Search the Dictionary

k, a book with exercises for teaching children to spell; a speller. -- Spelling match, a contest of skill in spelling words, between two or more persons.

A person with slender shanks, or legs; -- used humorously or in contempt.

ad been spitting with rain. Dickens. To spit on or upon, to insult grossly; to treat with contempt. "Spitting upon all antiquity." South.

ion. [R.] Shak. In spite of, or Spite of, in opposition to all efforts of; in defiance or contempt of; notwithstanding. "Continuing, spite of pain, to use a knee after it had been slightly ibnjured." H. Spenser. "And saved me in spite of the world, the devil, and myself." South. "In spite of all applications, the patie…

lour, to be used in leavening a larger quantity. -- To throw up the sponge, to give up a contest; to acknowledge defeat; -- from a custom of the prize ring, the person employed to sponge a pugilist between rounds throwing his sponge in the air in token of defeat. [Cant or Slang] "He was too brave a man to throw up the…

n produces other larvæ by internal budding, or by the subdivision of a part or all of its contents into a number of minute germs. See Redia.

Mock; mockery; contemptuous mirth; derision. Then make sport at me; then let me be your jest.Shak.

To reject with disdain; to scorn to receive or accept; to treat with contempt. What safe and nicely I might well delay By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn. Shak. Domestics will pay a more cheerful service when they find themselves not spurned because fortune has laid them at their master's feet. Locke.…

To contend for superiority in an unseemly maner; to scuffle; to struggle; to wrangle; to quarrel.

One who squabbles; a contentious person; a brawler.

, to raise the shoulders so as to give them a square appearance, -- a movement expressing contempt or dislike. Sir W. Scott. -- To square the circle (Math.), to determine the exact contents of a circle in square measure. The solution of this famous problem is now generally admitted to be impossible.…

One who squares, or quarrels; a hot-headed, contentious fellow. [Obs.] Shak.

A precise person; -- used contemptuously or jocularly. Thackeray.

Hence, something unripe or soft; -- used in contempt. "This squash, this gentleman." Shak.

squaw; sometimes, one who has gained tribal rights by such a marriage; -- often a term of contempt. [Western U. S.]

To throw squibs; to utter sarcatic or severe reflections; to contend in petty dispute; as, to squib a little debate. [Colloq.]

te. He succeeded to great captains who had sapped the whole stamina and resistance of the contest. De Quincey.

v. 18. (c) To rise and stand on end, as the hair. (d) To put one's self in opposition; to contend. "Once we stood up about the corn." Shak. -- To stand up for, to defend; to justify; to support, or attempt to support; as, to stand up for the administration. -- To stand upon. (a) To concern; to interest. (b) To value;…

One who gazes at the stars; an astrologer; sometimes, in derision or contempt, an astronomer.

The act or practice of observing the stars with attention; contemplation of the stars as connected with astrology or astronomy. Swift.