Search the Dictionary

shrubs or herbs with yellow flowers, especially the European H. vulgare and the American frostweed, H. Canadense. Cretan rockrose, a related shrub (Cistus Creticus), one of the plants yielding the fragrant gum called ladanum.

, found on the European coasts, and more abundantly about New Zealand, where it is called frostfish and considered an excellent food fish.

Full of scorn or contempt; contemptuous; disdainful. Scornful of winter's frost and summer's sun. Prior. Dart not scornful glances from those eyes. Shak.

ated toward the sea. Donne. Two still clouds . . . sparkled on their seaward edges like a frosted fleece. G. W. Cable.

To become firm, dry, and hard, as the ground after the effects of rain or frost have disappeared; as, the roads settled late in the spring.

ings; pierching; keen; severe; painful; distressing; as, sharp pain, weather; a sharp and frosty air. Sharp misery had worn him to the bones. Shak. The morning sharp and clear. Cowper. In sharpest perils faithful proved. Keble.

To nip; to blast; to blight. [Obs.] Biron is like an envious, sneaping frost. Shak.

To eject seed, as wet land swollen with frost.

n, moon, comets, and nebulæ. His eyen twinkled in his head aright, As do the stars in the frosty night. Chaucer.

ce, or the like, into the state of a fluid; liquefaction by heat of anything congealed by frost; also, a warmth of weather sufficient to melt that which is congealed. Dryden.

The power or capacity of enduring; the act of enduring; endurance. Diogenes, one frosty morning, came into the market place,shaking, to show his tolerance. Bacon.

ery abundant in autumn on the Atlantic coast of the Northen United States; -- called also frostfish. See Illust. under Frostfish.

To make fluid; to dissolve. [R.] The mountain stands; nor can the rising sun Unfix her frosts. Dryden.

rly or too late; as, he called at an unseasonable hour; unseasonable advice; unseasonable frosts; unseasonable food. -- Un*sea"son*a*ble*ness, n. -- Un*sea"son*a*bly, adv.

unnatural, unusual, or improper time; unseasonable; premature; inopportune; as, untimely frosts; untimely remarks; an untimely death.

A branch; a twig. [Obs.] The bitter frosts with the sleet and rain Destroyed hath the green in every yerd. Chaucer.