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or amount; not much; as, a little food; a little air or water. Conceited of their little wisdoms, and doting upon their own fancies. Barrow.

That which is taught; hence, instruction; wisdom; advice; counsel. Chaucer. If please ye, listen to my lore. Spenser.

Pertaining to the hidden wisdom supposed to be possessed by the Magi; relating to the occult powers of nature, and the producing of effects by their agency.

times or in various ways; -- used to qualify nouns in the singular number. "The manifold wisdom of God." Eph. iii.

One of a series of progenitors of human beings, and authors of human wisdom.

proposition; a condensed proposition of important practical truth; an axiom of practical wisdom; an adage; a proverb; an aphorism. 'T is their maxim, Love is love's reward. Dryden.

membrance; a monument. Macaulay. Churches have names; some as memorials of peace, some of wisdom, some in memory of the Trinity itself. Hooker.

The goddess of wisdom, of war, of the arts and sciences, of poetry, and of spinning and weaving; -- identified with the Grecian Pallas Athene.

, or examples; to lend a moral to. While chastening thoughts of sweetest use, bestowed By Wisdom, moralize his pensive road. Wordsworth.

be explained; hence, specifically, that which is beyond human comprehension. We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. 1 Cor. ii. 7. If God should please to reveal unto us this great mystery of the Trinity, or some other mysteries in our holy religion, we should not be able to understand them, unless he would bestow on…

hy days I will not do it. 1 Kings xi. 11, 12. They which honor the law as an image of the wisdom of God himself, are, notwithstanding, to know that the same had an end in Christ. Hooker. You did wisely and honestly too, notwithstanding She is the greatest beauty in the parish. Fielding. Notwithstanding that, notwithsta…

One who obscures; one who prevents enlightenment or hinders the progress of knowledge and wisdom. Coleridge.

A setting about; a beginning. [Obs.] Shak. There is surely no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and onsets of things. Bacon.

Resembling an oracle in some way, as in solemnity, wisdom, authority, obscurity, ambiguity, dogmatism. They have something venerable and oracular in that unadorned gravity and shortness in the expression. Pope. -- O*rac"u*lar*ly, adv. -- O*rac"u*lar*ness, n.

To surpass in wisdom, esp. in cunning; to defeat or overreach by superior craft. They did so much outwit and outwealth us ! Gauden.

Affected wisdom; pompous dellness. [R.]

Pallas Athene, the Grecian goddess of wisdom, called also Athene, and identified, at a later period, with the Roman Minerva.

Universal wisdom; esp., a system of universal knowledge proposed by Comenius (1592 -- 1671), a Moravian educator. [R.] Hartlib.

is the tenth part of an ephah. Ex. xvi. 36. A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom, And ever three parts coward. Shak.

Acute; discerning; sagacious; as, penetrative wisdom. "The penetrative eye." Wordsworth. Led on by skill of penetrative soul. Grainger.