Search the Dictionary

- opposed to monogamy; as, the nations of the East practiced polygamy. See the Note under Bigamy, and cf. Polyandry.

re, or be before, in estimation; to outrank; to surpass. [Obs.] "Though maidenhood prefer bigamy." Chaucer.

lence; to obtain; as, the practice prevails this day. This custom makes the short-sighted bigots, and the warier skeptics, as far as it prevails. Locke.

The power of retaining; retentiveness. No woman's heart So big, to hold so much; they lack retention. Shak.

Something proposed to be solved by guessing or conjecture; a puzzling question; an ambiguous proposition; an enigma; hence, anything ambiguous or puzzling. To wring from me, and tell to them, my secret, That solved the riddle which I had proposed. Milton. 'T was a strange riddle of a lady. Hudibras.…

he Western locust, or grasshopper. See Grasshopper. -- Rocky Mountain sheep. (Zoöl.) See Bighorn.

approaching a spherical or a circular shape; orbicular; globular; as, a round ball. "The big, round tears." Shak. Upon the firm opacous globe Of this round world. Milton.

reddish or rusty spots on the leaves and stems of cereal and other grasses (Trichobasis Rubigo- vera), now usually believed to be a form or condition of the corn mildew (Puccinia graminis). As rust, it has solitary reddish spores; as corn mildew, the spores are double and blackish.

Resembling, or covered with a substance resembling, rust; affected with rust; rubiginous.

The goggler; -- called also big-eyed scad. See Goggler.

A large cottoid market fish of California (Scorpænichthys marmoratus); -- called also bighead, cabezon, scorpion, salpa.

which covers a large part of the globe. I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. Shak. Ambiguous between sea and land The river horse and scaly crocodile. Milton.

Pertaining to a sect, or to sects; peculiar to a sect; bigotedly attached to the tenets and interests of a denomination; as, sectarian principles or prejudices.

ines, or of a people considered as distinct. The extreme section of one class consists of bigoted dotards, the extreme section of the other consists of shallow and reckless empirics. Macaulay.

niferous trees, consisting of two species, Sequoia Washingtoniana, syn. S. gigantea, the "big tree" of California, and S. sempervirens, the redwood, both of which attain an immense height.

hite fluorescent crystals, in the distillation products of the needles of the California "big tree" (Sequoia gigantea).

government and protection of Christ, the great Shepherd. Rocky mountain sheep.(Zoöl.) See Bighorn. -- Maned sheep. (Zoöl.) See Aoudad. -- Sheep bot (Zoöl.), the larva of the sheep botfly. See Estrus. -- Sheep dog (Zoöl.), a shepherd dog, or collie. -- Sheep laurel (Bot.), a small North American shrub (Kalmia angust…

e backwards and forwards, like a shuttle. I had to fly far and wide, shutting athwart the big Babel, wherever his calls and pauses had to be. Carlyle.

Extent of superficies or volume; bulk; bigness; magnitude; as, the size of a tree or of a mast; the size of a ship or of a rock.

Very large; monstrous; big. [Slang.]