Search the Dictionary

Not contestable; not to be disputed; that cannot be called in question or controverted; incontrovertible; indisputable; as, incontestable evidence, truth, or facts. Locke.

Not disputable; incontrovertible; too evident to admit of dispute.

; as, the intricacy of a knot; the intricacy of accounts; the intricacy of a cause in controversy; the intricacy of a plot. Freed from intricacies, taught to live The easiest way. Milton.

A point in debate or controversy on which the parties take affirmative and negative positions; a presentation of alternatives between which to choose or decide.

To hear and determine by authority, as a case before a court, or a controversy between two parties. "Chaos [shall] judge the strife." Milton.

A person duly commissioned to hold courts, or to try and decide controversies and administer justice.

Cold as a metallic key; lifeless. [Formerly, a proverbial expression.] Shak. Milton.

An old tune of a dance, the name of which made it a proverbial expression of levity, especially in love matters. Nares. "Best sing it to the tune of light-o'-love." Shak.

h little effort or difficulty; easily; readily. That lightly come, shall lightly go. Old Proverb. They come lightly by the malt, and need not spare it. Sir W. Scott.

A comparison; parable; proverb. [Obs.] He said to them, Soothly ye shall say to me this likeness, Leech, heal thyself. Wyclif (Luke iv. 23).

eing, in former times, chiefly made of linen. Linen draper, a dealer in linen. -- Linen prover, a small microscope for counting the threads in a given space in linen fabrics. -- Linen scroll, Linen pattern (Arch.), an ornament for filling panels, copied from the folds of a piece of stuff symmetrically disposed.…

Subject to contention; disputable; controvertible; debatable; doubtful; precarious. Shak. No fences, parted fields, nor marks, nor bounds, Distinguished acres of litigious grounds. Dryden.

An adult male servant; also, a vassal; a subject. Like master, like man. Old Proverb. The vassal, or tenant, kneeling, ungirt, uncovered, and holding up his hands between those of his lord, professed that he did become his man from that day forth, of life, limb, and earthly honor. Blackstone.

A rover in quest of booty or plunder; a plunderer; one who pillages. De Quincey.

nsed proposition of important practical truth; an axiom of practical wisdom; an adage; a proverb; an aphorism. 'T is their maxim, Love is love's reward. Dryden.

Unwilling to give pain; compassionate. A merciful man will be merciful to his beast. Old Proverb.

First a case is appointed to be mooted by certain young men, containing some doubtful controversy. Sir T. Elyot.

; to explain in a moral sense; to draw a moral from. This fable is moralized in a common proverb. L'Estrange. Did he not moralize this spectacle Shak.

A small particle, as of floating dust; anything proverbially small; a speck. The little motes in the sun do ever stir, though there be no wind. Bacon. We are motes in the midst of generations. Landor.

first flesh-colored, but gradually become brown. The plant grows in rich pastures and is proverbial for rapidity of growth and shortness of duration. It has a pleasant smell, and is largely used as food. It is also cultivated from spawn.