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out all civilized countries, a synonym for probity and philanthropy. Macaulay. In popular literary acceptation, and as employed in special dictionaries of such words, synonyms are words sufficiently alike in general signification to be liable to be confounded, but yet so different in special definition as to require to…

Hence, anything chosen as the subject of an argument, literary composition, or the like; topic; theme.

The subject of any distinct portion of a discourse, or argument, or literary composition; also, the general or main subject of the whole; a matter treated of; a subject, as of conversation or of thought; a matter; a point; a head.

The higher literary idiom of Chinese, that of the canonical books and of all composition pretending to literary standing. It employs a classical or academic diction, and a more condensed and sententious style than Mandarin, and differs also in the doubling and arrangement of words.

One who is engaged in literary composition as a profession; an author; as, a writer of novels. This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile. Shak.

Any written composition; a pamphlet; a work; a literary production; a book; as, the writings of Addison.

Properly, the translation and exposition in the Huzvâresh, or literary Pehlevi, language, of the Avesta, the Zoroastrian sacred writings; as commonly used, the language (an ancient Persian dialect) in which the Avesta is written.

The literary theories and practices of the French novelist Emile Zola (1840-1902); naturalism, esp. in a derogatory sense. -- Zo"la*ist, n. -- Zo`la*is"tic (#), a. -- Zo"la*ize (#), v.