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it; temper; disposition. [Obs.] So priketh hem nature in here corages. Chaucer. My lord, cheer up your spirits; our foes are nigh, and this soft courage makes your followers faint. Shak.

Brisk; crackling; cheerful; lively. The snug, small room, and the crisp fire. Dickens.

A pack of hounds. Milton. A cry more tunable Was never hollaed to, nor cheered with horn. Shak.

Damp; moist; humid; wet. Now that the fields are dank and ways are mire. Milton. Cheerless watches on the cold, dank ground. Trench.

Sumptuous in cheer. [Obs.] Bailey.

Dark; gloomy; obscure; shaded; cheerless. [Poetic] He brought him through a darksome narrow pass To a broad gate, all built of beaten gold. Spenser.

Lacking spirit; dull; lusterless; cheerless; as, dead eye; dead fire; dead color, etc.

Inspiring dejection; saddening; cheerless; as, the disconsolate darkness of the winter nights. Ray.

Gloomy to the eye or ear; sorrowful and depressing to the feelings; foreboding; cheerless; dull; dreary; as, a dismal outlook; dismal stories; a dismal place. Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frowned. Goldsmith. A dismal description of an English November. Southey.…

To deprive of cheerful spirits; to depress the spirits of; to dishearten; to discourage. Not dispirited with my afflictions. Dryden. He has dispirited himself by a debauch. Collier.

ood (as a cask, barrel, etc.) in distinction from being bottled; as, ale on draught. -- Sheer draught. See under Sheer.

Exciting cheerless sensations, feelings, or associations; comfortless; dismal; gloomy. " Dreary shades." Dryden. "The dreary ground." Prior. Full many a dreary anxious hour. Keble. Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary part of that dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity. Macaulay.…

The place in a deep-waisted vessel where the sheer is raised and the rail is cut off, and usually terminated with a scroll, or driftpiece.

An upright or curved piece of timber connecting the plank sheer with the gunwale; also, a scroll terminating a rail.

Furnishing little delight, spirit, or variety; uninteresting; tedious; cheerless; gloomy; melancholy; depressing; as, a dull story or sermon; a dull occupation or period; hence, cloudy; overcast; as, a dull day. Along life's dullest, dreariest walk. Keble.

That which flows out; emanation; effluence. Prime cheerer, light! . . . Efflux divine. Thomson.

To raise from a depressed state; to animate; to cheer; as, to elevate the spirits.

To give spirit or vivacity to; to make sprightly, gay, or cheerful; to animate; as, mirth and good humor enliven a company; enlivening strains of music.

To animate; to encourage; to cheer. It raiseth the dropping spirit, erecting it to a loving complaisance. Barrow.

To make merry or jolly; to enliven; to animate; to gladden greatly; to cheer; as, good news exhilarates the mind; wine exhilarates a man.