This good chance, that thus much favoureth, He slacks not. Daniel's Civil War. Slack not the good presage, while heav'n inspires Our minds to dare, and gives the ready fires. Dryd 10. To repress; to make less quick or forcible. I should be griev'd, young prince, to think my presence Unbent your thoughts, and slacken'd 'em to arms. Addison. SLACK. n. s. [from the verb To slack.] Small coal; coal broken in small parts: as slacked lime turns to powder. SLA'CKLY. adv. [from slack.] 1. Loosely; not tightly; not closely. 2. Negligently; remissly. That a king's children should be so convey'd, So slackly guarded, and the search so slow That could not trace them. Shakesp. Cymbeline. SLACKNESS. n. s. [from slack.] 1. Looseness; not tightness. 2. Negligence; inattention; remissness. It concerneth the duty of the church by law to provide, that the looseness and slackness of men may not cause the commandments of God to be unexecuted. Hooker. These thy offices So rarely kind, are as interpreters 3. Want of tendency. When they have no disposition to shoot out above their lips, there is a slackness to heal, and a cure is very difficultly effected. Sharp's Surgery. 4. Weakness; not force; not intenseness. Through the slackness of motion, or long banishment from the air, it might gather some aptness o putrefy. Brerewood. SLAG. n. s. The dross, or recrement of metal. Not only the calces but the glasses of metal may be of differing colours from the natural colour of the metal, as I have observed about the glass or slag of copper. Boyle. SLAIE. n. s. A weaver's reed. Ainsw. SLAIN. The participle passive of slay. The slain of the Lord shall be many. Is. lxvi. 16. Fought all his battles o'er again; To SLAKE. from slock, Island. to quench, Mr. Lye.] 1. To quench; to extinguish. He did always strive Himself with salves to health for to restore, And slake the heavenly fire that raged evermore. Spenser. graves, If I digg'd up thy forefathers And hung their rotteu coffins up in chains, It could not slake mine ire, nor ease my heart. Shakesp. Henry VI. She with her cold hand slakes His spirits, the sparks of life, and chills his heart. From Iülus' head Crashaw. A lambent flame arose, which gently spread Around his brow, and on his temples fed: Amaz'd, with running water we prepare To quench the sacred fire, and slake his hair. Dry. The fragrant fruit from bending branches shake, And with the crystal stream their thirst at pleasure slake. Blackmore's Creation Coarse are his meals, the fortune of the chace; Amidst the running stream he slakes his thirst. Addison's Cato. 2. It is used of lime: so that it is uncertain whether the original notion of To slack or slake lime, be to powder or quench it. She perceiving that his fl.me did slake, And lov'd her only for his trophy's sake. Brown. To SLAM. v. a. [lema, Island. schlagen, Dut.] To slaughter; to crush. A word not used but in low conversation. To SLANDER. v. a. [esclaundrie, Fr. SLANTING.} adj. [from slanghe, a scandalum, Lat.] To censure falsely; to belie. Slander Valentine SLA'NDER. n. s. [from the verb.] Thou slander of thy mother's heavy womb! Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins. Shakesp. Richard III. 3. Disreputation; ill name. You shall not find me, daughter, After the slander of most stepmothers, Ill-eyed unto you. Shakesp. SLA'NDERER. n. s. [from slander.] One who belies another; one who lays false imputations on another. In your servants suffer any offence against yourself rather than against God: endure not that they should be railers, slanderers, telltales or sowers of dissension. Taylor Thou shalt answer for this, thou slanderer ! Dryd. SLA'NDEROUS. adj. [from slander.] Uttering reproachful falsehoods. Justling, or push'd with winds, rude in their shock, Tine the slant lightning; whose thwart flame driv down Kindles the gummy bark of fir and pine. Milton. In the succession of a night and day. Blackmore. Some maketh a hollowness half a foot deep, With fower sets in it, set slantwise asteep. Tusser. SLAP. n. s. [schlap, Germ.] A blow. Properly with the hand open, or with something rather broad than sharp. The laugh, the slap, the jocund curse go round. Thomson SLAP. adv. [from the noun.] With a sudden and violent blow. Peg's servants complained; and if they offered to come into the warehouse, then straight went the yard slap over their noddle. Arbuth, Hist. of J. Bull. To SLAP. v. a. [from the noun.] To strike with a slap. of such detractors with the certain knowledge of 2. A cut in cloth. Spenser on Ireland. their slanderous untruths. We lay these honours on this man, To ease ourselves of divers sland'rous loads. Shakesp. Julius Cæsar. As by flattery a man opens his bosom to his What! this a sleeve? Here's snip and nip, and cut, and slish and slash, Like to a censor in a barber's shop. Shakesp Distinguish'd slashes deck the great: As each excels in birth or state, His oylet-holes are more and ampler: The king's own body was a sampler. Prior. SLATCH. n.s. [a sea term.] The middle part of a rope or cable that hangs down loose. Bailey. SLATE. n. s. [from slit: slate is in some counties a crack; or from esclate, a tile, Fr.] A grey stone, easily broken into thin plates, which are used to cover houses, or to write upon. A square cannot be so truly drawn upon a slate as it is conceived in the mind. Grew's Cosmologia. A small piece of a flat slate the ants laid over the hole of their nest, when they foresaw it would Addison's Spectator. To SLATE. v. a. [from the noun.] To cover the roof; to tile. rain. Sonnets and elegies to Chloris Would raise a house about two stories, A lyrick ode would slate. Swift. SLA'TER. n. s. [from slate.] One who covers with slates or tiles. SLATTERN. n. s. [slaetti, Swed.] A woman negligent, not elegant or nice. Hudibres. Without the raising of which sum, SLA'TY. adj. [from slate.] Having the nature of slate. All the stone that is slaty, with a texture long, and parallel to the site of the stratum, will split only lengthways, or horizontally; and if placed in any other position, 'tis apt to give way, start, and burst, when any considerable weight is laid upon it. Wooduard on Fossils. SLAVE. n. s. [esclave, Fr. It is said to have its original from the Slavi, or Selavonians, subdued and sold by the Venetians.] 1. One mancipated to a master; not a freeman; a dependant. The banish'd Kent, who in disguise Thou elvish markt, abortive, rooting hog! The slave of nature, and the son of hell. Milton The condition of servants was different from what it is now, they being generally slaves, and such as were bought and sold for money. South. Perspective a painter must not want; yet without subjecting ourselves so wholly to it, as to become slaves of it. Dryden. To-morrow, should we thus express our friendship, Each might receive a slave into his arms: This sun perhaps, this morning sun, 's the last That e'er shall rise on Roman liberty. Addis. Cato. 2. One that has lost the power of resist ance. Slaves to our passions we become, and then It grows impossible to govern men. Waller. When once men are immersed in sensual things, and are become slaves to their passions and lusts, then are they most disposed to doubt of the existence of God. Wilkins. 3. It is used proverbially for the lowest state of life. Power shall not exempt the kings of the earth, and the great men, neither shall meanness excuse the poorest slave. Nelson. To SLAVE. v. n. [from the noun.] To| SLA'VISH. adj. [from slave.] Servile; drudge; to moil; to toil. mean; base; dependant. A thing Had women been the makers of our laws, The men should slave at cards from morn to night. Swift. SLAVER. n. s. [saliva, Lat. slæfa, Island.] Spittle running from the mouth; drivel. Mathiolus hath a passage, that a toad communicates its venom not only by urine, but by the humidity and slaver of its mouth, which will not consist with truth. Brown. Of all mad creatures, if the learn'd are right, To SLAVER. v. n. [from the noun.] It is the slaver kills, and not the bite. Pope. L. To be smeared with spittle. 2. Should I Slaver with lips as common as the stairs To emit spittle. Miso came with scowling eyes to deliver a slavering good-morrow to the two ladies. Sidney. Why must he sputter, spawl, and slaver it, In vain, against the people's favourite? Swift. To SLA'VER. v. a. To smear with drivel. Twitch'd by the slave, he mouths it more and more, Till with white froth his gown is slaver'd o'er. Dryd. SLA'VERER. n. s. [slabbaerd, Dut. from slaver.] One who cannot hold his spittle; a driveller; an ideot. SLAVERY. n. s. [from slave.] Servitude; the condition of a slave; the offices of a slave. If my dissentings were out of errour, weakness, or obstinacy, yet no man can think it other than the badge of slavery, by savage rudeness and importunate obtrusions of violence to have the mist SLAUGHTER. of his errour dispelled. King Charles. n. s. [oorlauge, Sax. from rlægan, rlegan, to strike or kill.] Massacre; destruction by the sword. Sinful Macduff, They were all struck for thee! Not for their own demerits, but for mine, Fell slaughter on their souls. Shak Macbeth. On each hand slaughter and gigantick deeds. Mil. To SLAUGHTER. v. a. [from the noun.] Your castle is surpris'd, your wife and babes Savagely slaughter'd. Shakesp. Macbeth. SLAUGHTERHOUSE. n. s. [slaughter and house.] House in which beasts are killed for the butcher. Shakesp. Away with me, all you whose souls abhor The mad mothers with their howls confus'd Shak. Henry V I have supt full with horrours. More slavish did I ne'er, than answering A slave without a knock. Shakesp. Cymbeline. In lying strains and ignominious verse. Prior. SLA VISHLY. adv. [from slavish.] Servilely; meanly. SLA'VISHNESS. n. s. [from slavish.] Servility; meanness. To SLAY. v. a. preter: slew; part. pass. slain. [slahan, Goth. rlean, Sax. slachten, Dut. to strike.] To kill; to butcher; to put to death. Her father's brother Would be her lord; or shall I say her uncle? Shakesp. Richard III. I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God. Slay and make ready. Wrath killeth the foolish man, the silly one. Rev. vi. 2. Gen. xliii. 16. and envy slayeth Job, v. 2. Of Trojan chiefs he view'd a numerous train, All much lamented, all in battle slain. Dryd. En. He must by blood and battles pow'r maintain, And slay the monarchs ere he rule the plain. Prior. SLAYER. n. s. [from slay.] Killer; murderer; destroyer. Witness the guiltless blood pour'd oft on ground; The crowned often slain, the slayer crown'd. Fa. Qu. They slew those that were slayers of their coun trymen. Abbot. The slayer of himself yet saw I there; The gore congeal'd was clotted in his hair: With eyes half clos'd and gaping mouth he lay, And grim as when he breath'd his sullen soul away. Dryden. SLEAVE. n. s. [Of this word I know not well the meaning: sleave silk is explain. ed by Gouldman, floccus sericus a lock of silk; and women still say, sleave the silk, for untwist it. Ainsworth calls a weaver's shuttle or reed a slay. To slay is to part a twist into single fibres.] I on a fountain light, Whose brim with pinks was platted; The banks with daffadillies dight With grass like sleave was matted. Drayt. Cynthia. SLEAZY. adj. [often written sleezy.] Weak; wanting substance. This seems to be of the same race with sleave, or from To slay. SLED. n. s. [slæd, Dan. sledde, Dut.] A carriage drawn without wheels. The sled, the tumbril, hurdles, and the slail, These all must be prepar'd. Dryden. SLE'DDED. adj. [from sled.] Mounted on a sled. So frown'a he once when in an angry parle, He smote the sledded Polack on the ice. Shakesp. SLEDGE. n. s. [rleez, Sax. sleggia, Island.] 1. A large heavy hammer. They him spying, both with greedy force At once upon him ran, and him beset With strokes of mortal steel, without remorse, And on his shield like iron sledges bet. Fairy Queen. The painful smith, with fo ce of fervent heat, The hardest iron soon doth mollify, That with his heavy sledge he can it beat, And fashion to what he it list apply. Spenser. The uphand sledge is used by under workmen, when the work is not of the largest, yet requires help to batter and draw it out: they use it with both their hands before them, and seldom lift their hammers higher than their head. Mexon It would follow that the quick stroke of a light hammer should be of greater efficacy than any softer and more gentle striking of a great sledge. Wilkin's Mathemat. Magick. 2. A carriage without wheels, or with very low wheels: properly a sled. See SLED. In Lancashire they use a sort of sledge made with thick wheels, to bring their marl out, drawn with one horse. Mortimer's Husbandry. SLEEK. n. s. [sleych, Dut.] 1. Smooth; nitid; glossy. Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights. Shakesp. How eagerly ye follow my disgrace, As if it fed ye; and how sleek and wanton Yappear in ev'ry thing may bring my ruiu. Shak. What time the groves were clad in green, The fields all drest in flowers, And that the sleek-hair'd nymphs were seen To seek them summer bowers. Draytom As in gaze admiring, oft he bow'd His turret crest, and sleek enamell'd neck, Fawning. Milton's Parad. Lost. Thy head and hair are sleek, And then thou kemb'st the tuzzes on thy cheek. Dryden. So sleek her skin, so faultless was her make, Ev'n Juno did unwilling pleasure take To see so fair a rival. 2. Not rough; not harsh. Dryden. Those rugged names to our like mouths sleek grow That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp. Milton. To SLEEK. v. a. [from the adjective.] 1. To comb smooth and even. Yet are the men more loose than they, More kemb'd,and bath'd,and rubb'd,and trimm'd, More sleek'd, more soft, and slacker limb'd. B.Jons. By dead Parthenope's dear tomb, And fair Ligea's golden comb, Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks Sleeking her soft alluring locks. Milton. 2. To render soft, smooth, or glossy. Gentle, my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks; Be bright and jovial 'mong your guests to-night. Shakesp. She does sleek With crumbs of bread and milk, and lies a-nights In her neat gloves. Ben Jonson's Cataline. The persuasive rhetorick That sleek'd his tongue, and won so much on Eve, So little here, nay lost. Milton. A sheet of well sleek'd marble paper did not cast any of its distinct colours upon the wall. Boyle. A cruise of fragrance form'd of burnish'd gold, Odour divine! whose soft refreshing streams Sleek the smooth skin, and scent the snowy limbs. Pope. SLEEKLY. adv. [from sleek.] Smoothly; glossily. Let their heads be sleekly comb'd, and their blue coats brush'd. Shakesp. Taming of the Shrew. SLEEKSTONE. n. s. [sleek and stone.] A smoothing stone. The purest pasteboard with a sleekstone rub smooth, and as even as you can. Peacham. To SLEEP. v. n. [slepan, Goth. rleepan, Sax. slaepen, Dut.] 1. To take rest, by suspension of the mental and corporal powers. I've watch'd and travell'd hard: Some time I shall sleep out; the rest I'll whistle. Where's Pede?-go you, and where you find a maid, That, ere she sleep, hath thrice her prayers said, Peace, good reader! do not weep; Sound, musick; come, my queen, take hai with me, And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be. She What's the business, That such an hideous trumpet calls to parley The sleepers of the house? Shakesp. Macbeth. In some countries, a plant which shutteth in the night, openeth in the morning, and opereth wide at Moon, the inhabitants say is a plant that sleepeth. There be sleepers enow then; for al most all flowers do the like. Bacon Night is indeed the province of his reign; Yet all his dark exploits no more contain Than a spy taken, and a sleeper slain. Dryden. 2. A lazy inactive drone. He must be no great eater, drinker, nor sleeper, that will discipline his senses, and exert his mind; every worthy undertaking require both. Grew effect. Whose day shall never sleep in night. Crashaw 3. That which lies dormant, or without Those who at any time sleep without dreaming, can never be convinced that their thoughts are for four hours busy without their knowing it. Locke.) 2. To rest; to be motionless. Steel, if thou turn thine edge, or cut not out the burley-boned clown in chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I beseech Jove on my knees thou mayst be turned into hobnails Shakesp. Henry VI. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit, and let the sounds of musick Creep in our ears. Shakesp. Merchant of Venice. The giddy ship, betwixt the winds and tides Forc'd back and forwards, in a circle rides, Stunn'd with the different blows; then shoots amain, Till counterbuff'd she stops, and sleeps again. Dry. 3. To live thoughtlessly. We sleep over our happiness, and want to be roused into a quick thankful sense of it. Atterb. 4. To be dead: death being a state from which man will some time awake. If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 1 Thess. A person is said to be dead to us, because we cannot raise from the grave; though he only sleeps unto God, who can raise from the chamber of death. Ayliffe's Parergon. 5. To be inattentive; not vigilant. Heaven will one day open The king's eyes, that so long have slept upon This bold bad man. Shakesp. Henry VIII. 6. To be unnoticed, or unattended. You ever Have wish'd the sleeping of this business, never Desir'd it to be stirr'd. SLEEP. n. s. [from the verb.] Repose; Shakesp. Henry VIII. rest; suspension of the mental or corporal power; slumber. Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Macbeth doth murder sleep; the innocent sleep; Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care; The birth of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast. Shakesp. Macbeth. That sleeve might sweetly seale His restfull eyes, he enter'd, and in his bed In silence took. Chapman. Cold calleth the spirits to succour, and therefore they cannot so well close and go together in Let penal laws, if they have been sleepers of long, or if grown unfit for the present time, be by wise judges confined in the execution. Bacm. 4. [Exocatus.] A fish. Ainsworth, SLEEPILY. adv. [from sleep.] 1. 2. Drowsily; with desire to sleep. I rather chuse to endure the wounds of those darts which envy casteth at novelty, than to go on safely and sleepily in the easy ways of ancient mistakings. Raleigh 3. Stupidly. He would make us believe that Luther in these actions pretended to authority, forgetting what SLEEPINESS. n s. [from sleepy.] Drowhe had sleepily owned before. Atterbury, siness; disposition to sleep; inability to keep awake. Watchfulness precedes too great sleepiness, and is the most ill-boding symptoms of a fever. Arbath. SLEEPLESS. adj. [from sleep.] Wanting sleep. The field Why did you bring these daggers from the place? They must lie there. Go, carry them, and smear The sleepy grooms with blood. Shakesp. Macbeth. She wak'd her sleepy crew, And, rising hasty, took a short adieu. Dryden. Soporiferous; somniferous; causing sleep. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us. Shakesp. Winter's Tule Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench Of that forgetful lake benumb not still. Milton I sleeped about eight hours, and no wonder for the physicians had mingled a sleepy potion in the wine. Gulliver. the head, which is ever requisite to sleep. And, SLEET. n. s. [perhaps from the Danish Beasts that sleep in winter, as wild bears, during their sleep wax very fat, though they eat nothing. Bacon. His fasten'd hands the rudder keep, And, fix'd on heav'n, his eyes repel invading sleep. Dryden. Hermes o'er his head in air appear'd, His hat adoru'd with wings disclos'd the god, And in his hand the sleep compelling rod. Dryden. Infants spend the greatest part of their time in sleep, and are seldom awake but when hunger calls for the teat, or some pain forces the mind to perceive it. Locke. SLEEPER. n. s. [from sleep.] slet.] A kind of smooth small hail or snow, not falling in flakes, but single particles. Now van to van the foremost squadrons meet, The midmost battles hast'ning up behind, Who view, far off, the storm of falling sleet, And hear their thunder rattling in the wind. Dad. Perpetual sleet and driving snow Obscure the skies, and hang on herds below: Huge oxen stand inclos'd in wintry walls Of snow congeal'd. Dryden. Rains would have been pour'd down, as the vapours became cooler; next sleet, then snow and ice. Cheyne Shakesp. 1. One who sleeps; one who is not awake. To SLEET ". n. [from the noun.] To snow in small particles, intermixed with rain. SLEETY. adj. [from the noun.] Bringing sleet. SLEEVE. n. s. [rlix, Sax.] 1. The part of a garment that covers the arms. Once my well-waiting eyes espied my treasure, With sleeves turn'd up, loose hair, and breast en larged, Her father's corn moving her fair limbs, measure. Sidney. The deep smock sleeve, which the Irish women use, they say, was old Spanish; and yet that should seem rather to be an old English fashion: for in armory, the fashion of the manche, which is given in arms, being nothing else but a sleeve, is fashioned much like to that sleeve: and knights, in ancient times, used to wear their mistress's or love's sleeve upon their arms. Sir Launcelot wore the sleeve of the fair maid of Asteloth in a tourney. Spenser's Ireland. Your hose should be ungartered, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, demonstrating a careless desolation. Shakesp. You would think a smock a she-angel, he so chants to the sleeve band, and the work about the square on't. Shakesp. He was cloathed in cloth, with wide sleeves and a capa. Bacon. In velvet white as snow the troop was gown'd, Their hoods and sleeves the same. Dryden. 2. Sleeve, in some provinces, signifies a = knot or skein of silk, which is by some very probably supposed to be its meaning in the following passage. [See SLEAVE.] The innocent sleep; Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care. Shak. 3. Sleeve, Dut. signifies a cover; any thing spread over; which seems to be the sense of sleeve in the proverbial phrase. A brace of sharpers laugh at the whole roguery in their sleeves. L'Estrange. Men know themselves utterly void of those qualities which the impudent sycophant ascribes to them, and in his sleeve laughs at them for believing. South's Sermons. John laughed heartily in his sleeve at the pride of the esquire. Arbuth. Hist. of John Bull. 1. To hang on a sleeve; to make dependent. It is not for a man which doth know, or should know, what orders, and what peaceable government required, to ask why we should hang our judgment upon the church's sleeve, and why in matters of orders more than in matters of doctrine. Hooker. . [Lolligo, Lat.] A fish. Ainsworth. SLEEVED. adj. [from sleeve.] Having =sleeves. ther? or from sleeve a cover, and there- This sleeveless tale of transubstantiation was 6. At my lodging, The worst is this, that at so slender warning, Not amply supplied. The good Ostorious often deign'd SLEIGHT. n. s. [slag'd cunning, Island.] 1. He that exhorted to beware of an enemy's Her false sleights do employ. Fairy Queen. Of mighty Ajax, huge in strength; to him, Laer tes's son, The crafty one as huge in sleight. She could not so convey Chapman. The massy substance of that idol great; In the wily snake Milton. Doubtless the pleasure is as great When we hear death related, we are all willing While innocent he scorns ignoble flight, 1. 2. Thin; small in circumference com- So thick the roses bushing round Milton. Small in the waist; having a fine shape. Without bulk. If the debt be not just, we know not what may be deemed just, neither is it a sum to be slenderly regarded. Hayward. If I have done well, it is that which I desired but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I 2 Maccabees. could attain to. Silence; coeval with eternity, He slew Hamet, a great commander among the part or twist into threads. Why art thou then exasperate, thou immaterial skein of sley'd silk? To SLICE. v. a. [rlitan, Sax.] 1. To cut into flat pieces. and black 3. 4. Tall, slender, straight, with all the graces blest. Dry. Slice one in two to keep her number just. Cleavel. 3. To cut off in a broad piece. When hungry thou stood'st staring like an oaf, slic'd t' e luncheon from the barley loaf. Gay. 4. To cut; to divide. Princes and tyrants slice the earth among them. Burnet. SLICE. n. s. [rlite, Sax. from the verb.] Yet they, who claim the general assent of the It is a very slender comfort that relies upon this 5. Sparing; less than enough: as, a slender A broad piece cut off. Hacking of trees in their bark, both downright and across, so as you may make them rather in slices than in continued hacks, doth great good to Bacon. trees. You need not wipe your knife to cut bread; because in cutting a slice or two it will wipe itself. Swift. He from out the chimney took Swift. 2. A broad piece. Then clap four slices of pilaster on't; That, lac'd with bits of rustick, makes a front. Pope. 3. A broad head fixed in a handle; a peel; a spatula. The pelican hath a beak broad and flat, much like the slice of apothecaries, with which they spread plaisters. Hakewill. When burning with the iron in it, with the slice clap the coals upon the outside close together, to keep the heat in. Moxon. SLICK. adj. [slickt, Dut. See SLEEK.] Whom silver-bow'd Apollo bred, in the Pierian mead, Both slicke and daintie, yet were both in warre of wond'rous dread. Chapman. 9. Glass attracts but weakly; some slick stones and thick glasses indifferently. Brown's Vulg. Err. SLID. The preterite of slide. At first the silent venom slid with ease, Jer. viii. 5. Why is this people slidden back, by a perpetual backsliding? TO SLIDDER. v. n. [slidderen, Dut.] To slide with interruption. Go thou from me to fate, Now die with that he dragg'd the trembling sire, Slidd'ring through clotted blood. Dryden. The tempter saw the danger in a trice; For the man slidder'd upon fortune's ice. Harte. To SLIDE. v. n. slid, preterite; slidden, participle pass. [rlidan, rlidende, sliding, Sax. slijden, Dut. ys-lithe, Welsh.] 1. To pass along smoothly; to slip; to glide. Sounds do not only slide upon the surface of a smooth body, but communicate with the spirits in the pores. Bucon. Ulysses, Stheneleus, Tisander slide Down by a rope, Machaon was their guide. Denh. 2. To move without change of the foot. Oh, Ladon! happy Ladon! rather slide than run by her, lest thou shouldst make her legs slip from Sidney. her. Smooth sliding without step. Milton. The gallants dancing by the river side, They bathe in summer, and in winter slide. Wall. To fall by errour. The discovering and reprehension of these colours cannot be done but out of a very universal knowledge of things, which so cleareth man's judgment, as it is the less apt to slide into any Bacon. errour. 10. To be not firm. Ye fair! Be greatly cautious of your sliding hearts. Thoms. 11. To pass with a free and gentle course To SLIDE. v. a. To put imperceptibly. or flow. Little tricks of sophistry, by sliding in or leaving out such words as entirely change the question, should be abandoned by all fair disputants. Watts. SLIDE. n. s. [from the verb.] 1. Smooth and easy passage. 2. We have some slides or relishes of the voice or strings, continued without notes, from one to another, rising or falling, which are delightful. Bacon's Nat. Hist. Kings that have able men of their nobility shall find ease in employing them, and a better slide into their business; for people naturally bend to Bacon. them. Flow; even course. There be, whose fortunes are like Homer's verses, that have a slide and easiness more than the verses of other poets. Bacon. SLIDER. n.s. [from slide.] He who slides. SLIGHT. adj. [slicht, Dut.] 1. Small; worthless; inconsiderable. Is Cæsar with Antonius priz'd so slight? Shak. Their arms, their arts, their manners I disclose Slight is the subject, but the praise not small, If heav'n assist, and Phoebus hear my call. Dryd. Slight is the subject, but not so the praise, If she inspire, and he approve my lays. Pope. Dryden. 2. Not important; not cogent; weak. Some firmly embrace doctrines upon slight grounds, some upon no grounds, and some contrary to appearance. Locke. He that once sins, like him that slides on ice, Goes swiftly down the slippery ways of vice: Though conscience checks him, yet, those rubs gone o'er, He slides on smoothly, and looks back no more. 3. To pass inadvertently. Make a door and a bar for thy mouth: beware thou slide not by it. Ecclus. xxviii. 26. 4. To pass unnoticed. In the princess I could find no apprehension of what 1 said or did, but a calm carelessness, letting every thing slide justly, as we do by their speeches, who neither in matter nor person do any way belong unto us. Sidney. with slight of hand, and taking from his own score and adding to John's, Nic brought the balance to his own side. Arbuthnot To SLEIGHT. v. a. [from the adjective.] 1. To neglect; to disregard. Beware Lest they transgress and slight that sole command. Mute You cannot expect your son should have any regard for one whom he sees you slight. Locke 2. To throw carelessly: unless in this passage to slight be the same with to sling. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned puppies. Shakesp 3. [Slighten, Dut.] To overthrow; to demolish. Junius. Skinner. Ainsworth. To slight over. To treat or perform carelessly. 4. These men, when they have promised great matters, and failed most shamefully, if they are the perfection of boldness, will but slight it ear, and no more ado. Bacon's Essay His death and your deliverance Were themes that ought not to be slighted over, Druden. SLIGHTER. n. s. [from slight.] One who disregards. SLIGHTINGLY. adv. [from slighting.] Without reverence; with contempt. If my sceptick speaks slightingly of the opinions he opposes, I have done no more than became the part. Boyte SLIGHTLY. adv. [from slight.] Negligently; without regard. Words, both because they are common, and do not so strongly move the fancy of man are fur the most part slightly heard. Hooker. |