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To speak great evil of; to traduce; to defame; to slander; to vilify; to asperse. To be envied and shot at; to be maligned standing, and to be despised falling. South.

To soften; to make tender; to reduce the hardness, harshness, or asperity of; to qualify; as, to mollify the ground. With sweet science mollified their stubborn hearts. Spenser.

llied genera (family Porcellanidæ). They have a smooth, polished carapace. -- Porcelain jasper. (Min.) See Porcelanite. -- Porcelain printing, the transferring of an impression of an engraving to porcelain. -- Porcelain shell (Zoöl.), a cowry.

A semivitrified clay or shale, somewhat resembling jasper; -- called also porcelain jasper.

mmonly, to incite, as a person, to action by a challenge, by taunts, or by defiance; to exasperate; to irritate; to offend intolerably; to cause to retaliate. Obey his voice, provoke him not. Ex. xxiii. 21. Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. Eph. vi. 4. Such acts Of contumacy will provoke the Highest To ma…

d part of the ventral fin in male elasmobranchs, which serves as a copulatory organ, or clasper.

To be furious with anger; to be exasperated to fury; to be violently agitated with passion. "Whereat he inly raged." Milton. When one so great begins to rage, he a hunted Even to falling. Shak.

To climb, as a plant; to creep up. With claspers and tendrils, they [plants] catch hold, . . . and so ramping upon trees, they mount up to a great height. Ray.

See Ribbon. Riband jasper (Min.), a variety of jasper having stripes of different colors, as red and green.

To mold without nicety or elegance; to form with asperities and inequalities.

Full of asperities on the surface; broken into sharp or irregular points, or otherwise uneven; not smooth; rough; as, a rugged mountain; a rugged road. The rugged bark of some broad elm. Milton.

Reproachful aspersion; opprobrious censure; defamatory talk, uttered heedlessly or maliciously. You must not put another scandal on him. Shak. My known virtue is from scandal free. Dryden.

To cast reflections on; to asperse. [Prov. Eng. & Scot.] Crose.

A leguminous plant (Æschynomene aspera) growing in moist places in Southern India and the East Indies. Its pithlike stem is used for making hats, swimming-jackets, etc. [Written also solah, shola.]

Fig.: To injure by aspersion; to defame; to soil; also, to throw out in a defamatory manner.

Asperagus. [Obs.] Sylvester.

of a hawk, upon the wingless body of a lion. The awful ruins of the days of old . . . Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphinx. Shelley.

To stain; to blemish; to taint; to disgrace; to tarnish, as reputation; to asperse. My virgin life no spotted thoughts shall stain. Sir P. Sidney. If ever I shall close these eyes but once, May I live spotted for my perjury. Beau. & Fl. To spot timber, to cut or chip it, in preparation for hewing.

A European perennial herb (Asperula cynanchica) with narrowly linear whorled leaves; -- formerly thought to cure the quinsy. Also called quincewort. Squinancy berries, black currants; -- so called because used to cure the quinsy. Dr. Prior.

That which stimulates, provokes, or excites. His feelings had been exasperated by the constant application of stimulants. Macaulay.