LEG. n. s. [leg, Dan. leggur, Islandick.] They haste; and what their hardy feet deny'd, Hudibras. Such intrigues people cannot meet with, who have nothing but legs to carry them. Addison. 2. An act of obeisance; a bow with the leg drawn back. At court, he that cannot make a leg, put off his cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap. Shakesp. Their horses never give a blow, But when they make a leg, and bow. Hudibras. If the boy should not put off his hat, nor make legs very gracefully, a dancing-master will cure that defect. Locke. He made his leg, and went away. Swift. 3. To stand on his own legs. To support himself. Collier. Persons of their fortune and quality could well have stood upon their own legs, and needed not to lay in for countenance and support. 4. That by which any thing is supported on the ground: as, the leg of a table. LEGACY. n. s. [legatum, Lat.] Legacy is a particular thing given by last will and Testament. Cowell. If there be no such thing apparent upon record, they do as if one should demand a legacy by force and virtue of some written testament, wherein there being no such thing specified, he pleadeth that there it must needs be, and bringeth arguments from the love or good-will which always the testator bore him; imagining, that these, or the like proofs, will convict a testament to have that in it, which other men can nowhere by reading find. Hooker. Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine When he thought you gone Dryden. How large a legacy was left to you, His merits To save them, not their own, though legal, works. LEGA'LITY. n. s. [legalité, Fr.] Lawful ness. To LEGALIZE. v. a. [legalizer, Fr. from If any thing can legalize revenge, it should be 3. An incredible unauthentick narrative. LEGALLY. adv. [from legal.] Lawfully. A prince may not, much less may inferior left. An executor shal! exhibit a true inventory of goods, taken in the presence of fit persons, as creditors and legataries are, unto the ordinary. Ayliffe. LEGATE. n. s. [legatus, Lat. legat, Fr. legato, Ital.] 1. A deputy; an ambassador. The legates from th' Etolian prince return: Look where the holy legate comes apace, Shakesp. If he chance to 'scape this dismal bout, 2. When any one is absolved from excommunica- Depu- Betwixt pretenders to a fair estate, 1. A chronicle or register of the lives of LEGAL. adj. [legal, Fr. leges, Lat.] Whatsoever was before Richard 1. was before time of memory; and what is sinee, is, in a legal sense, within the time of memory. 2. Lawful; not contrary to law. Hale. 3. According to the law of the old dispensation. Legends being grown in a manner to be nothing else but heaps of frivolous and scandalous vanities, they have been even with disdain thrown out, the very nests which bred them abhorring them. Hooker. There are in Rome two sets of antiquities, the christian and the heathen; the former, though of Any inscription; particularly on medals or coins. Compare the beauty and comprehensiveness of Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her He withdrew not his confidence from any of those who attended his person, who, in truth, lay leiger for the covenant, and kept up the spirits of their country men by their intelligence. Clarendon. I call that a ledger bait, which is fixed, or made to rest, in one certain place, when you shall be absent; and I call that a walking bait which you have ever in motion. Walton. LEGERDEMA'IN. n. s. [contracted perhaps He so light was at legerdemain, Hubbera. Of all the tricks and legerdemain by which men impose upon their own souls, there is none so South. common as the plea of a good intention. LEGE'RITY. n. s. [legereté, Fr.] Lightness; nimbleness; quickness. A word not in use. up When the mind is quicken'd, 1. Such as may be read. You observe some clergymen with their heads held down within an inch of the cushion, to read what is hardly legible. Swift. 2. Apparent; discoverable. People's opinions of themselves are legible in their countenances. Thus a kiud imagination makes a bold man have vigour and enterprize in his air and motion; it stamps value and signifi Collies. cancy upon his face. LEGIBLY. adv. [from legible.] In such a manner as may be read. LEGION. n. s. [legio, Lat.] a fresher date, are so embroiled with fable and le-1. A body of Roman soldiers, consisting of The most remarkable piece in Antoninus's pillar is, the figure of Jupiter Pluvius sending rain on the fainting army of Marcus Aurelius, and thunder-bolts on his enemies, which is the greatest confirmation possible of the story of the Christian legion. 2. A military force. She to foreign realms Sends forth her dreadful legions. 3. Any great number. Not in the legions Addison. It would be impossible for any enterprize to be Decay of Piety. Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damn'd. Shakesp. The partition between good and evil is broken down; and where one sin has entered, legions will force their way through the same breach. Rogers. LEGIONARY. adj. [from legion.] 1. Relating to a legion. 2. Containing a legion. 3. Containing a great indefinite number. Too many applying themselves betwixt jest and earnest, mike up the legionary body of error. Brown's Vulgar Errours. LEGISLATION. n. s. [from legislator, Lat.] The act of giving laws. Pythagoras joined legislation to his philosophy, and, like others, pretended to miracles and reve. lations from God, to give a more venerable sanction to the laws he prescribed. Littleton LEGISLATIVE. adj. [from legislator.] Giving laws; lawgiving. Their legislative frenzy they repent, Enacting it should make no precedent. Denham. The poet is a kind of lawgiver, and those qualities are proper to the legislative style. Dryden. LEGISLATOR. n. s. [legislatør, Lat. legislateur, Fr.] A lawgiver; one who makes laws for any community. It spoke like a legislator: the thing spoke was a law. South. Pope. Heroes in animated marble frown, Without the concurrent consent of all three parts of the legislature, no law is, or can be made. Hale's Common Law. In the notion of a legislature is implied a power to change. repeal, and suspend laws in being, as well as to make new laws. Addison. By the supreme magistrate is properly understood the legislative power; but the word magistrate seeming to denote a single person, and to express the executive power, it came to pass that the obedience due to the legislature was, for want of considering this easy distinction, misapplied to Swift. the administration. LEGITIMACY. n. s. [from legitimate.] In respect of his legitimacy, it will be good. 2. Genuineness; not spuriousness. LEGITIMATE. adj. [from legitimus, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land; Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund. Shak. An adulterous person is tied to make provision for the children begotten in unlawful embraces, that they may do no injury to the legitimate, by receiving a portion. Taylor. To LEGITIMATE. v. a. [legitimer, Fr. from the adjective.] 1. To procure to any the rights of legitimate birth. Legitimate him that was a bastard. Ayliffe. By degrees he rose to Jove's imperial seat; I have disclaimed my laud; 2. The act of investing with the privileges Some legumens, as peas or beans, if newly ga- In the spring fell great rains, upon which ensued a most destructive mildew upon the corn and legumes. Arbuthnot. LEGUMINOUS. adj. [legumineux, Fr. from legumen.] Belonging to pulse; consisting of pulse. The properest food of the vegetable kingdom is LEISURABLE. adj. [from leisure.] Done A relation inexcusable in his works of leisurable hours, the examination being as ready as he re lation. Brown. LEISURABLY. adv. [from leisurable.] At Let us beg of God, that when the hour of our 1. Freedom from business or hurry; va- A gentleman fell very sick, and a friend said 2. Convenience of time. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours. 3. Want of leisure. Not used. More than I have said, loving countrymen, The leisure and enforcement of the time Forbids to dwell on. Shakesp. Richard IIL LEISURELY. adj. [from leisure.] Not hasty; deliberate; done without hurry. The earl of Warwick, with a handful of men, fired Leith and Edinburgh, and returned by a ler surely march. Hayward. The bridge is human ife; upon a leisurely sur vey of it, I found that it consisted of threescore and ten entire arches. Addison. LEISURELY. adv. [from leisure.] Not in a hurry slowly; deliberately. The Belgians hop'd, that with disorder'd haste, Our deep-cut keels upon the sands might run ; Or if with caution leisurely we past, Their numerous gross might charge us one by one. Dryden. We descended very leisurely, my friend being careful to count the steps. Addison. LE'MAN. n. s. [Generally supposed to be laimant the lover, Fr. but imagined by Junius, with almost equal probability, to be derived from leef, Dut. or leop, Sax. beloved, and man. This etymology is strongly supported by the ancient orthography, according to which it was written leveman] A sweetheart; a gallant; or a mistress. Hanmer. Hold for my sake, and do him not to die; But vanquish'd, thine eternal bondslave make, And me thy worthy meed unto thy leman take. A cup of wine, And drink unto the leman mine Spenser. Shakesp. 2. The fruit of the lemon-tree. To where the lemon and the piercing lime, The tree that bears lemons. The lemon tree hath large stiff leaves; the flower consists of many leaves, which expand in form of a rose: the fruit is almost of an oval f gure, and divided into several cells, in which are Todged hard seeds, surrounded by a thick fleshy substance, which, for the most part, is full of an acid juice. There are many varieties of this tree, and the fruit is yearly imported from Lisbon in great plenty. Miller. LEMONADE. n. s. [from lemon.] Liquor made of water, sugar, and the juice of lemons. Thou, and thy wife and children, should walk in my gardens, buy toys, and drink lemonade. Arbuthnot's John Bull To LEND. v. a. preterite and part. pass. lent. [lænan, Sax. leenen, Dut.] 1. To afford or supply, on condition of repayment. In common worldly things 'tis call'd ungrateful Which, with a bounteous hand, was kindly lent; Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, 17. Full extent; un contracted state. nor lend him thy victuals for increase. Lev. xxv. 37. They dare not give, and e'en refuse to lend, To their poor kindred, or a wanting friend. Dryd. 2. To suffer to be used on condition that it be restored. I'll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power to give it from me. Shakesp. The fair blessing we vouchsafe to send; 3. To afford; to grant in general. Wilt lend a hand to close thy mistress' eyes. LE'NDER. n. s. [from lend.] 1. One who lends any thing. A. Philips. 2. One who makes a trade of putting money to interest. Let the state be answered some small matter, and the rest left to the lender; if the abatement he small, it will not discourage the lender: he that took ten in the hundred, will sooner descend to eight than give over this trade. Bacon. Whole droves of lenders crowd the bankers doors To call in money. Dryden's Spanish Fryar. Interest would certainly encourage the lender to venture in such a time of danger. Addison. LENGTH. n. s. [from leng, Sax.] 1. The extent of any thing material from end to end; the longest line that can be drawn through a body. There is in Ticinum a church that is in length one hundred feet, in breadth twenty, and in heighth near fifty: it reporteth the voice twelve or thirteen times. 2. Horizontal extension, Bacon. If Lætitia, who sent me this account, will ac- To LENIFY. v. n. [lenifier, old Fr. lenio, quaint me with the worthy gentleman's name, 1 will insert it at length in one of my papers. 8. Distance. Addison's Spectator. He had marched to the length of Exeter, which he had some thought of besieging. Clarendon. 9. End; latter part of any assignable time. Churches purged of things burdensome, all was brought at the length unto that wherein now we stand. Hooker. A crooked stick is not straitened, unless it be bent as far on the clear contrary side, that so it may settle itself at the length in a middle state of evenuess between them both Hooker. 10. At length. [An adverbial mode of speech. It was formerly written at the length.] At last; in conclusion. At length, at length, I have thee in my arms, Though our malevolent stars have struggled hard, And held us long asunder. Dryden's King Arthur. To LENGTHEN. v. a. [from length.] 1. To draw out; to make longer; to elongate. 2. Relaxing the fibres, is making them flexible, or easy to be lengthened without rupture. Arbuthnot. Falling dews with spangles deck'd the glade, And the low sun had lengthen'd every shade. Pope. To protract; to continue. Frame your mind to mirth and merriment, Which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens life. Shakesp. Break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor: if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity. Dan. It is in our powe to secure to ourselves an inte rest in the divine mercics that are yet to come, and to lengthen the course of our present prosperity. Atterbury's Sermons. 3. To protract pronunciation. The learned languages were less constrained in the quantity of every syllable, beside helps of grammatical figures for the lengthening or abbreviation of them. Dryden. 4. To lengthen out. [The particle out is only emphatical.] To protract; to extend. What if I please to lengthen out his date A day, and take a pride to cozen fate? Dryden. I'd hoard up every moment of my life, To lengthen out the payment of my tears. Dryden. It lengthens out every act of worship, and produces more lasting and permanent impressions in the mind, than those which accompany any transient form of words. Addison. To LENGTHEN. v. n. to increase in length. To grow longer; Lat.] To assuage; to mitigate. Used for squinancies and inflammations in the throat, it seemeth to have a mollifying and lenityBacon. ing virtue. All soft'ning simples, known of sov'reign use, He presses out, and pours their noble juice; These first infus'd, to lenify the pain, He tugs with pincers, but he tugs in vain. Dryd. LENITIVE. adj. [lenitif, Fr. lenio, Lat.] Assuasive; emollient. Some plants have a milk in them; the cause may be an inception of putrefaction for those milks have all an acrimony, though one would think they should be lenitive. Bacon. There is aliment lenitive expelling the feces without stimulating the bowels; such are animal oils. Arbuthnot. 2. A palliative. There are lenitives that friendship will apply, before it would be brought to decretory rigours. South's Sermons. LE'NITY, n. s. [lenitas, Lat.] Mildness ; mercy; tenderness; softness of temper. Henry gives consent, Of meer compassion, and of lenity, To ease your country. Shakesp. Henry VI. Lenity must gain The mighty men, and please the discontent. Dan. Albeit so ample a pardon was proclaimed touching treason, yet could not the boldness be beater. down either with severity, or with lenity be abated Hayward These jealousies Have but one root, the old imprison'd king, Whose lenity first pleas'd the gaping crowd: But when long try'd, and found supinely good, Like Esop's log, they leapt upon his back. Dryd. LENS. n. s. From resemblance to the seed of a lentil. A glass spherically convex on both sides, s usually called a lens; such as is a burning-glass, or spectacle glass, or an object-glass of a teleNewton's Opticks. scope. According to the difference of the lenses, I used various distances. Newton's Opticks. LENT. part. pass. from lend. By Jove the stranger and the poor are sent, And what to those we give, to Jove is lent. Pope. LENT. n. s. [lenzen the spring, Sax.] The quadragesimal fast; a time of abstinence; the time from Ashwednesday to Easter. Lent is from springing, because it falleth in the spring; for which our progenitors, the Germans, use glent. Camden. One may as well make a yard, whose parts lengthen and shrink, as a measure of trade in mate- LENTEN. adj. [from lent.] Such as is Prior. rials, that have not always a settled value. Locke. Still 'tis farther from its end; Still finds its error lengthen with its way. LENGTHWISE. adv. [length and wise.] According to the length; in a longitudinal direction. LENIENT. adj. [leniens, Lat.] In this one passion man can strength enjoy; Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand, Yet tames not this: it sticks to our last sand. Pope. 2. With of. used in lent; sparing. My lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you! Shakesp. Hamlet. She quench'd her fury at the flood, And with a lenten sallad cool'd her blood. Their commons, though but coarse, were nothing Dryden's Hind and Panther. LENTICULAR. adj. [lenticulaire, French.] Doubly convex; of the form of a lens. scant. The crystalline humour is of a lenticular figure, convex on both sides. Ray on the Creatior LENTIFORM. adj. [lens and forma, Lat.j Having the form of a lens. LENTIGINOUS. adj. [lentigo, Lat.] Scurfy; scurfuraceous. LENTIGO. n. s. [i at.] A freckly or scurfy eruption upon the skin; such especially as is common to women in child-bearing, Quincy. to make out a verse.] Causing leprosy ; infected with leprosy ; leprous. This opinion presents a less mercy, but not les LEʼNTIL. n. s. [lens, Lat. lentille, Fr.] ALE PEROUS. adj. [Formed from leprous, dangerous, temptation to those in adversity. plant. It hath a papilionaceous flower, the pointal of which becomes a short pod, containing orbicular seeds, for the most part convex; the leaves are conjugated, growing to one mid-rib, and are terminated by tendrils. Miller. The Philistines were gathered together, where was a piece of ground full of lentiles. 2 Sam. xxiii.11. LENTISCK. n. s. [lentiscus, Lat. lentisque, Fr.] Lentisck wood is of a pale brown, almost whitish, resinous, fragrant, and acrid it is the tree which produces mastich, esteemed astringent and balsamick. Hill. Lentisck is a beautiful evergreen, the mastich or gum of which is of use for the teeth or gums. Mortimer's Husbandry. LENTITUDE. n. s. [from lentus, Lat.] Sluggishness; slowness. Dict. LE'NTNER. n. s A kind of hawk. I should enlarge my discourse to the observation of the haggard, and the two sorts of lentners. Walton's Angler. LENTOR. n. s. [lentor, Lat. lenteur, Fr.] 1. Tenacity; viscosity. Some bodies have a kind of lentor, and more depectible nature than others. Bacon. 2. Slowness; delay; sluggish coldness. The lentor of eruptions, not inflammatory, points to an acid cause. Arbuthnot on Diet. 3. [In physick] That sizy, viscid, coagulated part of the blood, which, in malignant fevers, obstructs the capillary vessels. Quincy. LENTOUS. adj. [lentus, Lat.] Viscous; tenacious; capable to be drawn out. In this spawn of a lentous and transparent body, are to be discerned many specks which become black, a substance more compacted and terrestrious than the other; for it riseth not in distillation. Brown. LEOD. n. s. Leod signifies the people; or, rather, a nation, country, &c. Thus, leodgar is one of great interest with the Gibson. people or nation. LEOF. n. s. Leof denotes love; so leofwin is a winner of love; leofstan, best beloved: like these Agapetus, Erasmus, Philo, Amandus, &c. Gibson's Camden. LEONINE. adj. [leoninus, Lat.] 1. Belonging to a lion; having the nature of a lion. 2. Leonine verses are those of which the end rhimes to the middle, so named from Leo the inventor: as, Gloria factorum temere conceditur horum. LEOPARD. n. s. [leo and pardus, Lat.] A spotted beast of prey. Sheep run not half so tim'rous from the wolf, Or horse or oxen from the leopard, As you fly from your oft-subdued slaves. Shakesp. A leopard is every way, in shape and actions, like a cat: his head, teeth, tongue, feet, claws, tail, all like a cat's: he boxes with his fore-feet, as a cat doth her kittens; leaps at the prey, as a cat at a mouse; and will also spit much after the same manner: so that they seem to differ, just as a kite doth from an eagle. Grew. Before the king tame leopards led the way, And troops of lions innocently play. Dryden. LE'PER. n. s. [lepra, leprosus, Lat.] One infected with a leprosy. I am no loathsome leper; look on me. Shakesp The leper in whom the plague is, his cloaths shall be rent. Lev. xiii. 45. Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, With juice of cursed bebenon in a vial, And in the porches of mine ears did pour The leperous distilment. Shakesp. Hamlet. LEPORINE adj [leporinus, Lat.] Belonging to a hare; having the nature of a hare. LEPRO'SITY. n. s. [from leprous] Squa mous disease. If the crudities, impurities, and leprosities of metals were cured, they would become gold. Bacon's Nat. Hist. LEPROSY. n. s. [lepra, Lat. lepre, Fr.] A loathsome distemper, which covers the body with a kind of white scales. Itches, blains, Sow all the Athenian bosoms, and their crop Lev. xiii. 3. Decay of Piety The less space there is betwixt us and the object, and the more pure the air is, by so much the more the species are preserved and distinguished; ard, on the contrary, the more space of air there is, and the less it is pure, so much the more the object is confused and embroiled. Dryden Their learning lay chiefly in flourish; they were not much wiser than the less pretending multitude. Collier on Pride. The less they themselves want from others, they will be less careful to supply the necessities of the indigent. Smalridge. Happy, and happy still, she might have prov'd, Were she less beautiful, or less beloved. Pope. LE'SSEE. n. s. The person to whom a lease is given. To LE'SSEN. v. a. [from less.] 1. To make less; to diminish in bulk. 2. To diminish the degree of any state or quality; to make less intense. Kings may give Between the malice of my enemies and other To beggars, and not lessen their own greatness. Den. men's mistakes, I put as great a difference as be- Though charity alone will not make one happy tween the itch of novelty and the leprosy of dis- in the other world, yet it shall lesson his punishloyalty. ment. King Charles. Calemy's Sermons. Authors, upon the first entrance of the pox, Collect into one sum as great a number as you looked upon it so highly infectious, that they ran please, this multitude, how great soever, lessens away from it as much as the Jews did from the not one jot the power of adding to it, or brings leprosy. Wiseman's Surgery. him any nearer the end of the inexhaustible stock of number. Locke. LE'PROUS. adj. [lepr, Lat. lepreux, Fr.] Infected with a leprosy. Donne. A The silly amorous sucks his death, By drawing in a leprous harlot's breath. LERE. n. s. [læne, Sax. leere, Dut.] lesson; lore; doctrine. Obsolete. This sense is still retained in Scotland. The kid pitying his heaviness, Thus melled his talk with many a teare. Spenser. LE'RRY. [from lere.] A rating; a lecture. Rustick word. LESS. A negative or privative termination. [lear, Sax. loos, Dut.] Joined to a substantive, it implies absence or privation of the thing expressed by that substantive; as, a witless man, a man without wit; childless, without children; fatherless, deprived of a father; penny less, wanting money. LESS. adj. [lear, Sax.] The comparative of little opposed to greater, or to so great; not so much; not equal. Mary, the mother of James the less. Mark xv. 40. He that thinks he has a positive idea of infinite space will find, that he can no more have a positive idea of the greatest than he has of the least space; for in this latter we are capable only of a comparative idea of smalluess, which will always be less than any one whereof we have the positive idea. Locke. All the ideas that are considered as having parts, and are capable of increase by the addition of any equal or less parts, afford us, by their repetition, the idea of infinity. Locke. 'Tis less to conquer, than to make wars cease, And, without fighting, awe the world to peace. Hal ifax. LESS. n. s. Not so much; opposed to more, or to as much. They gathered some more, some less. Er.xvi.17. Thy servant knew nothing of this, less or more. 1 Sam. Yet could he not his closing eyes withdraw, Though less and less of Emily he saw. Dryden. LESS. adv. In a smaller degree; in a lower degree. This thirst after fame betrays him into such indecencies as are lessening to his reputation, and is looked upon as a weakness in the greatest characAddison's Spectator. ters. Nor are the pleasures which the brutal part of the creation enjoy, subject to be lessened by the uneasiness which arises from fancy. Atterbury. 3. To degrade; to deprive of power or dignity. Who seeks To lessen thee, against his purpose serves To manifest the more thy might. Milton. St. Paul chose to magnify his office, when ill men conspired to lessen it. Atterbury's Sermons. To LE'SSEN. v. n. To grow less; to shrink; to be diminished. All government may be esteemed to grow strong or weak, as the general opinion in those that govern is seen to lessen or increase. Temple. The objection lessens much, and comes to no more than this, there was one witness of no good reputation. Atterbury. LE'SSER. adj. A barbarous corruption of less, formed by the vulgar from the habit of terminating comparatives in er; afterwards adopted by poets, and then by writers of prose, till it has all the authority which a mode originally erroneous can derive from custom. What great despite doth fortune to thee bear, Thus lowly to abase thy beauty bright, That it should not deface all other lesser light? Fairy Queen. It is the lesser blot, modesty finds, Women to change their shapes than men their minds. Shakesp. The mountains, and higher parts of the earth, grow lesser and lesser from age to age: sometimes the roots of them are weakened by subterraneous fires, and sometimes tumbled by earthquakes into Burnet. caverns that are under them. Cain, after the murder of his brother, cries out, Every man that findeth me shall slay me. By the same reason may a man, in the state of nature, punish the lesser breaches of that law Locke. Any heat promotes the ascent of mineral matter, but more especially of that which is subtile, and is consequently moveable more easily, and with a Woodward. lesser power. The larger here, and there the lesser lambs, The new-fall'n young herd bleating for their dams. Pop LESSER. adv. [formed by corruption from less.] Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him, Do call it valiant fury. Shakesp. Macbeth. LE'SSES. n. s. [laissées, Fr.] The dung of beasts left on the ground. LESSON. n. s. [leçon, Fr. lectio, Lat.11. 1. Any thing read or repeated to a teacher, in order to improvement. I but repeat that lesson Which I have learn'd from thee. Denham's Sophy. 2. Precept; notion inculcated. This day's ensample hath this lesson dear 3. Portions of scripture read in divine Notwithstanding so eminent properties, whereof Lessons are happily destitute; yet lessons being free from some inconveniencies whereunto sermons are most subject, they may, in this respect, no less take, than in other they must give the hand which Hooker. betokeneth pre-eminence. 4. Tune pricked for an instrument. Those good laws were like good lessons set for a flute out of tune; of which lessons little use can be made, till the flute be made fit to be played on. Davies on Ireland. 5. A rating lecture. She would give her a lesson for walking so late, that should make her keep within doors for one fortnight. Sidney. the sail, and the sail carrieth the boulter] 10. To more than permit; to give. To LET. v. a. [læzan, Sax.] On the crowd he cast a furious look, Shall he remember Leonora ? Dryden's Span. Fryar. One who fixes his thoughts intently on one A solution of mercury in aqua fortis being Let me die with the Philistines. Judges. And bold high converse with the mighty dead. To LESSON. v. a. [from the noun.] To 3. Before the first person plural, let implies teach; to instruct. Even in kind love, I do conjure thee Children should be seasoned betimes, and lessoned into a contempt and detestation of this vice. L'Estrange's Fables. LE'SSOR. n. s. One who lets any thing to farm, or otherwise, by lease. Lords of the world have but for life their lease, And that too, if the lessor please, must cease. Denham. If he demises the glebe to a layman, the tenant must pay the small tithes to the vicar, and the great titles to the lessor. Ayliffe's Parergon LEST. conj. [from the adjective least.] 1. This particle may be sometimes resolved into that not, meaning prevention or care lest a thing should happen. Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed, lest if he should exceed, then thy brother should seem vile. Lest they faint, At the sad sentence rigorously urg'd, Deut. xxv. My labour will sustain me, and lest cold Or heat should injure us, his timely care Hath unbesought provided. Milton. Milton. King Luitprand brought hither the corps, lest it might be abused by the barbarous nations.Addison. 2. It sometimes means only that, with a kind of emphasis. One doubt Pursues me still, lest all I cannot die, Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of man, Which God inspir'd, cannot together perish Milton. With this corporeal clod. LE'STERCOCK. n. s. They have a device of two sticks filled with corks, and crossed flatlong, out of whose midst there riseth a thread, and at the same hangeth a sail; to this engine, termed a lestercock, they tie one end of their boulter, so as the wind coming from the shore filleth VOL. II. Before a thing in the passive voice, let Let not the objects which ought to be contiguous But one submissive word which you let fall, 9. To leave; in this sense it is commonly They did me too much injury, Th' insulting hand of Douglas over you. Shakesp. Locke. Nestor, do not let us alone till you have shortened our necks, and reduced them to their antient Addison. standard. This notion might be let alone and despised, as a piece of harmless uniutelligible enthusiasm, Rogers. There's a letter for you, Sir, if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is. Shakesp. 11. To put to hire; to grant to a tenant. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon; he let the vineyard unto keepers. Cant. viii. 1). Nothing deadens so much the composition of a picture, as figures which appertain not to the subject: we may call them figures to be let. Dryden. She let her second floor to a very genteel man. Tatler. A law was enacted, prohibiting all bishops, and other ecclesiastical corporations, from letting their lands for above the term of twenty years. Swift. 12. To suffer any thing to take a course which requires no impulsive violence. In this sense it is commonly joined with a particle. She let them down by a cord through the win- Let down thy pitcher, that I may drink. out water. As terebration doth meliorate fruit, so doth pricking vines or trees after they be of some growth, and thereby letting forth gum or tears. Bacon. And if I knew which way to do't, Your honour safe, I'd let Hudibras. you out. The letting out our love to mutable objects doth but enlarge our hearts, and make them the wider marks for fortune to be wounded. Boyle. My heart sinks in me while I hear him speak, And every slacken'd fibre drops its hold; Like nature letting down the springs of life. Dryd. From this point of the story, the poet is let down to his traditional poverty. Pope. You must let it down, that is, make it softer by tempering it. Moxon's Mechanical Exercises. 13. To permit to take any state or course. Finding an ease in not understanding, he let loose his thoughts wholly to pleasure. Sidney. Let reason teach impossibility in any thing, and Hooker. the will of man doth let it go. He was let loose among the woods as soon as he was able to ride on horseback, or carry a gun. Addison's Spectator. 14. To let blood, is elliptical for to let out blood. To free it from confinement; to suffer it to stream out of the vein. Be rul'd by me; Let's purge this choler without letting blood. Shak. His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries To-morrow are let blood at Pomfret castle.Shakesp. Hippocrates let great quantities of blood, and opened several veins at a time. Arbuthnot on Coins. To let blood, is used with a dative of person As terebration doth meliorate fruits, so doth letting plants blood, as pricking vines, thereby letBacon. ting forth tears. 16. To let in. To admit. Let in your king, whose labour'd spirits What boots it at one gate to make defence, The more tender our spirits are made by religion, the more easy we are to let in grief, if the cause be innocent. Taylor. They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame, To give a period to my life, and to his fears, you're welcome; here's a throat, a heart or any other part, ready to let in death, and receive his Denham. commands. |