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ef antimony would be bat numerically different from the distilled butter or oil of roses. Boyle. NUMERIST. 2. s. [from numerus, Latin.] One that deals in numbers.

We cannot assign a respective fatality unto each which is concordant unto the doctrine of the numerists. Brown. NUMERO'SITY. n. s. [from numerosus, Latin.]

1. Number; the state of being numerous. Of assertion if numerosity of assertors were a sufficient demonstration, we might sit down herein as an unquestionable truth. Brown. 2. Harmony, numerous flow. NUMEROUS. adj. [numerosus, Lat.] 1. Containing many; consisting of many; not few; many.

Queen Elizabeth was not so much observed for having a numerous, as a wise council. Bacon. We reach our foes,

Who now appear so numerous and bold. Waller. Many of our schisms in the west, were never heard of by the numerous christian churches in the east of Asia. Lesley. 2. Harmonious; consisting of parts rightly numbered; melodious; musical. Thy heart, no ruder than the rugged stone, I might, like Orpheus, with my num'rous moan Melt to compassion. Waller. His verses are so numerous, so various, and so harmonious, that only Virgil, whom he professedly imitated, has surpassed him. Dryden. NUMEROUSNESS. n. s. [from numerous.] 1. The quality of being numerous.

2.

Harmony; musicalness.

That which will distinguish his style is, the numerousness of his verse. There is nothing so delicately turned in all the Roman language.

Dryden. NUMMARY. adj. [from nummus, Latin.] Relating to money.

The money drachma in process of time decreased; but all the while the ponderal drachma continued the same, just as our ponderal libra remains as it was, though the nummary hath much decreased. Arbuthnot.

NUMMULAR. adj. [nummularius, Latin.] Relating to money. Dict.

NU MSKULL. n. s. [probably from numb, dull, torpid, insensible, and skull.] 1. A dullard; a dunce; a dolt; a blockhead.

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They have talked like numskulls. ` Arbuthnot. 2. The head. In burlesque.

Or toes and fingers, in this case,

Of numskull's self should take the place. Prior. NU'MSKULLED. adj. [from numskull.] Dull; stupid; doltish.

Hocus has saved that clod-pated, numskulled, ninnyhanmer of yours from ruin, and all his family. Arbuthnot. NUN. n. s. A woman dedicated to the severer duties of religion, secluded in a cloister from the world, and debarred by a vow from the converse of men. My daughters

Shall all be praying nuns, not weeping queens. Shakspeare. A devout nun had vowed to take some young child, and bestow her whole life, and utmost industry to bring it up in strict piety. Hammond. The most blooming toast in the island might have been a nun. Addison.

Ev'ry shepherd was undone, To see her cloister'd like a nun.

Swift. NUN. n. s. [parus minor.] A kind of bird. Ainsworth.

NU'NCHION. n. s.

A piece of victuals

eaten between meals. Laying by their swords and trunchions, They took their breakfasts or their nunchions. Hudibras. NUNCIATURE. n. s. [from nuncio, Lat.] The office of a nuncio. NUNCIO. n. s. [Italian; from nuncius, Latin.]

1. A messenger; one that brings tidings. She will attend it better in thy youth, Than in a nuncio of more grave aspect. Shaks. They honoured the nuncios of the spring; and the Rhodians had a solemn song to welcome in the swallow.

Brown.

2. A kind of spiritual envoy from the pope.

This man was honoured with the character of nuncio to the Venetians. Atterbury.

NUNCUPA TIVE. adj. [nuncupatus, Lat. NUNCUPA TORY.S nuncupatif, Fr.] 1. Publickly or solemnly declaratory. 2. Verbally pronounced, not written. NU'NDINAL.

nundina, Lat.] Be

NU'NDINARY. adj. [nundinal, Fr. from longing to fairs. Dict. NUNNERY. n. s. [from nun.] A house of nuns; of women under a vow of chastity, dedicated to the severer duties of religion.

I put your sister into a nunnery, with a strict command not to see you, for fear you should have wrought upon her to have taken the habit. Dryden. NUPTIAL. adj. [nuptial, Fr. nuptialis, Lat.] Pertaining to marriage; consti tuting marriage; used or done in marriage.

Confirm that amity With nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant Bona to England's king. Shakspeart. Because propagation of families proceedeth from the nuptial copulation, I desired to know of him what laws and customs they had concern ing marriage.

Then all in heat
They light the nuptial torch.

Bacon.

Milton.

Tayler.

Whoever will partake of God's secrets, must pare off whatsoever is amiss, not eat of this sa crifice with a defiled head, nor come to this feast without a nuptial garment. Fir'd with her love, and with ambition led, The neighb'ring princes court her nuptial bed. Dryden.

Let our eternal peace be seal'd by this, With the first ardour of a nuptial kiss. Dryden. Nu ́PTIALS. n. s. Like the Latin without singular, [nuptiæ, Lat.]

1. Marriage.

This is the triumph of the nuptial day, My better nuptials, which in spite of fate, For ever join me to my dear Morat. Dryden 2. It is in Shakspeare singular, but contrarily to use.

Lift up your countenance, as 'twere the day Of celebration of that nuptial, which We two have sworn shall come. Winter's Tak NURSE. n. s. [nourrice, Fr.]

2. A woman that has the care of another's child.

Unnatural curiosity has taught all women, but the beggar, to find out nurser, which_necessity only ought to commend. Raleigh. 2. A woman that has care of a sick per

son.

Never master had,

A page so kind, so duteous, diligent,
So feat, so nurse-like.

Shakspeare. One Mrs. Quickly, which is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook. Shaksp. 3. One who breeds, educates, or protects. Rome, the nurse of judgment, Invited by your noble self, hath sent One general tongue unto us.

We must lose

Shaksp.

The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,
Our comfort in the country.
Shaksp.

4. An old woman, in contempt.

Can tales more senseless, ludicrous, and vain, By winter-fires old nurses entertain? Blackmore. 5. The state of being nursed.

Can wedlock know so great a curse, As putting husbands out to nurse? Cleaveland. 6. In composition, any thing that supplies food.

Put into your breeding pond three melters for one spawner; but if into a nurse pond or feeding pond, then no care is to be taken. Walton.

To NURSE. v. a. [from the noun, or by contraction from nourish; nourrir, Fr.] 1. To bring up a child or any thing young.

I was nursed in swaddling cloaths with cares. Wisdom. Him in Egerian groves Aricia bore, And nurs'd his youth along the marshy shore. Dryden.

2. To bring up a child not one's own. Shall I call a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child? Exodus. 3. To feed; to keep; to maintain.

Thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. Isa. Our monarchs were acknowledged here, That they their churches nursing fathers were. Denbam. The Niseans in their dark abode, Nurs'd secretly with milk the thriving god. Addison.

4. To tend the sick.

Το

pamper; to foment ; to encourage; to soften; to cherish.

And what is strength, but an effect of youth, which if time nurse, how can it ever cease?

Davies.

By what fate has vice so thriven amongst us, and by what hands been nurs'd up into so uncontroul'd a dominion?

NURSER. n. s. [from nurse.]
Not used.

1. One that nurses.

Locke.

See where he lies, inhersed in the arms Of the most bloody nurser of his harms. Shaksp.

2. A promoter; a fomenter. NURSERY. n. s. [from nurse.]

1. The act or office of nursing.

I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest On her kind nursery.

2. That which is the object of a nurse's Shaksp.

care,

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3. A plantation of young trees to be transplanted to other ground. Your nursery of stocks ought to be in a more barren ground than the ground is whereunto you remove them. Bacon.

My paper is a kind of nursery for authors; and some who have made a good figure here, will hereafter flourish under their own names. Addison. 4. Place where young children are nursed and brought up.

I' th' swathing cloaths, the other from their nursery Were stol'n.

Shakspeare. You see before you the spectacle of a Plan tagenet, who hath been carried from the nursery to the sanctuary, from the sanctuary to the dire ful prison, from the prison to the hand of the cruel tormentor, and from that hand to the wide wilderness; for so the world hath been to me. Bacon.

Forthwith the devil did appear, Not in the shape in which he plies At miss's elbow when she lies; Or stands before the nurs'ry doors, To take the naughty boy that roars. Prior They have publick nurseries, where all parents are obliged to send their infants to be educated. Swift.

5. The place or state where any thing is fostered or brought up, from a nursery of children; or whence any thing is to be removed, from a nursery of trees. This keeping of cows is of itself a very idle life, and a fit nursery for a thief. Spenser.

To see fair Padua, nursery of arts, I am arriv'd from fruitful Lombardy. Shaksp. A luxurious court is the nursery of diseases; it breeds them, it encourages, nourishes, and entertains them. L'Estrange

A

nursery erects its head, Where queens are form'd and future heroes bred;

Where untledg'd actors learn to laugh and cry. Dryden. NURSLING. n. s. [from nurse.] One nursed up; a fondling.

Spenser

Then was she held in sovereign dignity, And made the nursing of nobility. I was his nursling once, and choice delight, His destin'd from the womb. Mi ton.

In their tender nonage, while they spread Their springing leaves and lift their infant head, Indulge their childhood, and the nursling spare. Dryden NURTURE. n. s. [contracted from our riture, French.}

1. Food; diet.

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Of bare distress, hath ta'en from me the shew
Of smooth civility; yet am I inland bred,
And know some nurture.

Shaksp TO NURTURE. v. a. [from the noun.] 1. To educate; to train; to bring up.

Thou broughtest it up with thy righteousness, and nurturedst it in thy law, and reformedst it with thy judgment.

2 Esdras.

He was nurtured where he had been born in his first rudiments, till the years often. Wotton

When an insolent despiser of discipline, nurtured into impudence, shall appear before a church governour, severity and resolution are South. that governour's virtues.

2. To nurture up; to bring by care and food to maturity.

They suppose mother earth to be a great animal, and to have nurtured up her young offspring with a conscious tenderness. Bentley. To NU'STLE. v. a. To fondle; to cherish. Corrupted from nursle. See NUZZLE. Ainsworth.

NUT. n. s. [hnur, Sax. noct, Dutch; noix, French.]

1. The fruit of certain trees: it consists of a kernel covered by a hard shell. If the shell and kernel are in the centre of a pulpy fruit, they then make not a nut but a stone.

One chanc'd to find a nut

In the end of which a hole was cut,
Which lay upon a hazel root,

There scatter'd by a squirrel;
Which out the kernel gotten had;
When quoth this Fay, dear queen be glad,
Let Oberon be ne'er so mad,

I'll set you safe from peril.

Drayton.

Nuts are hard of digestion, yet possess some good medicinal qualities. Arbuthnot. 2. A small body with teeth, which correspond with the teeth of wheels.

This faculty may be more conveniently used by the multiplication of several wheels, together with nuts belonging unto each, that are used for the roasting of meat.

Wilkins.

Clocks and jacks, though the screws and teeth of the wheels and nuts be never so smooth, yet if they be not oiled, will hardly move. Ray. NUTBROWN. adj. [nut and brown.] Brown like a nut kept long.

Young and old come forth to play,
Till the live-long day light fail,
Then to the spicy nutbrovun ale.

When this nutbrown sword was out,
With stomach huge he laid about.

Milton.

Hudibras.

Two milk-white kids run frisking by her side, For which the nuthrown lass, Erithacis, Full often offer'd many a savoury kiss. Dryden. King Hardicnute, 'midst Danes and Saxons

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NUTMEG n. s. [nut and muguèt, Fr.] The kernel of a large fruit not unlike the peach, and separated from that and from its investient coat, the mace, before it is sent over to us; except that the whole fruit is sometimes sent over in preserve, by way of sweetmeat, or as a curiosity. There are two kinds of nutmeg; the male, which is long and cylindrical, but it has less of the fine aromatick flavour than the female, which is of the shape of an olive. Hill.

The second integument, a dry and flosculous coat, commonly called mace; the fourth, a kernel included in the shell, which lieth under the mace, is the same we call nutmeg. Brown.

I to my pleasant gardens went, Where utmegs breathe a fragrant scent. Sandy: NUTSHELL. n. s. [nut and shell.]

1. The hard substance that encloses the kernel of the nut.

I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space.

Shaksp

It seems as easy to me, to have the idea of space empty of body, as to think of the hollow of a nutshell without a kernel. 2. It is used proverbially for any thing of

little value.

Locke.

A fox had me by the back, and a thousand pound to a nutshell, I had never got off again. L'Estrange. NUTTREE. n. s. [nut and tree.] A tree that bears nuts; commonly a hazel. Of trees you shall have the nuttree and the oak.

Peacham. Like beating nuttrees, makes a larger crop. Dryden. NUTRICA'TION. n. s. [nutricatio, Latin.] Manner of feeding or being fed.

Besides the teeth, the tongue of this animal is a second argument to overthrow this airy n trication. Brea

NUTRIMENT. n. s. [nutrimentum, Lat.] That which feeds or nourishes; food; aliment.

This slave
Has my lord's meat in him,
Why should it thrive and turn to nutriment?
Shakspeare
The stomach returns what it has received, in
strength and nutriment, diffused into all the parts
of the body.
South

Does not the body thrive and grow,
By food of twenty years ago?
And is not virtue in mankind,
The nutriment that feeds the mind?

Swift. NUTRIMENTAL. adj. [from nutriment.] Having the qualities of food; alimen

tal.

By virtue of this oil vegetables are nutrimental, for this oil is extracted by animal digestion as an emulsion. Arbuthnot. NUTRITION. n. s. [from nutritio, nutrie, Lat. nutrition, Fr.]

1. The act or quality of nourishing, supporting strength, or increasing growth.

New parts are added to our substance to sup ply our continual decayings; nor can we give a certain account how the aliment is so prepared for nutrition, or by what mechanism it is so regularly distributed. Glanville.

The obstruction of the glands of the mesen tery is a great impediment to nutrition; for the

lymph in those glands is a necessary constituent of the aliment before it mixeth with the blood. Arbuthnot. 2. That which nourishes; nutriment. Less properly.

Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot. Pope. NUTRITIOUs. adj. [from nutrio, Latin.] Having the quality of nourishing. O may'st thou often sec

Try furrows whiten'd by the woolly rain Nutritious! secret nitre lurks within. Philips. The heat equal to incubation is only nutritivas; and the nutritious juice itself resembles the white of an egg in all its qualities. Arbath. NUTRITIVE. adj. [from nutrio, Latin.] Nourishing; nutrimental; alimental.

While the secretory, or separating glands, are too much widened and extended, they suffer a great quantity of nutritive juice to pass through. Blackmore. NUTRITURE. n. s. [from nutrio, Latin.] The power of nourishing. Not used.

Never make a meal of flesh alone, have some other meat with it of less nutriture. Harvey. To NUZZLE. v. a. [This word, in its original signification, seems corrupted from nursle; but when its original meaning was forgotten, writers supposed it to come from nozzle or nose, and in that sense used it.] 1. To nurse; to foster.

Old men long nozzled in corruption, scorning them that would seek reformation. Sidney. 2. To go with the nose down like a hog. He charged through an army of lawyers, sometimes with sword in hand, at other times nuzzling like an eel in the mud. Arbuthnot.

Sir Roger shook his ears, and zuzzled along, well satisfied that he was doing a charitable work. Arbuthnot. The blessed benefit, not there confin'd, Drops to the third, who nuzzles close behind. Pope.

NYMPH. n. s. [vvμpn; nympha, Lat.] 1. A goddess of the woods, meadows, or

2.

waters.

And as the moisture which the thirsty earth Sucks from the sea, to fill her empty veins, From out her womb at last doth take a birth, And runs a nymph along the grassy plains. Dav. A lady. In poetry.

This resolve no mortal dame,

None but those eyes cou'd have o'erthrown; The nymph I dare not, need not name. Waller. NYMPHISH. adj. [from nympb.] Relating to nymphs; ladylike.

Tending all to nymphish war. Drayton. Nys. [A corruption of ne is.] None is ; not is. Obsolete.

Thou findest fault, where ays to be found, And buildest strong work upon a weak ground.

Spenser.

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Has in English a long sound; as,

coal, droll; or short, got, knot, shot, prong, Long. It is usually denoted long by a servile a subjoined; as, moan; or by e at the end of the syllable; as, bone: when these vowels are not appended, it is generally short, except before il; as, droll, scroll, and even then sometimes short; as, loll.

1. O is used as an interjection of wishing or exclamation.

O that we, who have resisted all the designs of his love, would now try to defeat that of his anger! Decay of Piety. O! were he present, that his eyes and hands Might see, and urge, the death which he commands. Dryden

2. O is used with no great elegance by Shakspeare for a circle or oval.

Can this cockpit hold The vasty field of France? or may we cram Within this wooden 0, the very casks

That did affright the air at Agincourt. Shaksp. OAF. n. [This word is variously written, auf, fe, and oth; it seems a corruption of cuph, a demon or fairy; in German alf, from which elf; and means

OAK

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2. A dolt; a blockhead; an idiot. OA FISH. adj. [from oaf.] Stupid; dull; doltish.

OA FISHNESS. 2. 3. [from onfish.] Stupidity; dullness.

OAK. #.5, [ac, æc, Sax. which, says

Skinner, to show how easy it is to play the fool, under a show of literature and deep researches, I will, for the diversion of my reader, derive from ox, a house; the oak being the best timber for building. Skinner seems to have bad Junius in his thoughts, who on this very word

has shown his usual fondness for Greek etymology, by a derivation more ridiculous than that by which Skinner has ridiculed him. Ac or ock, says the grave critick, signified among the Saxons, like robur among the Latins, not only an oak but strength, and may be well enough derived, non incommode deduci potest, from an, strength; by taking the three first letters, and then sinking the 2, as is not uncommon; quercus }

The oak-tree hath male flowers, or katkins, which consist of a great number of small slender threads. The embryos, which are produced at remote distances from these on the same tree, do afterwards become acorns, which are produced in hard scaly cups: the leaves are sinuated. The species are five. Miller.

He return'd with his brows bound with oak.
Shakspeare.

He lay along

Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this wood. Shakspeare

No tree beareth so many bastard fruits as the eak for besides the acorns, it beareth galls, oak apples, cak nuts, which are inflammable, and oak berries, sticking close to the body of the tree without stalk. Bacon.

The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees, Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees: Three centuries he grows, and three he stays Supreme in state; and in three more decays.

Dryden. An oak growing from a plant to a great tree, and then lopped, is still the same sat. Locke. A light earthy, stony, and sparry matter, incrusted and affixed to oak leaves. Woodward.

Let India boast her plants, nor envy we The weeping amber and the balmy tree, While by our oaks the precious loads are born, And realms commanded which those trees adorn.

OAK Evergreen. n. s. [ilex.]

Pope.

The fruit is an acorn like the common oak. The wood of this tree is accounted very good for many sorts of tools and utensils; and affords the most durable charcoal in the world. Miller.

OAKAPPLE. n. s. [oak and apple.] A kind of spongy excrescence on the oak.

Another kind of excrescence is an exudation of plants joined with putrefaction, as in oakapples, which are found chiefly upon the leaves of oaks. Bacon.

QA KEN. adj. [from oak.] Made of oak; gathered from oak.

No nation doth equal England for caken timber wherewith to build ships. Bacon.

By lot from Jove I am the pow'r Of this fair wood, and live in oaken bow'r. Milt. Clad in white velvet all their troop they led, With each an oaken chaplet on his head. Dryden. An oaken garland to be worn on festivals, was the recompense of one who had covered a citizen in battle. Addison.

He snatched a good tough oaken cudgel, and began to brandish it. Arbuthnot. QA KENPIN. 2. s. An apple.

Oakenpin, so called from its hardness, is a lasting fruit, yields excellent liquor, and is near the nature of the Westbury apple, though not in Mortimer.

form.

QA ́KUM. n. s. [A word probably formed by some corruption.] Cords untwisted and reduced to hemp, with which, mingied with pitch, leaks are stopped.

They make their oakum, wherewith they caulk the seams of the ships, of old seer and weather beaten ropes, when they are overspent and grown so rotten as they serve for no other use but to make rotten oakum, which moulders and washes away with every sea as the ships labour and are tossed. Raleigh.

Some drive old oakum thro' each seam and rift; Their left hand does the caulking-iron guide; The rattling mallet with the right they lift.

Dryden. OAR. . s. [ane, Sax. perhaps by allusion to the common expression of plowing the water, from the same root with ear, to plow, aro, Lat.] A long pole with a broad end, by which vessels are driven in the water, the resistance made by water to the oar pushing on the vessel. Th' oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat, to follow faster,
As amorous of their strekes. Shakspeare

So tow'rds a ship the sar-finn'd gallies ply, Which wanting sea to ride, or wind to flv, Stands but to fall reveng'd. Denbam.

In shipping such as this, the Irish kern And untaught Indian, on the stream did glide, E'er sharp-keel'd boats. to stem the flood did learn

Or fin-like oars did spread from either side.

Dryden.

Its progressive motion may be effected by the help of several cars, which in the outward ends of them shall be like the fins of a fish to contract and dilate. Wilkins To OAR. v. n. [from the noun.] To row,

He more undaunted on the ruin rode, And oar'd with labouring arms along the flood.

To OAR. 7. a. To impel by rowing.

Pope.

His bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and ear'd Himself with his good arms in lusty strokes To th' shore. OA'RY. adj. [from oar.

or use of oars.

Shakspeare. r.] Having the form

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OA TEN. adj. [from oat.] Made of oats; bearing oats.

When shepherds pipe on eaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmens clocks. Sbaksp. OATH. n. s. [aith, Gothick; að, Saxon.

The distance between the noun oath, and the verb swear, is very observable, as it may show that our oldest dialect is formed from different languages.] An affirmation, negation, or promise, core roborated by the attestation of the Di vine Being.

Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love, For whose dear sake thou then did'st rend thy faith

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