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Gay; airy; cheering; exhilarating. That lightsome affection of joy. Hooker. -- Light"some*ly, adv. -- Light"some*ness, n. Happiness may walk soberly in dark attire, as well as dance lightsomely in a gala dress. Hawthorne.

To sing cheerfully. [Scot.]

. When I have on those pathless wilds a appeared, And the lone wanderer with my presence cheered. Shenstone.

The manner in which one looks; appearance; countenance; face. [Obs.] All dreary was his cheer and his looking. Chaucer. Looking for, anticipation; expectation. "A certain fearful looking for of judgment." Heb. x. 27.

Unqualified; absolute; entire; sheer. [Obs.] "It's a man untruth." Sir W. Scott.

the key tone are major. Major keys and intervals, as distinguished from minors, are more cheerful. -- Major term (Logic), that term of a syllogism which forms the predicate of the conclusion. -- Major third (Mus.), a third of two steps.

ore trees with wiring love songs in their barks. Shak. But mirth is marred, and the good cheer is lost. Dryden. Ire, envy, and despair Which marred all his borrowed visage. Milton.

Cheerful; joyous; not sad; happy. Is any merry Jas. v. 13.

t was the motto of a bishop eminent for his piety and good works, ... "Serve God, and be cheerful." Addison.

d morals, and right feelings in religious matters. T. Hughes. (b) An active, robust, and cheerful Christian life, as opposed to a meditative and gloomy one. C. Kingsley. -- Muscular excitability (Physiol.), that property in virtue of which a muscle shortens, when it is stimulated; irritability. -- Muscular sense (Phy…

; derived from origin; born with one; inherent; inborn; not acquired; as, native genius, cheerfulness, simplicity, rights, etc. Courage is native to you. Jowett (Thucyd. ).

relation of being objective; character of the object or of the objective. The calm, the cheerfulness, the disinterested objectivity have disappeared [in the life of the Greeks]. M. Arnold.

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

To resound; to echo. And the whole air pealed With the cheers of our men. Longfellow.

fe. Be penitent, and for thy fault contrite. Milton. The pound he tamed, the penitent he cheered. Dryden.

Cheerful; enlivening; gay; sprightly; humorous; sportive; as, pleasant company; a pleasant fellow. From grave to light, from pleasant to serve. Dryden.

That which denotes or promotes pleasure or good humor; cheerfulness; gayety; merriment; especially, an agreeable playfulness in conversation; a jocose or humorous remark; badinage. The grave abound in pleasantries, the dull in repartees and points of wit. Addison. The keen observation and ironical pleasantry of a finis…

Cheerful willingness; alacrity.

To shorten the radius of (a curve); to make (a curve) sharper; as, to quicken the sheer, that is, to make its curve more pronounced.

Without delay or objection; without reluctance; willingly; cheerfully. How readily we wish time spent revoked! Cowper.