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A portion of food taken at or after noon, usually between full meals; a luncheon. [Written also noonshun.] Hudibras.

To take care of or tend, as a sick person or an invalid; to attend upon. Sons wont to nurse their parents in old age. Milton. Him in Egerian groves Aricia bore, And nursed his youth along the marshy shore. Dryden.

In a more limited sense, the process by which the living tissues take up, from the blood, matters necessary either for their repair or for the performance of their healthy functions.

rs, to allow them to trail in the water alongside of the boat. -- To unship the oars, to take them out of the rowlocks.

he mind so as to be apprehended or known; that of which the mind by any of its activities takes cognizance, whether a thing external in space or a conception formed by the mind itself; as, an object of knowledge, wonder, fear, thought, study, etc. Object is a term for that about which the knowing subject is conversant;…

Oblique step (Mil.), a step in marching, by which the soldier, while advancing, gradually takes ground to the right or left at an angle of about 25º. It is not now practiced. Wilhelm. -- Oblique system of coördinates (Anal. Geom.), a system in which the coördinate axes are oblique to each other.

ll-omened. [R.] [A Latinism] At the cheerful light, The groaning ghosts and birds obscene take flight. Dryden.

One who observes or takes notice. [Obs.] Sir M. Hale.

To take notice of by appropriate conduct; to conform one's action or practice to; to keep; to heed; to obey; to comply with; as, to observe rules or commands; to observe civility. Ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread. Ex. xii. 17. He wolde no such cursedness observe. Chaucer. Must I budge Must I observe you S…

ce; convenience. Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me. Rom. vii. 11. I'll take the occasion which he gives to bring Him to his death. Waller.

To take in and retain; to absorb; -- said especially with respect to gases; as iron, platinum, and palladium occlude large volumes of hydrogen.

One who occupies, or takes possession; one who has the actual use or possession, or is in possession, of a thing.

To take or hold possession of; to hold or keep for use; to possess. Woe occupieth the fine [/end] of our gladness. Chaucer. The better apartments were already occupied. W. Irving .

one's eye; to be found or met with; to present itself; to offer; to appear; to happen; to take place; as, I will write if opportunity occurs. In Scripture, though the word heir occur, yet there is no such thing as "heir" in our author's sense. Locke.

Left over after a definite round number has been taken or mentioned; indefinitely, but not greatly, exceeding a specified number; extra. Sixteen hundred and odd years after the earth was made, it was destroyed in a deluge. T. Burnet. There are yet missing of your company Some few odd lads that you remember not. Shak.…

The state of being odd, or not even. Take but one from three, and you not only destroy the oddness, but also the essence of that number. Fotherby.

A device for recording the length and rapidity of stride and the number of steps taken by a walker.

Denoting the action of removing or separating; separation; as, to take off the hat or cloak; to cut off, to pare off, to clip off, to peel off, to tear off, to march off, to fly off, and the like.

A short prostrate shoot, which takes root and produces a tuft of leaves, etc. See Illust. of Houseleek.

Something taken off; a deduction.