Search the Dictionary

An ode or song of praise or adoration; especially, a religious ode, a sacred lyric; a song of praise or thankgiving intended to be used in religious service; as, the Homeric hymns; Watts' hymns. Admonishing one another in psalms and hymns. Col. iii. 16. Where angels first should practice hymns, and string Their tuneful…

Relating to hymns, or sacred lyrics. Donne.

The hymns or sacred lyrics composed by authors of a particular country or period; as, the hymnology of the eighteenth century; also, the collective body of hymns used by any particular church or religious body; as, the Anglican hymnology.

d young of the crocodile as well as various snakes and lizards, and hence was considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians. The common species of India (H. griseus), known as the mongoose, has similar habits and is often domesticated. It is noted for killing the cobra.

Of or pertaining to Idalium, a mountain city in Cyprus, or to Venus, to whom it was sacred. "Idalian Aphrodité." Tennyson.

An image or representation of anything. [Obs.] Do her adore with sacred reverence, As th' idol of her maker's great magnificence. Spenser.

To make an idol of; to pay idolatrous worship to; as, to idolize the sacred bull in Egypt.

Repetition; reduplication; reiteration. De Quincey. That Sacred ingemination, Amen, Amen. Featley. Happiness with an echo or ingemination. Holdsworth.

et society or order. Silence is the first thing that is taught us at our initiation into sacred mysteries. Broome.

A supernatural divine influence on the prophets, apostles, or sacred writers, by which they were qualified to communicate moral or religious truth with authority; a supernatural influence which qualifies men to receive and communicate divine truth; also, the truth communicated. All Scripture is given by inspiration of…

cated or given as by supernatural or divine inspiration; having divine authority; hence, sacred, holy; -- opposed to uninspired, profane, or secular; as, the inspired writings, that is, the Scriptures.

Mutual slaughter or destruction; massacre. [Obs.] Sir M. Hale.

ect to either physical or moral damage); not susceptible of being profaned or corrupted; sacred; holy; as, inviolable honor or chastity; an inviolable shrine. He tried a third, a tough, well-chosen spear, The inviolable body stood sincere. Dryden.

Having colors like the rainbow; exhibiting a play of changeable colors; nacreous; prismatic; as, iridescent glass.

hich the upright spadix is inclosed. -- Jack-of-the-buttery (Bot.), the stonecrop (Sedum acre). -- Jack-of-the-clock, a figure, usually of a man, on old clocks, which struck the time on the bell. -- Jack-on-both-sides, one who is or tries to be neutral. -- Jack-out-of-office, one who has been in office and is turne…

ered by a court; as, judicial power; judicial proceedings; a judicial sale. "Judicial massacres." Macaulay. Not a moral but a judicial law, and so was abrogated. Milton.

One who knows everything; hence, one who makes pretension to great knowledge; a wiseacre; -- usually ironical. [Colloq. or R.]

An obligation; a vow. [Obs.] They bound themselves by a sacred lay and oath. Holland.

imit for; to terminate, circumscribe, or restrict, by a limit or limits; as, to limit the acreage of a crop; to limit the issue of paper money; to limit one's ambitions or aspirations; to limit the meaning of a word. Limiting parallels (Astron.), those parallels of latitude between which only an occultation of a star o…

oubtful; precarious. Shak. No fences, parted fields, nor marks, nor bounds, Distinguished acres of litigious grounds. Dryden.