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To form a plot or scheme; to contrive to accomplish a purpose by secret artifice.

t, or between hope and fear; irresoluteness; indecision; vacillation. Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all unhappiness. Addison.

actice of wandering in quest of adventures; chivalry; a quixotic or romantic adventure or scheme. The rigid guardian [i. e., conscience] of a blameless heart Is weak with rank knight-erratries o'errun. Young.

e head, to stun or kill by a blow upon the head; hence, to put am end to; to defeat, as a scheme or project; to frustrate; to quash. [Colloq.] -- To knock off. (a) To force off by a blow or by beating. (b) To assign to a bidder at an auction, by a blow on the counter. (c) To leave off (work, etc.). [Colloq.] -- To knoc…

To present or offer; as, to lay an indictment in a particular county; to lay a scheme before one.

se in lieu of, that is, instead of. The plan of extortion had been adopted in lieu of the scheme of confiscation. Burke.

assistance in return; -- sometimes used of a disreputable mode of accomplishing political schemes or ends. [Cant, U.S.]

A scheme for the distribution of prizes by lot or chance; esp., a gaming scheme in which one or more tickets bearing particular numbers draw prizes, and the rest of tickets are blanks. Fig. : An affair of chance.

To plan; to contrive; esp., to form a scheme with the purpose of doing harm; to contrive artfully; to plot. "How long will you machinate!" Sandys.

That which is devised; a device; a hostile or treacherous scheme; an artful design or plot. Devilish machinations come to naught. Milton. His ingenious machinations had failed. Macaulay.

One who machinates, or forms a scheme with evil designs; a plotter or artful schemer. Glanvill. Sir W. Scott.

To manage with address or art; to scheme.

terial objects. Having wich wonderful art and beauty materialized, if I may so call it, a scheme of abstracted notions, and clothed the most nice, refined conceptions of philosophy in sensible images. Tatler.

To intrigue; to scheme. [Obs.] Bacon.

Any scheme or device proposed by a quack. The incentives of agitators, the arts of impostors and the nostrums of quacks. Brougham.

censure; exposed to punishment; reprehensible; blameworthy. "The contrived and interested schemes of ...obnoxious authors." Bp. Fell. All are obnoxious, and this faulty land, Like fainting Hester, does before you stand Watching your scepter. Waller.

t; not hidden or disguised; exposed to view or to knowledge; revealed; apparent; as, open schemes or plans; open shame or guilt. His thefts are too open. Shak. That I may find him, and with secret gaze Or open admiration him behold. Milton.

To take first existence; to have origin or beginning; to begin to exist or act; as, the scheme originated with the governor and council.

Fig.: A sketch of any scheme; a preliminary or general indication of a plan, system, course of thought, etc.; as, the outline of a speech. But that larger grief . . . Is given in outline and no more. Tennyson.

A scheme to unite all the Greeks in one political body.