Search the Dictionary

The act of reciting; rehearsal; repetition of words or sentences. Hammond.

An officer who delivered the royal answer to petitions. "Referendaries, or masters of request." Harmar.

To decline to accept; to reject; to deny the request or petition of; as, to refuse a suitor. The cunning workman never doth refuse The meanest tool that he may chance to use. Herbert.

The act of rehearsing; recital; narration; repetition; specifically, a private recital, performance, or season of practice, in preparation for a public exhibition or exercise. Chaucer. In rehearsal of our Lord's Prayer. Hooker. Here's marvelous convenient place for our rehearsal. Shak. Dress rehearsal (Theater), a priv…

A word formed from another, or used to form another, by repetition; as, dillydally.

The act of repeating; repetition.

Repeating; containing repetition. [U.S.] Dr. T. Dwight.

Containing repetition; repeating. [R.]

Repetition.

A repetition; a copy. Farrar.

act of asking for anything desired; expression of desire or demand; solicitation; prayer; petition; entreaty. I will marry her, sir, at your request. Shak.

One who requests; a petitioner.

A short return or repetition; a concluding symphony to an air, often consisting of the burden of the song.

Having the same pretensions or claims; standing in competition for superiority; as, rival lovers; rival claims or pretensions. The strenuous conflicts and alternate victories of two rival confederacies of statesmen. Macaulay.

Rivalry; competition. [Obs.]

The act of rivaling, or the state of being a rival; a competition. "Keen contention and eager rivalries." Jeffrey.

register; a record; also, a catalogue; a list. The rolls of Parliament, the entry of the petitions, answers, and transactions in Parliament, are extant. Sir M. Hale. The roll and list of that army doth remain. Sir J. Davies.

A species of lyric poetry so composed as to contain a refrain or repetition which recurs according to a fixed law, and a limited number of rhymes recurring also by rule.

particular form of rondeau containing fourteen lines in two rhymes, the refrain being a repetition of the first and second lines as the seventh and eighth, and again as the thirteenth and fourteenth. E. W. Gosse.

A frequent repetition of forms of speech without attention to the meaning; mere repetition; as, to learn rules by rote. Swift. till he the first verse could [i. e., knew] all by rote. Chaucer. Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell. Shak.