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To affect as by suffocation; to stife; to deprive of air by a thick covering, as of ashes, of smoke, or the like; as, to smother a fire.

Studiously neat or nice, especially in dress; spruce; affectedly precise; smooth and prim. They be so smug and smooth. Robynson (More's Utopia). The smug and scanty draperies of his style. De Quincey. A young, smug, handsome holiness has no fellow. Beau & Fl.

An affection of cereal grains producing a swelling which is at length resolved into a powdery sooty mass. It is caused by parasitic fungi of the genus Ustilago. Ustilago segetum, or U. Carbo, is the commonest kind; that of Indian corn is Ustilago maydis.

To treat with sneers; to affect or move by sneers. Nor sneered nor bribed from virtue into shame. Savage.

A vulgar person who affects to be better, richer, or more fashionable, than he really is; a vulgar upstart; one who apes his superiors. Thackeray. Essentially vulgar, a snob. -- a gilded snob, but none the less a snob. R. G. White.

Vulgar affectation or ostentation; mean admiration of mean things; conduct or manners of a snob.

Affected with blindness by the brilliancy of snow. -- Snow"-blind`ness, n.

An affected nasal twang; hence, cant; hypocrisy.

Having softness or tenderness of heart; susceptible of pity or other kindly affection; gentle; meek. -- Soft"-heart`ed*ness, n.

Produced by the action of the sun, or peculiarly affected by its influence. They denominate some herbs solar, and some lunar. Bacon. Solar cycle. See under Cycle. -- Solar day. See Day, 2. -- Solar engine, an engine in which the energy of solar heat is used to produce motion, as in evaporating water for a steam engin…

Affectedly grave or serious; as, to put on a solemn face. "A solemn coxcomb." Swift.

Hence, affected gravity or seriousness. Solemnity 's a cover for a sot. Young.

genuine. The solid purpose of a sincere and virtuous answer. Milton. These, wanting wit, affect gravity, and go by the name of solid men. Dryden. The genius of the Italians wrought by solid toil what the myth-making imagination of the Germans had projected in a poem. J. A. Symonds.

wness; strength; soundness, -- opposed to weakness or instability; the primary quality or affection of matter by which its particles exclude or resist all others; hardness; massiveness. That which hinders the approach of two bodies when they are moving one toward another, I call solidity. Locke.

Of or pertaining to a somnambulist or somnambulism; affected by somnambulism; appropriate to the state of a somnambulist. Whether this was an intentional and waking departure, or a somnambulistic leave-taking and waking in her sleep, may remain a subject of contention. Dickens.

; resembling a sophomore; hence, pretentious; inflated in style or manner; as, sophomoric affectation. [U. S.]

e, or spirit, of man, the so-called animal soul, that is, the seat of life, the sensitive affections and phantasy, exclusive of the voluntary and rational powers; -- sometimes, in distinction from the mind, the moral and emotional part of man's nature, the seat of feeling, in distinction from intellect; -- sometimes, t…

The peceived object occasioned by the impulse or vibration of a material substance affecting the ear; a sensation or perception of the mind received through the ear, and produced by the impulse or vibration of the air or other medium with which the ear is in contact; the effect of an impression made on the organs of he…

ted; convulsive; intermittent; as, spasmodic zeal or industry. Spasmodic croup (Med.), an affection of childhood characterized by a stoppage of brathing developed suddenly and without fever, and produced by spasmodic contraction of the vocal cords. It is sometimes fatal. Called also laryngismus stridulus, and childcrow…

Affected with spavin.