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Meditation; serious consideration. Pride, of all others the most dangerous fault, Proceeds from want of sense or want of thought. Roscommon.

A kind of drama representing some action in which serious and comic scenes are blended; a composition partaking of the nature both of tragedy and comedy. The noble tragi-comedy of "Measure for Measure." Macaulay.

To act or talk without seriousness, gravity, weight, or dignity; to act or talk with levity; to indulge in light or trivial amusements. They trifle, and they beat the air about nothing which toucheth us. Hooker. To trifle with, to play the fool with; to treat without respect or seriousness; to mock; as, to trifle with…

(b) To give over; to reduce. (c) To divert; to deflect; as, to turn off the thoughts from serious subjects; to turn off a joke. (d) To accomplish; to perform, as work. (e) (Mech.) To remove, as a surface, by the process of turning; to reduce in size by turning. (f) To shut off, as a fluid, by means of a valve, stopcock…

flea-beetle (Haltica, or Phyllotreta, striolata), which feeds upon the turnip, and often seriously injures it. It is black with a stripe of yellow on each elytron. The name is also applied to several other small insects which are injurious to turnips. See Illust. under Flea-beetle. -- Turnip fly. (Zoöl.) (a) The turn…

Small solid bodies, such as grape seeds or cherry stones, sometimes lodge in it, causing serious, or even fatal, inflammation. See Illust. under Digestion.

Adapted to turn the balance in the mind, or to convince; important; forcible; serious; momentous. "For sundry weighty reasons." Shak. Let me have your advice in a weighty affair. Swift.

"This well of mercy." Chaucer. Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled. Spenser. A well of serious thought and pure. Keble.

British act of 6 Edw. VII. c. 58 (1906) giving to a workman, except in certain cases of "serious and willful misconduct," a right against his employer to a certain compensation on the mere occurrence of an accident where the common law gives the right only for negligence of the employer.

To destroy, disable, or seriously damage, as a vessel, by driving it against the shore or on rocks, by causing it to become unseaworthy, to founder, or the like; to shipwreck. Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrecked. Shak.