Search the Dictionary

Mastery; dominion; superior skill; superiority. Where noble youths for mastership should strive. Driden.

The position or authority of a master; dominion; command; supremacy; superiority. If divided by mountains, they will fight for the mastery of the passages of the tops. Sir W. Raleigh.

A contest to try strength or skill, or to determine superiority; an emulous struggle. "Many a warlike match." Drayton. A solemn match was made; he lost the prize. Dryden.

A game arranged as a test of superiority; also, one of a series of such games.

To act the part of a marton toward; to superintend; to chaperone; as, to matronize an assembly.

Their architecture comprised elaborately carved temples and places, and they possessed a superior calendar, and a developed system of hieroglyphic writing, with records said to go back to about 700 a. d.

distances. -- Liquid measure, the measure of liquids. -- Square measure, the measure of superficial area of surfaces in square units, as inches, feet, miles, etc. -- To have hard measure, to have harsh treatment meted out to one; to be harshly or oppressively dealt with. -- To take measures, to make preparations; t…

cities. The duties of those belonging to the order are, to attend lying-in hospitals, to superintend the education of girls, and protect decent women out of employment, to visit prisoners and the sick, and to attend persons condemned to death. -- To be at the mercy of, to be wholly in the power of.

Middle; intervening; as, a mesne lord, that is, a lord who holds land of a superior, but grants a part of it to another person, in which case he is a tenant to the superior, but lord or superior to the second grantee, and hence is called the mesne lord. Mesne process, intermediate process; process intervening between t…

Preternatural or supernatural. [Obs.] The golden round *Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crowned withal. Shak.

The superior or presiding bishop of a country or province.

Martial law, under Martial. -- Military order. (a) A command proceeding from a military superior. (b) An association of military persons under a bond of certain peculiar rules; especially, such an association of knights in the Middle Ages, or a body in modern times taking a similar form, membership of which confers s…

The master or superintendent of a mint. Also used figuratively.

lished constitution and course of things, or a deviation from the known laws of nature; a supernatural event, or one transcending the ordinary laws by which the universe is governed. They considered not the miracle of the loaves. Mark vi. 52.

Of the nature of a miracle; performed by supernatural power; effected by the direct agency of almighty power, and not by natural causes.

s fly." Dryden. Letters missive, letters conveying the permission, comand, or advice of a superior authority, as a sovereign. They are addressed and sent to some certain person or persons, and are distinguished from letters patent, which are addressed to the public.

bearing a glutinous fruit. When found upon the oak, where it is rare, it was an object of superstitious regard among the Druids. A bird lime is prepared from its fruit. [Written also misletoe, misseltoe, and mistleto.] Lindley. Loudon.

title of courtesy formerly prefixed to the name of a woman, married or unmarried, but now superseded by the contracted forms, Mrs., for a married, and Miss, for an unmarried, woman. Now Mistress Gilpin (careful soul). Cowper.

Imitating reality, but not real; false; counterfeit; assumed; sham. That superior greatness and mock majesty. Spectator. Mock bishop's weed (Bot.), a genus of slender umbelliferous herbs (Discopleura) growing in wet places. -- Mock heroic, burlesquing the heroic; as, a mock heroic poem. -- Mock lead. See Blende (a).…

In the University of Oxford, an examiner for moderations; at Cambridge, the superintendant of examinations for degrees; at Dublin, either the first (senior) or second (junior) in rank in an examination for the degree of Bachelor of Arts.