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Active; brisk; nimble; quick; sharp. [Archaic or Prov. Eng. & Scot.] That horny-handed, snell, peremptory little man. Dr. J. Brown.

r or others; as, some men believe one thing, and others another. Some [seeds] fell among thorns; . . . but other fell into good ground. Matt. xiii. 7, 8.

or of a bird, insect, etc. "That most ethereal of all sounds, the song of crickets." Hawthorne.

To causse to make a noise; to play on; as, to sound a trumpet or a horn. A bagpipe well could he play and soun[d]. Chaucer.

th of the Thames, in England. Southdown sheep (Zoöl.), a celebrated breed of shortwooled, hornless sheep, highly valued on account of the delicacy of their flesh. So called from the South Downs where the breed originated.

ngle heaven with such beauty Shak. Spangled coquette (Zoöl.), a tropical humming bird (Lophornis reginæ). See Coquette, 2.

y often conform with the most pefect quietude to the external regulations of society. Hawthorne.

ut of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself. Hawthorne. Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe Our hermit spirits dwell. Keble.

A sharp appendage to any of a plant; a thorn.

Becoming hard and thorny; tapering gradually to a rigid, leafless point; armed with spines. Gray.

Producing spines; bearing thorns or spines; thorny; spiny.

Bearing a spine or spines; thorn-bearing.

Full of spines; armed with thorns; thorny.

The quality or state of being spiny or thorny; spininess.

Spinose; thorny.

Having small spines; somewhat thorny.

Full of spines; thorny; as, a spiny tree.

The elastic fibrous skeleton of many species of horny Spongiæ (keratosa), used for many purposes, especially the varieties of the genus Spongia. The most valuable sponges are found in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and on the coasts of Florida and the West Indies.

The chemical basis of sponge tissue, a nitrogenous, hornlike substance which on decomposition with sulphuric acid yields leucin and glycocoll.

One of the cells which, in sponges, secrete the spongin, or the material of the horny fibers.