledge. Assumed from thence a half consent. Tennyson. Half ape (Zoöl.), a lemur. -- Half back. (Football) See under 2d Back. -- Half bent, the first notch, for the sear point to enter, in the tumbler of a gunlock; the halfcock notch. --…

Ample; moderately large. He . . . accumulated a handsome sum of money. V. Knox. To do the handsome thing, to act liberally. [Colloq.]

kind; the ingathering of the crops; also, the season of gathering grain and fruits, late summer or early autumn. Seedtime and harvest . . . shall not cease. Gen viii. 22. At harvest, when corn is ripe. Tyndale.

Forward; early; first ripe. [Obs.] "As the hasty fruit before the summer." Is. xxviii. 4.

sometimes with paroxysms of dyspnoea, to which some persons are subject in the spring and summer seasons. It has been attributed to the effluvium from hay, and to the pollen of certain plants. It is also called hay asthma, hay cold, and rose fever. -- Hay knife, a sharp instrument used in cutting hay out of a stack or…

ncy in the air; hence, figuratively, obscurity; dimness. O'er the sky The silvery haze of summer drawn. Tennyson. Above the world's uncertain haze. Keble.

High temperature, as distinguished from low temperature, or cold; as, the heat of summer and the cold of winter; heat of the skin or body in fever, etc. Else how had the world . . . Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat! Milton.

lessed after death. Unto the God of love, high heaven's King. Spenser. It is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell. Shak. New thoughts of God, new hopes of Heaven. Keble.

Habitual; constitutional; pertaining especially to slow waste of animal tissue, as in consumption; as, a hectic type in disease; a hectic flush.

death, has a right to inherit all his intestate estate. Wharton (Law Dict.). -- Heir presumptive, one who, if the ancestor should die immediately, would be his heir, but whose right to the inheritance may be defeated by the birth of a nearer relative, or by some other contingency.

pirits. Hence, any mental torment; anguish. "Within him hell." Milton. It is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell. Shak.

The sum or number of seven.

A woman of an heroic spirit. The heroine assumed the woman's place. Dryden.

f, younger than; of fewer years than. And on the hither side, or so she looked, Of twenty summers. Tennyson. To the present generation, that is to say, the people a few years on the hither and thither side of thirty, the name of Charles Darwin stands alongside of those of Isaac Newton and Michael Faraday. Huxley.…

A ridge formed by tilted strata; hence, any ridge with a sharp summit, and steeply sloping sides.

In England, the Bunium flexuosum, a tuberous plant.

ss; giddy; flighty; also, haughty; patronizing; as, to be in hoity-toity spirits, or to assume hoity-toity airs; used also as an exclamation, denoting surprise or disapprobation, with some degree of contempt. Hoity-toity! What have I to do with dreams Congreve.

A burnt sacrifice; an offering, the whole of which was consumed by fire, among the Jews and some pagan nations. Milton.

he definitions, axioms, and postulates of Euclid respecting parallel straight lines are assumed to hold true.