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Deep or grave in sound; as, the base tone of a violin. [In this sense, commonly written bass.]

ians which includes the frogs and toads; the Anura. Sometimes the word is used in a wider sense as equivalent to Amphibia.

ast. Ball bearings. See under Ball. -- To bring one to his bearings, to bring one to his senses. -- To lose one's bearings, to become bewildered. -- To take bearings, to ascertain by the compass the position of an object; to ascertain the relation of one object or place to another; to ascertain one's position by ref…

roperties pleasing to the eye, the ear, the intellect, the æsthetic faculty, or the moral sense. Beauty consists of a certain composition of color and figure, causing delight in the beholder. Locke. The production of beauty by a multiplicity of symmetrical parts uniting in a consistent whole. Wordsworth. The old defini…

n which it is placed (as, a feather bed), or this with the bedclothes added. In a general sense, any thing or place used for sleeping or reclining on or in, as a quantity of hay, straw, leaves, or twigs. And made for him [a horse] a leafy bed. Byron. I wash, wring, brew, bake, . . . make the beds. Shak. In bed he slept…

certainty; persuasion; conviction; confidence; as, belief of a witness; the belief of our senses. Belief admits of all degrees, from the slightest suspicion to the fullest assurance. Reid.

e truth of the Scriptures, as a revelation from God; a Christian; -- in a more restricted sense, one who receives Christ as his Savior, and accepts the way of salvation unfolded in the gospel. Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers. Book of Com. Prayer.

To make little or less in a moral sense; to speak of in a depreciatory or contemptuous way. T. Jefferson.

ibility; to stupefy; as, a hand or foot benumbed by cold. The creeping death benumbed her senses first. Dryden.

Made sottish, senseless, or infatuated; characterized by drunken stupidity, or by infatuation; stupefied. "Besotted devotion." Sir W. Scott. -- Be*sot"ted*ly, adv. -- Be*sot"ted*ness, n. Milton.

Out of one's senses; distracted; mad. [Obs.] Shak.

- To go beyond, to exceed in ingenuity, in research, or in anything else; hence, in a bed sense, to deceive or circumvent. That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter. 1 Thess. iv. 6.

or translated; the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; -- sometimes in a restricted sense, the Old Testament; as, King James's Bible; Douay Bible; Luther's Bible. Also, the book which is made up of writings similarly accepted by the Jews; as, a rabbinical Bible.

greatness, fullness, importance, inflation, distention, etc., whether in a good or a bad sense; as, a big heart; a big voice; big looks; to look big. As applied to looks, it indicates haughtiness or pride. God hath not in heaven a bigger argument. Jer. Taylor.

ef or opinion opposed to or differing from them as unreasonable or wicked. In an extended sense, a person who is intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in politics or morals; one obstinately and blindly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion. To doubt, where bigots had been content to wond…

Nonsense; vain words. B. Jonson.

, a blind channel leading out from a river; -- sometimes called an anabranch. This is the sense of the word as used in the Public Works Department; but the term has also been locally applied to mere back-waters forming stagnant pools and to certain water channels arising from a source.

, city, or country, where a person is born; place of origin or birth, in its more general sense. "The birthplace of valor." Burns.

To cause sharp pain, or smarting, to; to hurt or injure, in a literal or a figurative sense; as, pepper bites the mouth. "Frosts do bite the meads." Shak.

The quality or state of being bitter, sharp, or acrid, in either a literal or figurative sense; implacableness; resentfulness; severity; keenness of reproach or sarcasm; deep distress, grief, or vexation of mind. The lip that curls with bitterness. Percival. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Job vii. 11.…