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The act of reading; as, the lecture of Holy Scripture. [Obs.]

One who lectures; an assistant preacher.

The office of a lecturer.

To vex with lectures; to lecture frequently.

A paper, written or printed, and posted up or given away, to advertise something, as a lecture, a play, or the sale of goods; a placard; a poster; a handbill. She put up the bill in her parlor window. Dickens.

on on a sick bed. -- Clinical instruction, instruction by means of clinics. -- Clinical lecture (Med.), a discourse upon medical topics illustrared by the exhibition and examination of living patients. -- Clinical medicine, Clinical surgery, that part of medicine or surgery which is occupied with the investigation o…

ccession of acts or practices connectedly followed; as, a course of medicine; a course of lectures on chemistry.

; -- in contempt. [Obs.] Shak. Behind the curtain, in concealment; in secret. -- Curtain lecture, a querulous lecture given by a wife to her husband within the bed curtains, or in bed. Jerrold. A curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. W. Irving. -…

Hence, anything that retards; a clog; an obstacle to progress or enjoyment. My lectures were only a pleasure to me, and no drag. J. D. Forbes.

The public lectures or published writings of Aristotle. See Esoterics.

specific object; as, the fund of an ecclesiastical society; a fund for the maintenance of lectures or poor students; also, money systematically collected to meet the expenses of some permanent object.

An audience; an assembly of hearers, as at a lecture, a theater, etc.; as, a thin or a full house.

A severe lecture; reproof; rebuke; warning. She would give her a lesson for walking so late. Sir. P. Sidney.

To utter with spirit, animation, or gayety; to sing with spirit and liveliness. A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, With scraps of thundrous epic lilted out By violet-hooded doctors. Tennyson.

A house or apartment appropriated to instruction by lectures or disquisitions.

Existing in name only; not real; as, a nominal difference. "Nominal attendance on lectures." Macaulay.

or the like; -- distinguished from an argument in court, a popular harangue, a sermon, a lecture, etc.; as, Webster's oration at Bunker Hill. The lord archbishop . . . made a long oration. Bacon.

f the Lyceum, that of Aristotle, the founder of the Peripatetic school, who delivered his lectures in the Lyceum at Athens. -- Philosophy of the Porch, that of Zeno and the Stoics; -- so called because Zeno of Citium and his successors taught in the porch of the Poicile, a great hall in Athens.

To read publicly, as a lecture or discourse.

A lecture or discourse read in public or to a select company. "The prelections of Faber." Sir M. Hale.