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DICTIONARY

OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE:

IN WHICH THE

WORDS ARE DEDUCED FROM THEIR ORIGINALS,

AND

ILLUSTRATED IN THEIR DIFFERENT SIGNIFICATIONS BY EXAMPLES FROM THE BEST WRITERS.

TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED,

A HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE,

AND

AN ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

BY SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG, 73, CHEAPSIDE;

RICHARD GRIFFIN AND CO. GLASGOW; AND JOHN CUMMING, DUBLIN.

1832.

A

DICTIONARY

OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

KAY

K. A letter borrowed by the English

KED

And now at keels they try a harmless chance,
And now their cur they teach to fetch and dance.
Sidney.
The residue of the time they wear out at coits,
kayles, or the like idle exercises.

Carew.

from the Greek alphabet. It has
before all the vowels one invariable
sound: as, keen, ken, kill. It is used
after c at the end of words: as, knock,
clack, crack, back, brick, stick, pluck,
check, which were written anciently
with e final: as, clocke, checke, tricke.
It is also in use between a vowel and To KECK. v. n. [kecken, Dut.] To heave
the silent e final: as, cloke, broke, brake,
pike, duke, eke. It likewise ends a
word aftera diphthong: as, look, break,
shook, leek. The English never use
c at the end of a word. K is silent in
the present pronunciation before n: as,
knife, knee, knell.

2. A kind of play still retained in Scot-
land, in which nine holes ranged in
three's are made in the ground, and an
iron bullet rolled in
them.
among

KALENDAR. n. s. [now written calendar.]
An account of time.

Let this pernicious hour
Stand as accursed in the kalender. Shakesp. Macb.
KALI. n. s. [an Arabick word.] Seaweed,
of the ashes of which glass was made;
whence the word alkali.

The ashes of the weed kali are sold to the Venetians for their glass works. Bacon. KAM. adj. Crooked. Kam, in Erse, is squint eyed, and applied to any thing awry: clean kam signifies crooked, athwart, awry, cross from the purpose. A-schembo, Ital. hence our English a-kimbo. Clean kam is, by vulgar pronunciation, brought to kim, kam. This is clean kam; merely awry. To Kaw. v. n. [from the sound.] To cry as a raven, crow, or rook.

Shakesp.

Jack-daws kawing and fluttering about the nests, set all their young ones a-gaping: but having nothing in their mouths but air, leave them as hungry as before. Locke. KAW. n. s. [from the verb.] The of cry

a raven or crow.

The dastard crow that to the wood made wing, With her loud kaws her craven kind doth bring, Who, safe in numbers, cuff the noble bird. Dryd. KAYLE. n. s. [quille, Fr.]

1. Ninepin; kettlepins, of which skittles seems a corruption.

VOL. II.

the stomach; to reach at vomiting.

All those diets do dry up humours and rheums, which they first attenuate, and while the humour is attenuated it troubleth the body a great deal more; and therefore patients must not keck at Bacon's Nat. Hist.

them at the first.

The faction, is it not notorious?
Keck at the memory of glorious.
To KECKLE. v. a.

Swift.
To defend a cable
Ainsworth.

round with rope.
KECKSY. n. s. [commonly kex, cigue, Fr.
cicuta, Lat. Skinner.] Skinner seems
to think kecksy or kex the same as hem-
lock. It is used in Staffordshire both
for hemlock, and any other hollow-
jointed plant.

Nothing teems
But hateful docks, rough thistles,kecksies, burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.
Shak. Hen. V.
KE'CKY. adj. [from kex.] Resembling a

kex.

An Indian sceptre, made of a sort of cane, without any joint, and perfectly round, consisteth of hard and blackish cylinders, mixed with a soft kecky body; so as at the end cut transversely, it looks as a bundle of wires. Grew. To KEDGE. v. a. [kaghe, a small vessel, Dut.]

In bringing a ship up or down a narrow river, when the wind is contrary to the tide, they set the foresail, or foretop-sail and mizen, and so let her drive with the tide. The sails are to flat her about, if she comes too near the shore. They also carry out an anchor in the head of the boat, with a hawser that comes from the ship; which anchor, if the ship comes too near the shore, they let fall in the stream, and so wind her head about it; then weigh the anchor again when she is about, which is called hedging, and from this use the anchor a kedger.

Harris.

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Heav'd up his lighten'd keel, and sunk the sand,
And steer'd the sacred vessel.
Dryden.

Her sharp bill serves for a keel to cut the air before her, her tail she useth as her rudder. Grew. Your cables burst, and you must quickly feel The waves impetuous ent'ring at your keel. Swift. KEELS, the same with kayles; which see. To KEEL. v. a. [cælan, Sax.] This word, which is preserved in Shakespeare, Hanmer explains thus: To keel seems to mean to drink so deep, as to turn up the bottom of the pot, like turning up the keel of a ship.-In Ireland, to keel the pot is to scum it.

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. Shakesp. KE'ELFAT. n. s. [cœlan, Sax. to cool, and fat or vat a vessel.] Cooler; tub in which liquor is let to cool. KE'ELSON. n. s. The next piece of timber in a ship to her keel, lying right over it Harris. next above the floor timber.

To KE'ELHALE. v. a. [keel and hale.] To punish in the seamen's way, by dragging the criminal under water on one side of the ship and up again on the other. KEEN. adj. [cene, Sax. kuhn, Germ kōen Dut.]

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