Search the Dictionary

Going or falling in various directions; not united or agregated; divided among many; as, scattering votes.

In a scattering manner; dispersedly.

To cover sparsely by scattering (something); to strew. "With flowers bescattered." Spenser.

Scattering in all directions (as a method of sowing); -- opposed to planting in hills, or rows.

To drive away by scattering, or so to cause to vanish; to clear away; to banish; to dissipate; as, to dispel a cloud, vapors, cares, doubts, illusions. [Satan] gently raised their fainting courage, and dispelled their fears. Milton. I saw myself the lambent easy light Gild the brown horror, and dispel the night. Dryden…

The act or result of dispersing or scattering; dispersion. Darwin.

The act or process of scattering or dispersing, or the state of being scattered or separated; as, the Jews in their dispersion retained their rites and ceremonies; a great dispersion of the human family took place at the building of Babel. The days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished. Jer. xxv. 3…

minating, or the state of being disseminated; diffusion for propagation and permanence; a scattering or spreading abroad, as of ideas, beliefs, etc. The universal dissemination of those writings. Wayland.

from the refuse contained in the meal yielded by the stones. -- Flour box a tin box for scattering flour; a dredging box. -- Flour dredge or dredger, a flour box. -- Flour dresser, a mashine for sorting and distributing flour according to grades of fineness. -- Flour mill, a mill for grinding and sifting flour.…

ounds, a game played by men and boys, two, called hares, having a few minutes' start, and scattering bits of paper to indicate their course, being chased by the others, called the hounds, through a wide circuit. -- Hare kangaroo (Zoöl.)., a small Australian kangaroo (Lagorchestes Leporoides), resembling the hare in si…

That harmony or moderation which affords rest for the eue; -- opposed to the scattering and division of a subject into too many unconnected parts, and also to anything which is overstrained; as, a painting may want repose. Angle of repose (Physics), the inclination of a plane at which a body placed on the plane would r…

The act of sprinkling or scattering. [Obs.]

nal meaning. "He speaks sense." Shak. He raves; his words are loose As heaps of sand, and scattering wide from sense. Dryden.

To throw something out of the mouth in a scattering manner; to sputter. That mind must needs be irrecoverably depraved, which, . . . tasting but once of one just deed, spatters at it, and abhors the relish ever after. Milton.

To spirt in a scattering manner.

To spurt or shoot in a scattering manner. [Obs.] Drayton.

To scatter; to spread by scattering; to cast or to throw loosely apart; -- used of solids, separated or separable into parts or particles; as, to strew seed in beds; to strew sand on or over a floor; to strew flowers over a grave. And strewed his mangled limbs about the field. Dryden. On a principal table a desk was op…

The act of scattering or spreading.

ly to useless purposes; to lavish vainly; to squander; to cause to be lost; to destroy by scattering or injury. The younger son gathered all together, and . . . wasted his substance with riotous living. Luke xv. 13. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Gray.…

s lost by the misrule and turbulency of the prelates What do I pick up so thriftily their scatterings and diminishings of the meaner subject Milton.