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part of the public revenue. Those who lent him money lent it on no security but his bare word. Macaulay.

s also three other sounds: (a) That of e in term, as in thirst. (b) That of e in mete (in words of foreign origin), as in machine, pique, regime. (c) That of consonant y (in many words in which it precedes another vowel), as in bunion, million, filial, Christian, etc. It enters into several digraphs, as in fail, field,…

In early Christian and eccesiastical art, an emblematic fish, or the Greek word for fish, which combined the initials of the Greek words

The stress of voice laid upon accented syllable of a word. Cf. Arsis.

and that is a wrong one. Johnson. What is now "idea" for us How infinite the fall of this word, since the time where Milton sang of the Creator contemplating his newly- created world, -"how it showed . . . Answering his great idea," -to its present use, when this person "has an idea that the train has started," and the…

deogram; representing ideas by symbols, independently of sounds; as, 9 represents not the word "nine," but the idea of the number itself. -- I`de*o*graph"ic*al*ly, adv.

language and distinguish it from other tongues. G. P. Marsh. By idiom is meant the use of words which is peculiar to a particular language. J. H. Newman. He followed their language [the Latin], but did not comply with the idiom of ours. Dryden.

their own fancies and idiopathies, that they scarce have the civility to interchange any words with a stranger. Dr. H. More.

A dictionary of a peculiar dialect, or of the words and phrases peculiar to one part of a country; a glossary.

holars sometimes give terminations and idiotisms, suitable to their native language, unto words newly invented. M. Hale.

ain; trifling; unprofitable; thoughtless; silly; barren. "Deserts idle." Shak. Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. Matt. xii. 36. Down their idle weapons dropped. Milton. This idle story became important. Macaulay.

The condition or quality of being idle (in the various senses of that word); uselessness; fruitlessness; triviality; inactivity; laziness.

" It combines systematically the advantages of previous schemes with a thoroughly logical word formation, and has neither accented constants nor arbitrarily coined pronominal words. For each idea that root is selected which is already most international, on the principle of the "greatest facility for the greatest numbe…

or prose, of simple, rustic life, of pastoral scenes, and the like. [Written also idyll.] Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl. Mrs. Browning. His [Goldsmith's] lovely idyl of the Vicar's home. F. Harrison.

We are ignorant; we ignore; -- being the word formerly written on a bill of indictment by a grand jury when there was not sufficient evidence to warrant them in finding it a true bill. The phrase now used is, "No bill," "No true bill," or "Not found," though in some jurisdictions "Ignored" is still used. Wharton (Law D…

llation; inferential; conclusive; as, an illative consequence or proposition; an illative word, as then, therefore, etc. Illative conversion (Logic), a converse or reverse statement of a proposition which in that form must be true because the original proposition is true. -- Illative sense (Metaph.), the faculty of th…

Not authorized by good usage; not genuine; spurious; as, an illegitimate word. Illegitimate fertilization, or Illegitimate union (Bot.), the fertilization of pistils by stamens not of their own length, in heterogonously dimorphic and trimorphic flowers. Darwin.

Not well authorized or elegant; as, illiberal words in Latin. [R.] Chesterfield.

Etym: [A word not fully approved, but sometimes used for the adverb ill.]

form of the prefix in- not, and in- in. See In-. Im- also occurs in composition with some words not of Latin origin; as, imbank, imbitter.