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hat into which a notion may be analyzed; the essence; the pith; the embodiment. He is the matter of virtue. B. Jonson.

Adhering to facts; not turning aside from absolute realities; not fanciful or imaginative; commonplace; dry.

Not being, or having, matter; as, matterless spirits. Davies (Wit's Pilgr. ).

Full of substance or matter; important. B. Jonson.

To talk superficially or ignorantly; to babble; to chatter. Of state affairs you can not smatter. Swift.

One who has only a slight, superficial knowledge; a sciolist.

sm. I had a great desire, not able to attain to a superficial skill in any, to have some smattering in all. Burton.

The matter or thought presented for consideration in some statement or discussion; that which is made the object of thought or study. As to the subject-matter, words are always to be understood as having a regard thereto. Blackstone. As science makes progress in any subject-matter, poetry recedes from it. J. H. Newman.…

The supposed origination of living organisms from lifeless matter; such genesis as does not involve the action of living parents; spontaneous generation; -- called also abiogeny, and opposed to biogenesis. I shall call the . . . doctrine that living matter may be produced by not living matter, the hypothesis of abiogen…

ere and there; widely. He went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter. Mark i. 45. To be abroad. (a) To be wide of the mark; to be at fault; as, you are all abroad in your guess. (b) To be at a loss or nonplused.

A collection of pus or purulent matter in any tissue or organ of the body, the result of a morbid process. Cold abscess, an abscess of slow formation, unattended with the pain and heat characteristic of ordinary abscesses, and lasting for years without exhibiting any tendency towards healing; a chronic abscess.…

Considered apart from any application to a particular object; separated from matter; exiting in the mind only; as, abstract truth, abstract numbers. Hence: ideal; abstruse; difficult.

Separated from matter; abstract; ideal. [Obs.]

In an abstract state or manner; separately; absolutely; by itself; as, matter abstractly considered.

Characterized by accretion; made up; as, accrete matter.

The act of increasing, or the matter added, by an accession of parts externally; an extraneous addition; as, an accretion of earth. A mineral . . . augments not by grown, but by accretion. Owen. To strip off all the subordinate parts of his as a later accretion. Sir G. C. Lewis.

Seeds of the annotto tree; also, the coloring matter, annotto.

Abbott. -- Act in pais, a thing done out of court (anciently, in the country), and not a matter of record.

Pertaining to matters indifferent in faith and practice. Shipley.

That which is done or is to be done; matter; concern; as, a difficult affair to manage; business of any kind, commercial, professional, or public; -- often in the plural. "At the head of affairs." Junius. "A talent for affairs." Prescott.