Search the Dictionary

A mark or cross, as the signature of a person who is unable to write.

a critical manner; with nice discernment; accurately; exactly. Critically to discern good writers from bad. Dryden.

ile and devours its insect parasites, even entering its open mouth (according to reliable writers) in pursuit of files, etc.; -- called also Nile bird. It is the trochilos of ancient writers. -- Crocodile tears, false or affected tears; hypocritical sorrow; -- derived from the fiction of old travelers, that crocodiles…

The crosslike mark or symbol used instead of a signature by those unable to write. Five Kentish abbesses . . . .subscribed their names and crosses. Fuller.

One who writes in cipher, or secret characters.

mnly, or in passion; subjection to, or sentence of, divine condemnation. The priest shall write these curses in a book. Num. v. 23. Curses, like chickens, come home to roost. Old Proverb.

A maker of, or writer for, a cyclopedia.

A writer of dactylic verse.

that upon which an inference or an argument is based; -- used chiefly in the plural. Any writer, therefore, who . . . furnishes us with data sufficient to determine the time in which he wrote. Priestley.

A writer of a book divided into decades; as, Livy was a decadist. [R.]

Profoundly book-learned. "Great writers and deep-read men." L'Estrange.

Pertaining to, savoring of, or consisting in, deism; as, a deistic writer; a deistical book. The deistical or antichristian scheme. I. Watts.

Florence. The Dellacruscan School, a name given in satire to a class of affected English writers, most of whom lived in Florence, about a. d. 1785.

who are kept as mistresses, though not public prostitutes; demireps. Literary demimonde, writers of the lowest kind.

One who writes on, or is versed in, demonology.

A table, frame, or case, usually with sloping top, but often with flat top, for the use writers and readers. It often has a drawer or repository underneath.

Work done at a desk, as by a clerk or writer. Tennyson.

ssia (Myogale moschata). It is allied to the moles, but is called muscrat by some English writers. [Written also dæsman.]

One who detracts; a detractor. Other detracters and malicious writers. Sir T. North.

The writer of Deuteronomy.