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To root with the snout. See 1st Root. [Obs.] Chaucer.

ill; talented; clever; powerful; as, the ablest man in the senate; an able speech. No man wrote abler state papers. Macaulay.

A writer in short hand; a stenographer. He asked the brachygrapher whether he wrote the notes of the sermon. Gayton.

An historian who distinguishes time by centuries, esp. one of those who wrote the "Magdeburg Centuries." See under Century. [R.]

persons. It came to pass when he was in a certain city. Luke. v. 12. About everything he wrote there was a certain natural grace und decorum. Macaulay. For certain, assuredly. -- Of a certain, certainly.

authors, is determined less by the purity of their style than by the period at which they wrote. Brande & C. He [Atterbury] directed the classical studies of the undergraduates of his college. Macaulay.

ps or a military post; -- officially called commissary of subsistence. [U. S.] Washington wrote to the President of Congress . . . urging the appointment of a commissary general, a quartermaster general, a commissary of musters, and a commissary of artillery. W. Irving Commissary general, an officer in charge of some s…

ltar of Bacchus in a circle. -- Cyclic poets, certain epic poets who followed Homer, and wrote merely on the Trojan war and its heroes; -- so called because keeping within the circle of a singe subject. Also, any series or coterie of poets writing on one subject. Milman.

therefore, who . . . furnishes us with data sufficient to determine the time in which he wrote. Priestley.

n small globules; to distill. "The trees drop balsam." Creech. The recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever. Sterne.

At the very time; in the very case. I knew they were had enough to please, even when I wrote them. Dryden.

. See Figure, n., 2. They belonged to a nation dedicated to the figurative arts, and they wrote for a public familiar with painted form. J. A. Symonds. Figurative counterpointdescant. See under Figurate. -- Fig"ur*a*tive*ly, adv. -- Fig"ur*a*tive*ness, n.

of it shall be at the salt sea." Num. xxxiv. 12. (b) Departure or journeying. "And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys." Num. xxxiii. 2. -- Goings on, behavior; actions; conduct; -- usually in a bad sense.

A. D. 14) of the classical period of Latinity; the time when Cicero, Cæsar, Virgil, etc., wrote. Hence: (c) That period in the history of a literature, etc., when it flourishes in its greatest purity or attains its greatest glory; as, the Elizabethan age has been considered the golden age of English literature. -- Gol…

That which is introduced or inserted, especially something foreign or spurious. Bentley wrote a letter . . . . upon the scriptural glosses in our present copies of Hesychius, which he considered interpolations from a later hand. De Quincey.

of July flowers. B. Jonson. The juice of Egypt's grape. Shak. Letters which Edward Digby wrote in lemon juice. Macaulay. Cold water draws the juice of meat. Mrs. Whitney.

onduct; his disobedience admits justification. I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue. Shak.

named from Leo, or Leoninus, a Benedictine and canon of Paris in the twelfth century, who wrote largely in this measure, though he was not the inventor. The following line is an example: Gloria factorum temere conceditur horum.

A history of the acts and events of a life; a biography; as, Johnson wrote the life of Milton.

number; a great deal; as, to spend a lot of money; lots of people think so. [Colloq.] He wrote to her . . . he might be detained in London by a lot of business. W. Black.