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Severity; strictness; austerity. Shak.

Severity of manners or life; extreme rigor or strictness; harsh discipline. The austerity of John the Baptist. Milton.

holds and exercises the powers of government by claim of absolute right, not subject to restriction; as, Autocrat of all the Russias (a title of the Czar).

One living in the back or outlying districts of a community. The English backsettlers of Leinster and Munster. Macaulay.

The whole number of votes cast at an election, or in a given territory or electoral district. Ballot box, a box for receiving ballots.

rial interdict by which political rights and privileges, as those of a prince, city, or district, were taken away.

r, and usually at some future specified time. Such bills are negotiable, but form, in the strict sense of the term, no part of the currency.

A variety of small barnyard fowl, with feathered legs, probably brought from Bantam, a district of Java.

The whole body of lawyers licensed in a court or district; the legal profession.

, corresponding nearly to the English hundred, and supposed to have been originally the district of a native chief. There are 252 of these baronies. In Scotland, an extensive freehold. It may be held by a commoner. Brande & C.

In Spain and countries colonized by Spain, a village, ward, or district outside a town or city to whose jurisdiction it belongs.

dit to the truth of the Scriptures, as a revelation from God; a Christian; -- in a more restricted sense, one who receives Christ as his Savior, and accepts the way of salvation unfolded in the gospel. Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers. Book of Com. Prayer.

A governor of a province or district in the Turkish dominions; also, in some places, a prince or nobleman; a beg; as, the bey of Tunis.

anguage, or translated; the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; -- sometimes in a restricted sense, the Old Testament; as, King James's Bible; Douay Bible; Luther's Bible. Also, the book which is made up of writings similarly accepted by the Jews; as, a rabbinical Bible.

ods. -- Bill of mortality, an official statement of the number of deaths in a place or district within a given time; also, a district required to be covered by such statement; as, a place within the bills of mortality of London. -- Bill of pains and penalties, a special act of a legislature which inflicts a punishmen…

A diocese; the district over which the jurisdiction of a bishop extends.

ormerly roamed in herds over most of the temperate portion of North America, but is now restricted to very limited districts in the region of the Rocky Mountains, and is rapidly decreasing in numbers.

of a black color, of which two species are common in the United States, the Bascanium constrictor, or racer, sometimes six feet long, and the Scotophis Alleghaniensis, seven or eight feet long.

The sound made by blowing a wind instrument; strictly, the sound produces at one breath. One blast upon his bugle horn Were worth a thousand men. Sir W. Scott. The blast of triumph o'er thy grave. Bryant.

Severe or over strict in morals; gloom; as, blue and sour religionists; suiting one who is over strict in morals; inculcating an impracticable, severe, or gloomy mortality; as, blue laws.