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presided over by a prior or prioress; -- sometimes an offshoot of, an subordinate to, an abbey, and called also cell, and obedience. See Cell, 2.

A noisy, senseless talker; a jabberer. It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so much perspicuity, vivacity, and grace, should have been, whenever he took a part in conversation, an empty, noisy, blundering rattle. Macaulay.

A restangular longitudinal recess or groove, cut in the corner or edge of any body; a rabbet. See Rabbet.

To bloom again. Crabbe.

Harsh; hard; crabbed; austere; -- said of temper, character, and the like, or of persons. Neither melt nor endear him, but leave him as hard, rugged, and unconcerned as ever. South.

To become covered with a scab; as, the wound scabbed over.

be united to another by a scarf joint, the part of the end or edge that is tapered off, rabbeted, or notched so as to be thinner than the rest of the piece.

In an abbey or monastery, the room set apart for writing or copying manuscripts; in general, a room devoted to writing. Writing rooms, or scriptoria, where the chief works of Latin literature . . . were copied and illuminated. J. R. Green.

bby; scurfy; specifically, diseased with the scurvy. "Whatsoever man . . . be scurvy or scabbed." lev. xxi. 18, 20.

ual or common use; as, to secularize a church, or church property. At the Reformation the abbey was secularized. W. Coxe.

To smear with saliva issuing from the mouth; to defile with drivel; to slabber.

See Slabber.

To sober. [R.] Crabbe.

h produces such a feeling; as, the solemnity of an audience; the solemnity of Westminster Abbey.

Disagreeable; unpleasant; hence; cross; crabbed; peevish; morose; as, a man of a sour temper; a sour reply. "A sour countenance." Swift. He was a scholar . . . Lofty and sour to them that loved him not, But to those men that sought him sweet as summer. Shak.

ak. The veery care he took to keep his name Stainless, with some was evidence of shame. Crabbe.

A district granted to an abbey. [Obs.] Camden.

The head of a monastery, convent, abbey, or the like.

A woman who acts as chief in a convent, abbey, or nunnery; a lady superior.

Gloomily morose; ill-natured, abrupt, and rude; severe; sour; crabbed; rough; sullen; gloomy; as, a surly groom; a surly dog; surly language; a surly look. "That surly spirit, melancholy." Shak.