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cept, experience, observation, or deduction; a precept; a doctrine; as, to take or give a lesson in drawing." A smooth and pleasing lesson." Milton. Emprinteth well this lesson in your mind. Chaucer.

ove . . . worth. Emerson. He had approved himself a great warrior. Macaulay. 'T is an old lesson; Time approves it true. Byron. His account . . . approves him a man of thought. Parkman.

may assimilate their nourishment. Sir I. Newton. His mind had no power to assimilate the lessons. Merivale.

As if he had been reading in a book. Wodsworth. I did not come into Parliament to con my lesson. Burke. To con answer, to be able to answer. [Obs.] -- To con thanks, to thank; to acknowledge obligation. [Obs.] Shak.

or intended to teach; conveying instruction; preceptive; instructive; teaching some moral lesson; as, didactic essays. "Didactical writings." Jer. Taylor. The finest didactic poem in any language. Macaulay.

er from evidence or reasons; to deduce from premises; to derive. We do not draw the moral lessons we might from history. Burke.

A picture accompanied with a motto, a set of verse, or the like, intended as a moral lesson or meditation.

A selection of passages from the Gospels, as a lesson in divine service. Porson.

pline, etc.; that which is assigned or prescribed for such ebbs; hence, a disquisition; a lesson; a task; as, military or naval exercises; musical exercises; an exercise in composition. The clumsy exercises of the European tourney. Prescott. He seems to have taken a degree, and preformed public exercises in Cambridge,…

To fail, as on a lesson; to back out, as from an undertaking, through fear.

To obtain mental possession of; to learn; to commit to memory; to memorize; as to get a lesson; also with out; as, to get out one's Greek lesson. It being harder with him to get one sermon by heart, than to pen twenty. Bp. Fell.

One of the lessons from the Nebiim (or Prophets) read in the Jewish synagogue on Sabbaths, feast days, fasts, and the ninth of Ab, at the end of the service, after the parashoth, or lessons from the Law. Such a practice is evidenced in Luke iv.17 and Acts xiii.15.

eying knowledge; serving to instruct or inform; as, experience furnishes very instructive lessons. Addison. In various talk the instructive hours they past. Pope. -- In*struct"ive*ly, adv. -- In*struct"ive*ness, n. The pregnant instructiveness of the Scripture. Boyle.

Lore; lesson. [Obs.] Spenser.

fix in the mind; to acquire understanding of, or skill; as, to learn the way; to learn a lesson; to learn dancing; to learn to skate; to learn the violin; to learn the truth about something. "Learn to do well." Is. i. 17. Now learn a parable of the fig tree. Matt. xxiv. 32.

A lesson or selection, esp. of Scripture, read in divine service.

A reader of lections; formerly, a person designated to read lessons to the illiterate.

A rehearsal of a lesson.

A choir desk, or reading desk, in some churches, from which the lections, or Scripture lessons, are chanted or read; hence, a reading desk. [Written also lectern and lettern]. Fairholt.

Learning; lesson; lore. [Obs.] Spenser.