Search the Dictionary

A name given to various species of arctic sea birds of the family Alcidæ. The great auk, now extinct, is Alca (or Plautus) impennis. The razor-billed auk is A. torda. See Puffin, Guillemot, and Murre.

e like; claim to be believed or obeyed; as, an historian of no authority; a magistrate of great authority.

civil power, esp. the burning of a heretic. It was usually held on Sunday, and was made a great public solemnity by impressive forms and ceremonies.

y thing or being regarded as having the power of spontaneous motion or action. Huxley. So great and admirable an automaton as the world. Boyle. These living automata, human bodies. Boyle.

A sudden, great, or irresistible descent or influx of anything.

Dread; great fear mingled with respect. [Obs. or Obsolescent] His frown was full of terror, and his voice Shook the delinquent with such fits of awe. Cowper.

Frightful; exceedingly bad; great; -- applied intensively; as, an awful bonnet; an awful boaster. [Slang]

ke it plainer; a proposition which it is necessary to take for granted; as, "The whole is greater than a part;" "A thing can not, at the same time, be and not be."

Of or relating to one of the early races in Mexico that inhabited the great plateau of that country at the time of the Spanish conquest in 1519. -- n.

An idle talker; an irrational prater; a teller of secrets. Great babblers, or talkers, are not fit for trust. L'Estrange.

To place or seat upon the back. [R.] Great Jupiter, upon his eagle backed, Appeared to me. Shak.

Evil; an evil, pernicious influence; something causing great injury. [Now chiefly poetic]

A great beam, rafter, or timber; esp., the tie-beam of a house. The loft above was called "the balks." Tubs hanging in the balks. Chaucer.

Huge; great in size. [Colloq.] Forby.

A dessert; a course of sweetmeats; a sweetmeat or sweetmeats. [Obs.] We'll dine in the great room, but let the music And banquet be prepared here. Massinger.

A member of one of the great family of Negroid tribes occupying equatorial and southern Africa. These tribes include, as important divisions, the Kafirs, Damaras, Bechuanas, and many tribes whose names begin with Aba-, Ama-, Ba-, Ma-, Wa-, variants of the Bantu plural personal prefix Aba-, as in Ba-ntu, or Aba-ntu, its…

ly Scolytidæ), which in the larval state bores under or in the bark of trees, often doing great damage.

A round vessel or cask, of greater length than breadth, and bulging in the middle, made of staves bound with hoops, and having flat ends or heads.

Any bar, obstruction, or means of defense. Such a barricade as would greatly annoy, or absolutely stop, the currents of the atmosphere. Derham.

Having the base in excess, or the amount of the base atomically greater than that of the acid, or exceeding in proportion that of the related neutral salt.