. &?;. See Hemp.] 1. A strong cloth made of hemp, flax, or cotton; -- used for tents, sails, etc.

 By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led. Tennyson.
2. (a) A coarse cloth so woven as to form regular meshes for working with the needle, as in tapestry, or worsted work. (b) A piece of strong cloth of which the surface has been prepared to receive painting, commonly painting in oil.

 History... does not bring out clearly upon the canvas the details which were familiar. J. H. Newman.
3. Something for which canvas is used: (a) A sail, or a collection of sails. (b) A tent, or a collection of tents. (c) A painting, or a picture on canvas.

 To suit his canvas to the roughness of the see. Goldsmith.
 Light, rich as that which glows on the canvas of Claude. Macaulay.
4. A rough draft or model of a song, air, or other literary or musical composition; esp. one to show a poet the measure of the verses he is to make. Grabb.
 Can"vas, a. Made of, pertaining to, or resembling, canvas or coarse cloth; as, a canvas tent.

 Can"vas*back' (?), n. (Zoöl.) A Species of duck (Aythya vallisneria), esteemed for the delicacy of its flesh. It visits the United States in autumn; particularly Chesapeake Bay and adjoining waters; -- so named from the markings of the plumage on its back.

 Can"vass (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. canvassed (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Canvassing.] [OF. Canabasser to examine curiously, to search or sift out; properly, to sift through canvas. See Canvas, n.] 1. To sift; to strain; to examine thoroughly; to scrutinize; as, to canvass the votes cast at an election; to canvass a district with reference to its probable vote.

 I have made careful search on all hands, and canvassed the matter with all possible diligence. Woodward.
2. To examine by discussion; to debate.

 An opinion that we are likely soon to canvass. Sir W. Hamilton.
3. To go through, with personal solicitation or public addresses; as, to canvass a district for votes; to canvass a city for subscriptions.

 Can"vass, v. i. To search thoroughly; to engage in solicitation by traversing a district; as, to canvass for subscriptions or for votes; to canvass for a book, a publisher, or in behalf of a charity; -- commonly followed by for.

 Can"vass, n. 1. Close inspection; careful review for verification; as, a canvass of votes. Bacon.
2. Examination in the way of discussion or debate.

3. Search; exploration; solicitation; systematic effort to obtain votes, subscribers, etc.

 No previous canvass was made for me. Burke.
 Can"vass*er (?), n. One who canvasses.

 Can"y (?), a. [From Cane.] Of or pertaining to cane or canes; abounding with canes. Milton.
 Can"yon (?), n. The English form of the Spanish word Cañon.

 ||Can*zo"ne (?), n. [It., a song, fr. L. cantio, fr. canere to sing. Cf. Chanson, Chant.] (Mus.) (a) A song or air for one or more voices, of Provençal origin, resembling, though not strictly, the madrigal. (b) An instrumental piece in the madrigal style.

 Can'zo*net" (?), n. [It. canzonetta, dim. of canzone.]
 (Mus.) A short song, in one or more parts.

 Caout"chin (?), n. (Chem.) An inflammable, volatile, oily, liquid hydrocarbon, obtained by the destructive distillation of caoutchouc.

 Caout"chouc (?), n. [F. caoutchouc, from the South American name.] A tenacious, elastic, gummy substance obtained from the milky sap of several plants of tropical South America (esp. the euphorbiaceous tree Siphonia elastica or Hevea caoutchouc), Asia, and Africa.
 Being impermeable to liquids and gases, and not readly affected by exposure to air, acids, and alkalies, it is used, especially when vulcanized, for many purposes in the arts and in manufactures. Also called India rubber (because it was first brought from India, and was formerly used chiefly for erasing pencil marks) and gum elastic.
 See Vulcanization.

Mineral caoutchouc. See under Mineral.

 Caout"chou*cin (?), n. See Caoutchin.

 Cap (kp), n. [OE. cappe, AS. cæppe, cap, cape, hood, fr. LL, cappa, capa; perhaps of Iberian origin, as Isidorus of Seville mentions it first: "Capa, quia quasi totum capiat hominem; it. capitis ornamentum." See 3d Cape, and cf. 1st Cope.]
 1. A covering for the head; esp. (a) One usually with a visor but without a brim, for men and boys; (b) One of lace, muslin, etc., for women, or infants; (c) One used as the mark or ensign of some rank, office, or dignity, as that of a cardinal.

2. The top, or uppermost part; the chief.

 Thou art the cap of all the fools alive. Shak.
3. A respectful uncovering of the head.

 He that will give a cap and make a leg in thanks. Fuller.
4. (Zoöl.) The whole top of the head of a bird from the base of the bill to the nape of the neck.

5. Anything resembling a cap in form, position, or use; as: (a) (Arch.) The uppermost of any assemblage of parts; as, the cap of column, door, etc.; a capital, coping, cornice, lintel, or plate. (b) Something covering the top or end of a thing for protection or ornament.
 (c) (Naut.) A collar of iron or wood used in joining spars, as the mast and the topmast, the bowsprit and the jib boom; also, a covering of tarred canvas at the end of a rope. (d) A percussion cap. See under Percussion. (e) (Mech.) The removable cover of a journal box. (f) (Geom.) A portion of a spherical or other convex surface.

6. A large size of writing paper; as, flat cap; foolscap; legal cap.

Cap of a cannon, a piece of lead laid over the vent to keep the priming dry; -- now called an apron. -- Cap in hand, obsequiously; submissively. -- Cap of liberty. See Liberty cap, under Liberty. -- Cap of maintenance, a cap of state carried before the kings of England at the coronation. It is also carried before the mayors of some cities. -- Cap money, money collected in a cap for the huntsman at the death of the fox. -- Cap paper. (a) A kind of writing paper including flat cap, foolscap, and legal cap. (b) A coarse wrapping paper used for making caps to hold commodities. -- Cap rock (Mining), The layer of rock next overlying ore, generally of barren vein material. -- Flat cap, cap See Foolscap. -- Forage cap, the cloth undress head covering of an officer of soldier. -- Legal cap, a kind of folio writing paper, made for the use of lawyers, in long narrow sheets which have the fold at the top or "narrow edge


iding, or arthrodial articulation.

 Pla*nim"e*ter (?), n. [Plani- + -meter. Cf.
 Planometer.] An instrument for measuring the area of any plane figure, however irregular, by passing a tracer around the bounding line; a platometer.

 { Plan'i*met"ric (?; 277), Plan'i*met"ric*al (?), } a. [Cf. F. planimétrique.]
 Of or pertaining to planimetry.

 Pla*nim"e*try (?), n. [Cf. F. planimétrie.] The mensuration of plane surfaces; -- distinguished from stereometry, or the mensuration of volumes.

 Plan"ing (?), a. & vb. n. fr. Plane, v. t. Planing machine. (a) See Planer. (b) A complex machine for planing wood, especially boards, containing usually a rapidly revolving cutter, which chips off the surface in small shavings as the piece to be planed is passed under it by feeding apparatus.

 Pla'ni*pen"nate (?), a. Of or pertaining to Planipennia.

 ||Pla'ni*pen"ni*a (?), n. pl. [NL., fr. L. planus plane + penna wing.] (Zoöl.) A suborder of Neuroptera, including those that have broad, flat wings, as the ant-lion, lacewing, etc. Called also Planipennes.

 Plan'i*pet"al*ous (?), a. [Plani- + petal.] (Bot.)
 Having flat petals.

 Plan"ish (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Planished (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Planishing.] [OF. planir, F. planer.
 See Plane, v., and -ish.] To make smooth or plane, as a metallic surface; to condense, toughen, and polish by light blows with a hammer.

 Plan"ish*er (?), n. One who, or that which, planishes. Weale.
 Plan"ish*ing, a. & vb. n. from Planish, v. t. Planishing rolls (Coining), rolls between which metal strips are passed while cold, to bring them to exactly the required thickness.

 Plan"i*sphere (?), n. [Plani- + sphere: cf. F. planisphère.
 See Plain, and Sphere.] The representation of the circles of the sphere upon a plane; especially, a representation of the celestial sphere upon a plane with adjustable circles, or other appendages, for showing the position of the heavens, the time of rising and setting of stars, etc., for any given date or hour.

 Plan'i*spher"ic (?), a. Of or pertaining to a planisphere.

 Plank (?), n. [OE. planke, OF. planque, planche, F. planche, fr. L. planca; cf. Gr. &?;, &?;, anything flat and broad. Cf. Planch.] 1. A broad piece of sawed timber, differing from a board only in being thicker. See Board.

2. Fig.: That which supports or upholds, as a board does a swimmer.

 His charity is a better plank than the faith of an intolerant and bitter-minded bigot.

Southey.
3. One of the separate articles in a declaration of the principles of a party or cause; as, a plank in the national platform. [Cant] Plank road, or Plank way, a road surface formed of planks.
 [U.S.] -- To walk the plank, to walk along a plank laid across the bulwark of a ship, until one overbalances it and falls into the sea; -- a method of disposing of captives practiced by pirates.

 Plank (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Planked (?); p. pr.
 & vb. n. Planking.] 1. To cover or lay with planks; as, to plank a floor or a ship. "Planked with pine." Dryden.
2. To lay down, as on a plank or table; to stake or pay cash; as, to plank money in a wager. [Colloq. U.S.]

3. To harden, as hat bodies, by felting.

4. (Wooden Manuf.) To splice together the ends of slivers of wool, for subsequent drawing.

Planked shad, shad split open, fastened to a plank, and roasted before a wood fire.

 Plank"ing, n. 1. The act of laying planks; also, planks, collectively; a series of planks in place, as the wooden covering of the frame of a vessel.

2. The act of splicing slivers. See Plank, v. t., 4.

 Plank"-sheer' (?), n. (Shipbuilding) The course of plank laid horizontally over the timberheads of a vessel's frame.

 Plan"less (?), a. Having no plan.

 Plan"ner (?), n. One who plans; a projector.

 Pla"no- (?). See Plani-.

 Plan"o*blast (?), n. [Gr. &?; to wander + -blast.] (Zoöl.)
 Any free-swimming gonophore of a hydroid; a hydroid medusa.

 Pla"no-con"cave (?), a. [Plano- + concave.] Plane or flat on one side, and concave on the other; as, a plano-concave lens. See Lens.

 Pla"no-con"ic*al (?), a. [Plano- + conical.] Plane or flat on one side, and conical on the other. Grew.
 Pla"no-con"vex (?), a. [Plano- + convex.] Plane or flat on one side, and convex on the other; as, a plano-convex lens.
 See Convex, and Lens.

 Pla"no-hor'i*zon"tal (?), a. [Plano- + horizontal.]
 Having a level horizontal surface or position. Lee.
 Pla*nom"e*ter (?), n. [Plano- + -meter. Cf.
 Planimeter.] An instrument for gauging or testing a plane surface. See Surface gauge, under Surface.

 Pla*nom"e*try (?), n. (Mech.) The art or process of producing or gauging a plane surface.

 Pla"no-or*bic"u*lar (?), a. [Plano- + orbicular.]
 Plane or flat on one side, and spherical on the other.

 ||Pla*nor"bis (?), n. [NL., fr. L. planus flat + orbis a circle.] (Zoöl.) Any fresh-water air-breathing mollusk belonging to Planorbis and other allied genera, having shells of a discoidal form.

 Pla"no-su"bu*late (?), a. [Plano- + subulate.] Smooth and awl-shaped. See Subulate.

 Plant (?), n. [AS. plante, L. planta.] 1. A vegetable; an organized living being, generally without feeling and voluntary motion, and having, when complete, a root, stem, and leaves, though consisting sometimes only of a single leafy expansion, or a series of cellules, or even a single cellule.

 Plants are divided by their structure and methods of reproduction into two series, phænogamous or flowering plants, which have true flowers and seeds, and cryptogamous or flowerless plants, which have no flowers, and reproduce by minute one-celled spores. In both series are minute and simple forms and others of great size and complexity.

 As to their mode of nutrition, plants may be considered as self-supporting and dependent. Self-supporting plants always contain chlorophyll, and subsist on air and moisture and the matter dissolved in moisture, and as a general rule they ex


Dainty, Dignity, Condign, Disdain.] 1.
 To esteem worthy; to consider worth notice; - - opposed to disdain.
 [Obs.]

 I fear my Julia would not deign my lines.

Shak.
2. To condescend to give or bestow; to stoop to furnish; to vouchsafe; to allow; to grant.

 Nor would we deign him burial of his men.

Shak.
 Deign, v. i. To think worthy; to vouchsafe; to condescend; - - followed by an infinitive.

 O deign to visit our forsaken seats.

Pope.
 Yet not Lord Cranstone deigned she greet.

Sir W. Scott.
 Round turned he, as not deigning Those craven ranks to see.

Macaulay.
 In early English deign was often used impersonally.

 Him deyneth not to set his foot to ground.

Chaucer.
 Deign"ous (?), a. [For disdeignous, OF. desdeignos, desdaigneus, F. dédaigneux. See Disdain.] Haughty; disdainful. [Obs.] Chaucer.
 Deil (dl), n. Devil; -- spelt also deel. [Scot.]

Deil's buckie. See under Buckie.

 ||Dei*noc"e*ras (?), n. [NL.] (Paleon.) See Dinoceras.

 ||Dei*nor"nis (?), n. [NL.] (Paleon.) See Dinornis.

 ||Dei"no*saur (d"n*sr), n. [NL.] (Paleon.) See Dinosaur.

 ||Dei'no*the"ri*um (d'n*th"r*m), n. [NL.] (Paleon.) See Dinotherium.

 De*in"te*grate (?), v. t. [L. deintegrare to impair; de- + integrare to make whole.] To disintegrate. [Obs.]

 { Dein"te*ous (?), Dein"te*vous (?) }, a. Rare; excellent; costly.
 [Obs.] Chaucer.
 De*ip"a*rous (d*p"*rs), a. [L. deus a god + parere to bring forth.] Bearing or bringing forth a god; -- said of the Virgin Mary.
 [Obs.] Bailey.
 Deip*nos"o*phist (dp*ns"*fst), n. [Gr. deipnosofisth's; dei^pnon a meal + sofisth's a wise man, sophist.] One of an ancient sect of philosophers, who cultivated learned conversation at meals.

 De"is (d"s), n. See Dais.

 De"ism (d"z'm), n. [L. deus god: cf. F. déisme.
 See Deity.] The doctrine or creed of a deist; the belief or system of those who acknowledge the existence of one God, but deny revelation.

Deism is the belief in natural religion only, or those truths, in doctrine and practice, which man is to discover by the light of reason, independent of any revelation from God. Hence, deism implies infidelity, or a disbelief in the divine origin of the Scriptures.

 De"ist (d"st), n. [L. deus god: cf. F. déiste.
 See Deity.] One who believes in the existence of a God, but denies revealed religion; a freethinker.

 A deist, as denying a revelation, is opposed to a Christian; as, opposed to the denier of a God, whether atheist or pantheist, a deist is generally denominated theist. Latham.
Syn. -- See Infidel.

 { De*is"tic (d*s"tk), De*is"tic*al (?), } a. Pertaining to, savoring of, or consisting in, deism; as, a deistic writer; a deistical book.

 The deistical or antichristian scheme.

I. Watts.
 De*is"tic*al*ly, adv. After the manner of deists.

 De*is"tic*al*ness, n. State of being deistical.

 De"i*tate (d"*tt), a. Deified. [Obs.] Cranmer.
 De"i*ty (d"*t), n.; pl. Deities (- tz). [OE. deite, F. déité, fr. L. deitas, fr. deus a god; akin to divus divine, Jupiter, gen. Jovis, Jupiter, dies day, Gr. di^os divine, Zey's, gen. Dio's, Zeus, Skr.
 dva divine, as a noun, god, daiva divine, dy sky, day, hence, the sky personified as a god, and to the first syllable of E. Tuesday, Gael. & Ir. dia God, W. duw. Cf. Divine, Journey, Journal, Tuesday.] 1. The collection of attributes which make up the nature of a god; divinity; godhead; as, the deity of the Supreme Being is seen in his works.

 They declared with emphasis the perfect deity and the perfect manhood of Christ.

Milman.
2. A god or goddess; a heathen god.

 To worship calves, the deities Of Egypt.

Milton.
The Deity, God, the Supreme Being.

 This great poet and philosopher [Simonides], the more he contemplated the nature of the Deity, found that he waded but the more out of his depth.

Addison.
 De*ject" (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Dejected; p. pr.
 & vb. n. Dejecting.] [L. dejectus, p. p. of dejicere to throw down; de- + jacere to throw. See Jet a shooting forth.] 1. To cast down. [Obs. or Archaic] Christ dejected himself even unto the hells.

Udall.
 Sometimes she dejects her eyes in a seeming civility; and many mistake in her a cunning for a modest look.

Fuller.
2. To cast down the spirits of; to dispirit; to discourage; to dishearten.

 Nor think, to die dejects my lofty mind.

Pope.
 De*ject", a. [L. dejectus, p. p.] Dejected. [Obs.]

 ||De*jec"ta (?), n. pl. [NL., neut. pl. from L. dejectus, p.
 p.] Excrements; as, the dejecta of the sick.

 De*ject"ed, a. Cast down; afflicted; low-spirited; sad; as, a dejected look or countenance. -- De*ject"ed*ly, adv. -- De*ject"ed*ness, n. De*ject"er (?), n. One who casts down, or dejects.

 De*jec"tion (?), n. [L. dejectio a casting down: cf. F. déjection.]
 1. A casting down; depression. [Obs. or Archaic] Hallywell.
2. The act of humbling or abasing one's self.

 Adoration implies submission and dejection.

Bp. Pearson.
3. Lowness of spirits occasioned by grief or misfortune; mental depression; melancholy.

 What besides, Of sorrow, and dejection, and despair, Our frailty can sustain, thy tidings bring.

Milton.
4. A low condition; weakness; inability. [R.]

 A dejection of appetite.

Arbuthnot.
5. (Physiol.) (a) The discharge of excrement. (b) Fæces; excrement. Ray.
 De*ject"ly (?), adv. Dejectedly. [Obs.]

 De*jec"to*ry (?), a. [L. dejector a dejecter.] 1.
 Having power


, Bridle, etc. -- Port bar (Naut.), a bar to secure the ports of a ship in a gale. -- Port lid (Naut.), a lid or hanging for closing the portholes of a vessel. -- Steam port, ∧ Exhaust port (Steam Engine), the ports of the cylinder communicating with the valve or valves, for the entrance or exit of the steam, respectively.

 Port, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Ported; p. pr. & vb. n.
 Porting.] [F. porter, L. portare to carry. See Port demeanor.] 1. To carry; to bear; to transport. [Obs.]

 They are easily ported by boat into other shires.

Fuller.
2. (Mil.) To throw, as a musket, diagonally across the body, with the lock in front, the right hand grasping the small of the stock, and the barrel sloping upward and crossing the point of the left shoulder; as, to port arms.

 Began to hem him round with ported spears.

Milton.
Port arms, a position in the manual of arms, executed as above.

 Port, n. [F. port, fr. porter to carry, L. portare, prob. akin to E. fare, v. See Port harbor, and cf. Comport, Export, Sport.] The manner in which a person bears himself; deportment; carriage; bearing; demeanor; hence, manner or style of living; as, a proud port.
 Spenser.
 And of his port as meek as is a maid.

Chaucer.
 The necessities of pomp, grandeur, and a suitable port in the world.

South.
 Port, n. [Etymology uncertain.] (Naut.) The larboard or left side of a ship (looking from the stern toward the bow); as, a vessel heels to port. See Note under Larboard. Also used adjectively.

 Port, v. t. (Naut.) To turn or put to the left or larboard side of a ship; -- said of the helm, and used chiefly in the imperative, as a command; as, port your helm.

 ||Por"ta (?), n.; pl. Portæ (#). [L., a gate.
 See Port a hole.] (Anat.) (a) The part of the liver or other organ where its vessels and nerves enter; the hilus. (b) The foramen of Monro. B. G. Wilder.
 Port'a*bil"i*ty (?), n. The quality or state of being portable; fitness to be carried.

 Port"a*ble (?), a. [L. portabilis, fr. portare to carry: cf. F. portable. See Port demeanor.] 1. Capable of being borne or carried; easily transported; conveyed without difficulty; as, a portable bed, desk, engine. South.
2. Possible to be endured; supportable. [Obs.]

 How light and portable my pain seems now!

Shak.
Portable forge. See under Forge. -- Portable steam engine.
 See under Steam engine.

 Port"a*ble*ness, n. The quality or state of being portable; portability.

 Por"tace (?; 48), n. See Portass. [Obs.]

 Port"age (?; 48), n. [From 2d Port.] (Naut.) (a) A sailor's wages when in port. (b) The amount of a sailor's wages for a voyage.

 Port"age, n. [3d Port.] A porthole. [Obs.] Shak.
 Por"tage (?), n. [F., from porter to carry. See Port to carry.] 1. The act of carrying or transporting.

2. The price of carriage; porterage. Bp. Fell.
3. Capacity for carrying; tonnage. [Obs.] Hakluyt.
4. A carry between navigable waters. See 3d Carry.

 Por"tage (?), v. t. & i. To carry (goods, boats, etc.) overland between navigable waters.

 Por"tage group' (?). [So called from the township of Portage in New York.] (Geol.) A subdivision of the Chemung period in American geology. See Chart of Geology.

 Por"ta*gue (?), n. [See Portuguese.] A Portuguese gold coin formerly current, and variously estimated to be worth from three and one half to four and one half pounds sterling. [Obs.] [Written also portegue and portigue.]

 Ten thousand portagues, besides great pearls.

Marlowe.
 Por"tal (?), n. [OF. portal, F. portail, LL. portale, fr. L. porta a gate. See Port a gate.] 1. A door or gate; hence, a way of entrance or exit, especially one that is grand and imposing.

 Thick with sparkling orient gems The portal shone.

Milton.
 From out the fiery portal of the east.

Shak.
2. (Arch.) (a) The lesser gate, where there are two of different dimensions. (b) Formerly, a small square corner in a room separated from the rest of the apartment by wainscoting, forming a short passage to another apartment. (c) By analogy with the French portail, used by recent writers for the whole architectural composition which surrounds and includes the doorways and porches of a church.

3. (Bridge Building) The space, at one end, between opposite trusses when these are terminated by inclined braces.

4. A prayer book or breviary; a portass. [Obs.]

Portal bracing (Bridge Building), a combination of struts and ties which lie in the plane of the inclined braces at a portal, serving to transfer wind pressure from the upper parts of the trusses to an abutment or pier of the bridge.

 Por"tal (?), a. (Anat.) Of or pertaining to a porta, especially the porta of the liver; as, the portal vein, which enters the liver at the porta, and divides into capillaries after the manner of an artery.

Portal is applied to other veins which break up into capillaries; as, the renal portal veins in the frog.

 ||Por'ta*men"to (?), n. [It., fr. portare to carry.] (Mus.)
 In singing, or in the use of the bow, a gradual carrying or lifting of the voice or sound very smoothly from one note to another; a gliding from tone to tone.

 Por"tance (?), n. See Port, carriage, demeanor. [Obs.] Spenser.
 Shak.
 Por"tass (?), n. [OF. porte-hors a kind of prayer book, so called from being portable; cf. LL. portiforium.] A breviary; a prayer book. [Written variously portace, portasse, portesse, portise, porthose, portos, portus, portuse, etc.] [Obs.] Spenser. Camden.
 By God and by this porthors I you swear.

Chaucer.
 Por"tate (?), a. [L. portatus, p. p. of portare to carry.] (Her.) Borne not erect, but diagonally athwart an escutcheon; as, a cross portate.

 Por"ta*tive (?), a. [Cf. F. portatif.] 1. Portable.
 [Obs.]

2. (Physics) Capable of holding up or carrying; as, the portative force of a magnet, of atmospheric pressure, or of capillarity.

 Port"cluse (?), n. A portcullis. [Obs.]

 Port'cray"on (?), n. [F. portecrayon; porter to carry + crayon a crayon.] A metallic handle with a clasp for holding a crayon.

 Port*cul"lis (?), n. [OF


THE TREES OF PRIDE by Gilbert K. Chesterton Contents THE TREES OF PRIDE I. THE TALE OF THE PEACOCK TREES II. THE WAGER OF SQUIRE VANE III. THE MYSTERY OF THE WELL IV. THE CHASE AFTER THE TRUTH THE TREES OF PRIDE I. THE TALE OF THE PEACOCK TREES Squire Vane was an elderly schoolboy of English education and Irish extraction. His English education, at one of the great public schools, had preserved his intellect perfectly and permanently at the stage of boyhood.
 But his Irish extraction subconsciously upset in him the proper solemnity of an old boy, and sometimes gave him back the brighter outlook of a naughty boy. He had a bodily impatience which played tricks upon him almost against his will, and had already rendered him rather too radiant a failure in civil and diplomatic service. Thus it is true that compromise is the key of British policy, especially as effecting an impartiality among the religions of India; but Vane's attempt to meet the Moslem halfway by kicking off one boot at the gates of the mosque, was felt not so much to indicate true impartiality as something that could only be called an aggressive indifference. Again, it is true that an English aristocrat can hardly enter fully into the feelings of either party in a quarrel between a Russian Jew and an Orthodox procession carrying relics; but Vane's idea that the procession might carry the Jew as well, himself a venerable and historic relic, was misunderstood on both sides. In short, he was a man who particularly prided himself on having no nonsense about him; with the result that he was always doing nonsensical things. He seemed to be standing on his head merely to prove that he was hard-headed.

 He had just finished a hearty breakfast, in the society of his daughter, at a table under a tree in his garden by the Cornish coast. For, having a glorious circulation, he insisted on as many outdoor meals as possible, though spring had barely touched the woods and warmed the seas round that southern extremity of England. His daughter Barbara, a good-looking girl with heavy red hair and a face as grave as one of the garden statues, still sat almost motionless as a statue when her father rose. A fine tall figure in light clothes, with his white hair and mustache flying backwards rather fiercely from a face that was good-humored enough, for he carried his very wide Panama hat in his hand, he strode across the terraced garden, down some stone steps flanked with old ornamental urns to a more woodland path fringed with little trees, and so down a zigzag road which descended the craggy Cliff to the shore, where he was to meet a guest arriving by boat. A yacht was already in the blue bay, and he could see a boat pulling toward the little paved pier.

 And yet in that short walk between the green turf and the yellow sands he was destined to find, his hard-headedness provoked into a not unfamiliar phase which the world was inclined to call hot-headedness. The fact was that the Cornish peasantry, who composed his tenantry and domestic establishment, were far from being people with no nonsense about them.
 There was, alas! a great deal of nonsense about them; with ghosts, witches, and traditions as old as Merlin, they seemed to surround him with a fairy ring of nonsense. But the magic circle had one center: there was one point in which the curving conversation of the rustics always returned. It was a point that always pricked the Squire to exasperation, and even in this short walk he seemed to strike it everywhere. He paused before descending the steps from the lawn to speak to the gardener about potting some foreign shrubs, and the gardener seemed to be gloomily gratified, in every line of his leathery brown visage, at the chance of indicating that he had formed a low opinion of foreign shrubs.

 "We wish you'd get rid of what you've got here, sir," he observed, digging doggedly. "Nothing'll grow right with them here." "Shrubs!" said the Squire, laughing. "You don't call the peacock trees shrubs, do you? Fine tall trees—you ought to be proud of them." "Ill weeds grow apace," observed the gardener. "Weeds can grow as houses when somebody plants them." Then he added: "Him that sowed tares in the Bible, Squire." "Oh, blast your—" began the Squire, and then replaced the more apt and alliterative word "Bible" by the general word "superstition." He was himself a robust rationalist, but he went to church to set his tenants an example. Of what, it would have puzzled him to say.

 A little way along the lower path by the trees he encountered a woodcutter, one Martin, who was more explicit, having more of a grievance.
 His daughter was at that time seriously ill with a fever recently common on that coast, and the Squire, who was a kind-hearted gentleman, would normally have made allowances for low spirits and loss of temper. But he came near to losing his own again when the peasant persisted in connecting his tragedy with the traditional monomania about the foreign trees.

 "If she were well enough I'd move her," said the woodcutter, "as we can't move them, I suppose. I'd just like to get my chopper into them and feel 'em come crashing down." "One would think they were dragons," said Vane.

 "And that's about what they look like," replied Martin. "Look at 'em!" The woodman was naturally a rougher and even wilder figure than the gardener. His face also was brown, and looked like an antique parchment, and it was framed in an outlandish arrangement of raven beard and whiskers, which was really a fashion fifty years ago, but might have been five thousand years old or older. Phoenicians, one felt, trading on those strange shores in the morning of the world, might have combed or curled or braided their blue-black hair into some such quaint patterns. For this patch of population was as much a corner of Cornwall as Cornwall is a corner of England; a tragic and unique race, small and interrelated like a Celtic clan. The clan was older than the Vane family, though that was old as county families go. For in many such parts of England it is the aristocrats who are the latest arrivals. It was the sort of racial type that is supposed to be passing, and perhaps has already passed.

 The obnoxious objects stood some hundred yards away from the speaker, who waved toward them with his ax; and there was something suggestive in the comparison. That coast, to begin with, stretching toward the sunset, was itself almost as fantastic as a sunset cloud. It was cut out against the emerald or indigo of the sea in graven horns and crescents that might be the cast or mold of some such crested serpents; and, beneath, was pierced and fretted by caves and crevices, as if by the boring of some such titanic worms. Over and above this draconian architecture of the earth a veil of gray woods hung thinner like a vapor; woods which the witchcraft of the sea had, as usual, both blighted and blown out of shape. To the right the trees trailed along the sea front in a single line, each drawn out in thin wild lines like a caricature. At the other end of their extent they multiplied into a huddle of hunchbacked trees, a wood spreading toward a projecting part of the high coast. It was here that the sight appeared to which


d pers.pr. of tacere to be silent.] (Mus.) It is silent; — a direction for a vocal or instrumental part to be silent during a whole movement.

 Tache (?), n. [See Tack a kind of nail.] Something used for taking hold or holding; a catch; a loop; a button. [Obs.] Ex. xxvi. 6.
 Tache, n. [F. tache spot. See Techy.] A spot, stain, or blemish. [Obs.] Warner.
 Tach*hy"drite (?), n. [Gr. tachy's quick + "y'dwr water. So named from its ready deliquescence.] (Min.) A hydrous chloride of calcium and magnesium occurring in yellowish masses which rapidly deliquesce upon exposure. It is found in the salt mines at Stassfurt.

 ||Tach"i*na (?), n.; pl. Tachinæ (#). [NL., fr.
 Gr. &?;, for &?; swift.] (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of Diptera belonging to Tachina and allied genera. Their larvæ are external parasites of other insects.

 Ta*chom"e*ter (?), n. [Gr. &?; swiftness, speed (fr. tachy's quick) + -meter: cf. F. tachomètre.] An instrument for measuring the velocity, or indicating changes in the velocity, of a moving body or substance. Specifically: — (a) An instrument for measuring the velocity of running water in a river or canal, consisting of a wheel with inclined vanes, which is turned by the current. The rotations of the wheel are recorded by clockwork.

(b) An instrument for showing at any moment the speed of a revolving shaft, consisting of a delicate revolving conical pendulum which is driven by the shaft, and the action of which by change of speed moves a pointer which indicates the speed on a graduated dial.

(c) (Physiol.) An instrument for measuring the velocity of the blood; a hæmatachometer.

 Tach"y*di*dax'y (?), n. [Gr. tachy's quick + &?; teaching.] A short or rapid method of instructing. [R.]

 ||Tach'y*glos"sa (?), n. pl. [NL., fr. Gr. tachy's quick + &?; tongue.] (Zoöl.) A division of monotremes which comprises the spiny ant-eaters of Australia and New Guinea. See Illust. under Echidna.

 { Tach'y*graph"ic (?), Tach'y*graph"ic*al (?), } a. [Cf. F. tachygraphique.]
 Of or pertaining to tachygraphy; written in shorthand.

 Ta*chyg"ra*phy (?), n. [Gr. tachy's quick + -graphy: cf. F.
 tachygraphie.] The art or practice of rapid writing; shorthand writing; stenography. I. Taylor (The Alphabet).
 Tach"y*lyte (?), n. [Gr. tachy's quick + &?; to dissolve.] (Min.)
 A vitreous form of basalt; — so called because decomposable by acids and readily fusible.

 Tac"it (?), a. [L. tacitus, p. p. of tacere to be silent, to pass over in silence; akin to Goth. þahan to be silent, Icel. þegja, OHG. dagn: cf. F. tacite.
 Cf. Reticent.] Done or made in silence; implied, but not expressed; silent; as, tacit consent is consent by silence, or by not interposing an objection. — Tac"it*ly, adv.
 The tacit and secret theft of abusing our brother in civil contracts.

Jer. Taylor.
 Tac"i*turn (?), a. [L. taciturnus: cf. F. taciturne.
 See Tacit.] Habitually silent; not given to converse; not apt to talk or speak. — Tac"i*turn*ly, adv.
Syn. — Silent; reserved. Taciturn, Silent. Silent has reference to the act; taciturn, to the habit. A man may be silent from circumstances; he is taciturn from disposition. The loquacious man is at times silent; one who is taciturn may now and then make an effort at conversation.

 Tac'i*tur"ni*ty (?), n. [L. taciturnitas: cf. F. taciturnité.]
 Habilual silence, or reserve in speaking.

 The cause of Addison's taciturnity was a natural diffidence in the company of strangers.

V. Knox.
 The taciturnity and the short answers which gave so much offense.

Macaulay.
 Tack (?), n. [From an old or dialectal form of F. tache. See Techy.] 1. A stain; a tache. [Obs.]

2. [Cf. L. tactus.] A peculiar flavor or taint; as, a musty tack. [Obs. or Colloq.] Drayton.
 Tack, n. [OE. tak, takke, a fastening; akin to D. tak a branch, twig, G. zacke a twig, prong, spike, Dan. takke a tack, spike; cf. also Sw. tagg prickle, point, Icel. tg a willow twig, Ir. taca a peg, nail, fastening, Gael. tacaid, Armor. & Corn. tach; perhaps akin to E. take. Cf. Attach, Attack, Detach, Tag an end, Zigzag.] 1. A small, short, sharp-pointed nail, usually having a broad, flat head.

2. That which is attached; a supplement; an appendix. See Tack, v. t., 3. Macaulay.
 Some tacks had been made to money bills in King Charles's time.

Bp. Burnet.
 3. (Naut.) (a) A rope used to hold in place the foremost lower corners of the courses when the vessel is closehauled (see Illust. of Ship); also, a rope employed to pull the lower corner of a studding sail to the boom. (b) The part of a sail to which the tack is usually fastened; the foremost lower corner of fore-and-aft sails, as of schooners (see Illust. of Sail). (c) The direction of a vessel in regard to the trim of her sails; as, the starboard tack, or port tack; — the former when she is closehauled with the wind on her starboard side; hence, the run of a vessel on one tack; also, a change of direction.

4. (Scots Law) A contract by which the use of a thing is set, or let, for hire; a lease. Burrill.
5. Confidence; reliance. [Prov. Eng.] Halliwell.
Tack of a flag (Naut.), a line spliced into the eye at the foot of the hoist for securing the flag to the halyards. — Tack pins (Naut.), belaying pins; — also called jack pins. — To haul the tacks aboard (Naut.), to set the courses. — To hold tack, to last or hold out. Milton.
 Tack (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Tacked (?); p. pr.
 & vb. n. Tacking.] [Cf. OD. tacken to touch, take, seize, fix, akin to E. take. See Tack a small nail.] 1. To fasten or attach. "In hopes of getting some commendam tacked to their sees." Swift.
 And tacks the center to the sphere.

Herbert.
2. Especially, to attach or secure in a slight or hasty manner, as


processes a large amount of third-party traffic, especially if it is the home site of any of the regional coordinators for the Usenet maps.
Notable backbone sites as of early 1993, when this sense of the term was beginning to pass out of general use due to wide availability of cheap Internet connections, included uunet and the mail machines at Rutgers University, UC Berkeley, DEC's Western Research Laboratories, Ohio State University, and the University of Texas. Compare rib site, leaf site.
[1996 update: This term is seldom heard any more. The UUCP network world that gave it meaning has nearly disappeared; everyone is on the Internet now and network traffic is distributed in very different patterns. Today one might see references to a 'backbone router' instead --ESR] Node:backgammon, Next:background, Previous:backbone site, Up:= B = backgammon See bignum (sense 3), moby (sense 4), and pseudoprime.
Node:background, Next:backreference, Previous:backgammon, Up:= B = background n.,adj.,vt.
[common] To do a task 'in background' is to do it whenever foreground matters are not claiming your undivided attention, and 'to background' something means to relegate it to a lower priority. "For now, we'll just print a list of nodes and links; I'm working on the graph-printing problem in background." Note that this implies ongoing activity but at a reduced level or in spare time, in contrast to mainstream 'back burner' (which connotes benign neglect until some future resumption of activity). Some people prefer to use the term for processing that they have queued up for their unconscious minds (a tack that one can often fruitfully take upon encountering an obstacle in creative work). Compare amp off, slopsucker.
Technically, a task running in background is detached from the terminal where it was started (and often running at a lower priority); oppose foreground.
Nowadays this term is primarily associated with Unix, but it appears to have been first used in this sense on OS/360.
Node:backreference, Next:backronym, Previous:background, Up:= B = backreference n.
1. In a regular expression or pattern match, the text which was matched within grouping parentheses parentheses. 2. The part of the pattern which refers back to the matched text. 3. By extension, anything which refers back to something which has been seen or discussed before. "When you said 'she' just now, who were you backreferencing?"
Node:backronym, Next:backspace and overstrike, Previous:backreference, Up:= B = backronym n.
[portmanteau of back + acronym] A word interpreted as an acronym that was not originally so intended. This is a special case of what linguists call 'back formation'. Examples are given under BASIC, recursive acronym (Cygnus), Acme, and mung.
Discovering backronyms is a common form of wordplay among hackers. Compare retcon.
Node:backspace and overstrike, Next:backward combatability, Previous:backronym, Up:= B = backspace and overstrike interj.
[rare] Whoa! Back up. Used to suggest that someone just said or did something wrong. Once common among APL programmers; may now be obsolete.
Node:backward combatability, Next:BAD, Previous:backspace and overstrike, Up:= B = backward combatability /bak'w*rd k*m-bat'*-bil'*-tee/ n.
[CMU, Tektronix: from 'backward compatibility'] A property of hardware or software revisions in which previous protocols, formats, layouts, etc. are irrevocably discarded in favor of 'new and improved' protocols, formats, and layouts, leaving the previous ones not merely deprecated but actively defeated. (Too often, the old and new versions cannot definitively be distinguished, such that lingering instances of the previous ones yield crashes or other infelicitous effects, as opposed to a simple "version mismatch" message.) A backwards compatible change, on the other hand, allows old versions to coexist without crashes or error messages, but too many major changes incorporating elaborate backwards compatibility processing can lead to extreme software bloat. See also flag day.
Node:BAD, Next:Bad and Wrong, Previous:backward combatability, Up:= B = BAD /B-A-D/ adj.
[IBM: acronym, 'Broken As Designed'] Said of a program that is bogus because of bad design and misfeatures rather than because of bugginess. See working as designed.
Node:Bad and Wrong, Next:Bad Thing, Previous:BAD, Up:= B = Bad and Wrong adj.
[Durham, UK] Said of something that is both badly designed and wrongly executed. This common term is the prototype of, and is used by contrast with, three less common terms - Bad and Right (a kludge, something ugly but functional); Good and Wrong (an overblown GUI or other attractive nuisance); and (rare praise) Good and Right. These terms entered common use at Durham c.1994 and may have been imported from elsewhere; they are also in use at Oxford, and the emphatic form "Evil, Bad and Wrong" (abbreviated EBW) is reported fromm there. There are standard abbreviations: they start with B&R, a typo for "Bad and Wrong". Consequently, B&W is actually "Bad and Right", G&R = "Good and Wrong", and G&W = "Good and Right".
Compare evil and rude, Good Thing, Bad Thing.
Node:Bad Thing, Next:bag on the side, Previous:Bad and Wrong, Up:= B = Bad Thing n.
[very common; from the 1930 Sellar & Yeatman parody "1066 And All That"] Something that can't possibly result in improvement of the subject. This term is always capitalized, as in "Replacing all of the 9600-baud modems with bicycle couriers would be a Bad Thing". Oppose Good Thing. British correspondents confirm that Bad Thing and Good Thing (and prob. therefore Right Thing and Wrong Thing) come from the book referenced in the etymology, which discusses rulers who were Good Kings but Bad Things. This has apparently created a mainstream idiom on the British side of the pond. It is very common among American hackers, but not in mainstream usage here. Compare Bad and Wrong.
Node:bag on the side, Next:bagbiter, Previous:Bad Thing, Up:= B = bag on the side n.
[prob. originally related to a colostomy bag] An extension to an established hack that is supposed to add some functionality to the original. Usually derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and should have been thrown away, and the new product is ugly, inelegant, or bloated. Also v. phrase, 'to hang a bag on the side [of]'. "C++? That's just a bag on the side of C ...." "They want me to hang a bag on the side of the accounting system."
Node:bagbiter, Next:bagbiting, Previous:bag on the side, Up:= B = bagbiter /bag'bi:t-*r/ n.
1. Something, such as a program or a computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy manner. "This text editor won't let me make a file with a line longer than 80 characters!
What a bagbiter!" 2. A person who has caused you some trouble, inadvertently or otherwise, typically by failing to program the computer properly. Synonyms: loser, cretin, chomper. 3. 'bite the bag' vi. To fail in some manner. "The computer keeps crashing every five minutes." "Yes, the disk controller is really biting the bag."
The original loading of these terms was almost undoubtedly obscene, possibly referring to a douche bag or the scrotum (we have reports of "Bite the douche bag!" being used as a taunt at MIT _PHONE_, and we have another report that "Bite the bag!"
was in common use at least as early as 1965), but in their current usage they have become almost completely sanitized.
ITS's lexiphage program was the first and to date only known example of a program intended to be a bagbiter.
Node:bagbiting, Next:baggy


of music among the ancient Greeks. Busby.
 Sus"te*nance (?), n. [OF. sustenance, sostenance, soustenance: cf. L. sustenentia endurance. See Sustain.] 1. The act of sustaining; support; maintenance; subsistence; as, the sustenance of the body; the sustenance of life.

2. That which supports life; food; victuals; provisions; means of living; as, the city has ample sustenance. "A man of little sustenance."
 Chaucer.
 For lying is thy sustenance, thy food.

Milton.
 Sus*ten"ta*cle (?), n. [L. sustentaculum. See Sustentation.]
 Sustenance. [Obs.] Dr. H. More.
 Sus'ten*tac"u*lar (?), a. [See Sustenance.] (Anat.)
 Supporting; sustaining; as, a sustentacular tissue.

 Sus"ten*tate (?), v. t. To sustain. [R.] C. Reade.
 Sus'ten*ta"tion (?), n. [L. sustentatio sustenance, maintenance, fr. sustentare to support, maintain, v. intens. fr. sustinere to sustain: cf. F. sustentation. See Sustain.] 1. The act of sustaining, or the state of being sustained; preservation from falling; support; sustenance; maintenance.

2. (Physiol.) The aggregate of the functions by which a living organism is maintained in a normal condition of weight and growth.

Sustentation fund (Eccl.), a fund of a religious body for support of its ministers, chapels, etc.; as, the sustentation fund of the Free Church of Scotland.

 Sus"ten*ta*tive (?), a. Adapted to sustain, strengthen, or corroborate; as, sustentative citations or quotations.

Sustentative functions (Physiol.), those functions of the body which affect its material composition and thus determine its mass.

 Sus*ten"tion (?), n. Sustentation. [R. or Colloq.]

 In fine images, in sustention, in irony, they surpass anything that Burke ever wrote.

J. Morley.
 { Sus"ter, Sus"tre (?) }, n.; pl. Susters (&?;), Sustres, or Sustren (&?;). Sister. [Obs.] Chaucer.
 There are seven sustren, that serve truth ever.

Piers Plowman.
 Su"su (?), n. (Zoöl.) See Soosoo.

 Su*sur"rant (?), a. [L. susurrans, p. pr. from susurrare to whisper.] Whispering. [R.] "The soft susurrant sigh." Poetry of Anti-Jacobin.
 Su'sur*ra"tion (?), n. [L. susurratio, fr. susurrare to whisper: cf. F. susurration.] A whispering; a soft murmur. "Soft susurrations of the trees." Howell.
 Su*sur"ring*ly (?), adv. In the manner of a whisper. [Obs.]

 Su*sur"rous (?), a. [L. susurrus.] Whispering; rustling; full of whispering sounds. [R.]

 ||Su*sur"rus (?), n. [L.] The act of whispering; a whisper; a murmur. De Quincey.
 The soft susurrus and sighs of the branches.

Longfellow.
 Su"tile (?), a. [L. sutilis, fr. suere to sew: cf. F.
 sutile.] Done by stitching. [R.] Boswell.
 Sut"ler (?), n. [D. zoetelaar, OD. soetelaar, a small trader, especially in camps, fr. soetelen to undertake low offices; cf. G. sudeln to do dirty work, to sully, soil, E. suds.] A person who follows an army, and sells to the troops provisions, liquors, and the like.

 Sut"ler*ship, n. The condition or occupation of a sutler.

 Sut"ling (?), a. Belonging to sutlers; engaged in the occupation of a sutler. Addison.
 Su"tor (?), n. A kind of sirup made by the Indians of Arizona from the fruit of some cactaceous plant (probably the Cereus giganteus).

 ||Su"tra (?), n.; pl. Sutras (#). [Skr. s&?;tra a thread, a string of rules; an aphorism; fr. siv to sew.] 1.
(a) A precept; an aphorism; a brief rule. (b) A collection of such aphorisms.

2. pl. A body of Hindoo literature containing aphorisms on grammar, meter, law, and philosophy, and forming a connecting link between the Vedic and later Sanscrit literature. Balfour (Cyc. of India).
 Sut*tee" (?), n. [Skr. sat a faithful wife, fem. of sant existing, real, true, good, p. pr. of as to be. Cf. Sooth.] 1.
 A Hindoo widow who immolates herself, or is immolated, on the funeral pile of her husband; -- so called because this act of self-immolation is regarded as envincing excellence of wifely character. [India] 2. The act of burning a widow on the funeral pile of her husband.
 [India] The practice, though abolished in British India law in 1829, is not wholly prevented.

 Sut*tee"ism (?), n. The practice of self-immolation of widows in Hindostan.

 Sut"tle (?), n. [Etymol. uncertain.] (Com.) The weight when the tare has been deducted, and tret is yet to be allowed. M&?;Culloch.
 Sut"tle, v. i. [See Sutler.] To act as sutler; to supply provisions and other articles to troops.

 Su"tur*al (?), a. [Cf. F. sutural, NL. suturals.] 1.
 Of or pertaining to a suture, or seam.

2. (Bot.) Taking place at a suture; as, a sutural de&?;iscence.

 Su"tur*al*ly, adv. In a sutural manner.

 Su"tur*a'ted (?), a. Sewed or knit together; united by a suture; stitched.

 Su"ture (?), n. [L. sutura, fr. suere, sutum, to sew or stitch: cf. F. suture. See Sew to unite with thread.] 1.
 The act of sewing; also, the line along which two things or parts are sewed together, or are united so as to form a seam, or that which resembles a seam.

2. (Surg.) (a) The uniting of the parts of a wound by stitching. (b) The stitch by which the parts are united.

3. (Anat.) The line of union, or seam, in an immovable articulation, like those between the bones of the skull; also, such an articulation itself; synarthrosis. See Harmonic suture, under Harmonic.

4. (Bot.) (a) The line, or seam, formed by the union of two margins in any part of a plant; as, the ventral suture of a legume. (b) A line resembling a seam; as, the dorsal suture of a legume, which really corresponds to a midrib.

5. (Zoöl.) (a) The line at which the elytra of a beetle meet and are sometimes confluent. (b) A seam, or impressed line, as between the segments of a crustacean, or between the whorls of a univalve shell.

Glover's suture, Harmonic suture, etc. See under Glover, Harmonic, etc.

 Su"tured (?), a. Having a suture or sutures; knit or united together. Pennant.
 Su*war"row (?), n. (Bot.) The giant cactus (


Too much manuring filled that field with weeds.

Denham.
 The word has no definite application to any particular plant, or species of plants. Whatever plants grow among corn or grass, in hedges, or elsewhere, and are useless to man, injurious to crops, or unsightly or out of place, are denominated weeds.

3. Fig.: Something unprofitable or troublesome; anything useless.

4. (Stock Breeding) An animal unfit to breed from.

5. Tobacco, or a cigar. [Slang] Weed hook, a hook used for cutting away or extirpating weeds. Tusser.
 Weed, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Weeded; p. pr. & vb. n.
 Weeding.] [AS. weódian. See 3d Weed.]

1. To free from noxious plants; to clear of weeds; as, to weed corn or onions; to weed a garden.

2. To take away, as noxious plants; to remove, as something hurtful; to extirpate. "Weed up thyme." Shak.
 Wise fathers... weeding from their children ill things.

Ascham.
 Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

Bacon.
3. To free from anything hurtful or offensive.

 He weeded the kingdom of such as were devoted to Elaiana.

Howell.
4. (Stock Breeding) To reject as unfit for breeding purposes.

 Weed"er (?), n. One who, or that which, weeds, or frees from anything noxious.

 Weed"er*y (?), n. Weeds, collectively; also, a place full of weeds or for growing weeds. [R.] Dr. H. More.
 Weed"ing, a. & n. from Weed, v. Weeding chisel, a tool with a divided chisel-like end, for cutting the roots of large weeds under ground. — Weeding forceps, an instrument for taking up some sorts of plants in weeding. — Weeding fork, a strong, three-pronged fork, used in clearing ground of weeds; — called also weeding iron. — Weeding hook. Same as Weed hook, under 3d Weed. — Weeding iron. See Weeding fork, above. — Weeding tongs. Same as Weeding forceps, above.

 Weed"ing-rhim' (?), n. [Cf. Prov. E. rim to remove.] A kind of implement used for tearing up weeds esp. on summer fallows. [Prov. Eng.]

 Weed"less, a. Free from weeds or noxious matter.

 Weed"y (?), a. [Compar. Weedier (?); superl. Weediest.]

1. Of or pertaining to weeds; consisting of weeds. "Weedy trophies." Shak.
2. Abounding with weeds; as, weedy grounds; a weedy garden; weedy corn.

 See from the weedy earth a rivulet break.

Bryant.
3. Scraggy; ill-shaped; ungainly; — said of colts or horses, and also of persons. [Colloq.]

 Weed"y, a. Dressed in weeds, or mourning garments. [R. or Colloq.]

 She was as weedy as in the early days of her mourning.

Dickens.
 Week (?), n. [OE. weke, wike, woke, wuke AS. weocu, wicu, wucu; akin to OS. wika, OFries. wike, D. week, G. woche, OHG. wohha, wehha, Icel. vika, Sw. vecka, Dan. uge, Goth.
 wik&?;, probably originally meaning, a succession or change, and akin to G. wechsel change, L. vicis turn, alternation, and E. weak. Cf. Weak.] A period of seven days, usually that reckoned from one Sabbath or Sunday to the next.

 I fast twice in the week.

Luke xviii. 12.
 Although it [the week] did not enter into the calendar of the Greeks, and was not introduced at Rome till after the reign of Theodesius, it has been employed from time immemorial in almost all Eastern countries. Encyc.
 Brit.
Feast of Weeks. See Pentecost, 1. — Prophetic week, a week of years, or seven years. Dan. ix. 24. — Week day. See under Day.

 Week"ly (?), a. 1. Of or pertaining to a week, or week days; as, weekly labor.

2. Coming, happening, or done once a week; hebdomadary; as, a weekly payment; a weekly gazette.

 Week"ly, n.; pl. Weeklies (&?;). A publication issued once in seven days, or appearing once a week.

 Week"ly, adv. Once a week; by hebdomadal periods; as, each performs service weekly.

 Week"wam (?), n. See Wigwam. [R.]

 Weel (?), a. & adv. Well. [Obs. or Scot.]

 Weel, n. [AS. wl. √147.] A whirlpool. [Obs.]

 { Weel (?), Weel"y (?), }[Prov. E. weel, weal, a wicker basket to catch eels; prob. akin to willow, and so called as made of willow twigs.] A kind of trap or snare for fish, made of twigs. [Obs.]
 Carew.
 Ween (?), v. i. [OE. wenen, AS. w&?;nan, fr. w&?;n hope, expectation, opinion; akin to D. waan, OFries. w&?;n, OS. & OHG. wn, G. wahn delusion, Icel. vn hope, expectation, Goth. w&?;ns, and D. wanen to fancy, G. wähnen, Icel. vna to hope, Goth. w&?;njan, and perhaps to E. winsome, wish.] To think; to imagine; to fancy. [Obs. or Poetic] Spenser.
 Milton.
 I have lost more than thou wenest.

Chaucer.
 For well I ween, Never before in the bowers of light Had the form of an earthly fay been seen.

J. R. Drake.
 Though never a dream the roses sent Of science or love's compliment, I ween they smelt as sweet.

Mrs. Browning.
 Weep (?), n. (Zoöl.) The lapwing; the wipe; — so called from its cry.

 Weep, obs. imp. of Weep, for wept. Chaucer.
 Weep, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Wept (?); p. pr. & vb.
 n. Weeping.] [OE. wepen, AS. w&?;pan, from w&?;p lamentation; akin to OFries. w&?;pa to lament, OS. w&?;p lamentation, OHG. wuof, Icel. &?;p a shouting, crying, OS. w&?;pian to lament, OHG. wuoffan, wuoffen, Icel. &?;pa, Goth. w&?;pjan. &?;&?;&?;&?;.]

1. Formerly, to express sorrow, grief, or anguish, by outcry, or by other manifest signs; in modern use, to show grief or other passions by shedding tears; to shed tears; to cry.

 And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck.

Acts xx. 37.
 Phocion was rarely seen to weep or to laugh.

Mitford.
 And eyes that wake to weep.

Mrs. Hemans.


title, or dignity. [French usage].

2. (Mil.) A commission giving an officer higher rank than that for which he receives pay; an honorary promotion of an officer.

 In the United States army, rank by brevet is conferred, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for "gallant actions or meritorious services." A brevet rank gives no right of command in the particular corps to which the officer brevetted belongs, and can be exercised only by special assignment of the President, or on court martial, and detachments composed of different corps, with pay of the brevet rank when on such duty.

 Bre*vet" (br*vt"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Brevetted (&?;); p. pr. & vb. n. Brevetting.] (Mil.) To confer rank upon by brevet.

 Bre*vet", a. (Mil.) Taking or conferring rank by brevet; as, a brevet colonel; a brevet commission.

 Bre*vet"cy (br*vt"s), n.; pl. Brevetcies (- sz). (Mil.)
 The rank or condition of a brevet officer.

 Bre"vi*a*ry (&?;), n.; pl. Breviaries (&?;).
 [F. bréviarie, L. breviarium summary, abridgment, neut. noun fr. breviarius abridged, fr. brevis short. See Brief, and cf. Brevier.] 1. An abridgment; a compend; an epitome; a brief account or summary.

 A book entitled the abridgment or breviary of those roots that are to be cut up or gathered. Holland.
2. A book containing the daily public or canonical prayers of the Roman Catholic or of the Greek Church for the seven canonical hours, namely, matins and lauds, the first, third, sixth, and ninth hours, vespers, and compline; -- distinguished from the missal.

 Bre"vi*ate (&?;), n. [L. breviatus, p. p. of breviare to shorten, brevis short.] 1. A short compend; a summary; a brief statement.

 I omit in this breviate to rehearse. Hakluyt.
 The same little breviates of infidelity have... been published and dispersed with great activity. Bp. Porteus.
2. A lawyer's brief. [R.] Hudibras.
 Bre"vi*ate (&?;), v. t. To abbreviate. [Obs.]

 Bre"vi*a*ture (&?;), n. An abbreviature; an abbreviation.
 [Obs.] Johnson.
 Bre*vier" (br*vr"), n. [Prob. from being originally used in printing a breviary. See Breviary.] (Print.) A size of type between bourgeois and minion.

 This line is printed in brevier type.

 Bre*vil"o*quence (&?;), n. [L. breviloquentia.] A brief and pertinent mode of speaking. [R.]

 Brev"i*ped (&?;), a. [L. brevis short + pes, pedis, foot: cf. F. brévipède.] (Zoöl.) Having short legs. -- n. A breviped bird.

 Brev"i*pen (&?;), n. [L. brevis short + penna wing: cf. F. brévipenne.] (Zoöl.) A brevipennate bird.

 Brev'i*pen"nate (&?;), a. [L. brevis short + E. pennate.]
 (Zoöl.) Short-winged; -- applied to birds which can not fly, owing to their short wings, as the ostrich, cassowary, and emu.

 { Brev'i*ros"tral (&?;), Brev'i*ros"trate (&?;), } a. [L. brevis short + E. rostral, rostrate.] (Zoöl.)
 Short-billed; having a short beak.

 Brev"i*ty (&?;), n.; pl. Brevities (&?;). [L. brevitas, fr. brevis short: cf. F. brièvité.
 See Brief.] 1. Shortness of duration; briefness of time; as, the brevity of human life.

2. Contraction into few words; conciseness.

Brevity is the soul of wit. Shak.
 This argument is stated by St. John with his usual elegant brevity and simplicity. Bp. Porteus.
Syn. -- Shortness; conciseness; succinctness; terseness.

 Brew (&?;), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Brewed (&?;); p. pr. & vb. n. Brewing.] [OE. brewen, AS. breówan; akin to D. brouwen, OHG. priuwan, MHG. briuwen, br&?;wen, G. brauen, Icel. brugga, Sw. brygga, Dan. brygge, and perh. to L. defrutum must boiled down, Gr. &?; (for &?;?)
 a kind of beer. The original meaning seems to have been to prepare by heat. √93. Cf. Broth, Bread.] 1. To boil or seethe; to cook. [Obs.]

2. To prepare, as beer or other liquor, from malt and hops, or from other materials, by steeping, boiling, and fermentation. "She brews good ale." Shak.
3. To prepare by steeping and mingling; to concoct.

 Go, brew me a pottle of sack finely. Shak.
4. To foment or prepare, as by brewing; to contrive; to plot; to concoct; to hatch; as, to brew mischief.

 Hence with thy brewed enchantments, foul deceiver! Milton.
 Brew (&?;), v. i. 1. To attend to the business, or go through the processes, of brewing or making beer.

 I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour. Shak.
2. To be in a state of preparation; to be mixing, forming, or gathering; as, a storm brews in the west.

 There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest. Shak.
 Brew (&?;), n. The mixture formed by brewing; that which is brewed. Bacon.
 Brew"age (&?;), n. Malt liquor; drink brewed. "Some well-spiced brewage." Milton.
 A rich brewage, made of the best Spanish wine. Macaulay.
 Brew"er (&?;), n. One who brews; one whose occupation is to prepare malt liquors.

 Brew"er*y (&?;), n. A brewhouse; the building and apparatus where brewing is carried on.

 Brew"house' (&?;), n. A house or building appropriated to brewing; a brewery.

 Brew"ing (&?;), n. 1. The act or process of preparing liquors which are brewed, as beer and ale.

2. The quantity brewed at once.

 A brewing of new beer, set by old beer. Bacon.
3. A mixing together.

 I am not able to avouch anything for certainty, such a brewing and sophistication of them they make. Holland.
4. (Naut.) A gathering or forming of a storm or squall, indicated by thick, dark clouds.

 Brew"is (&?;), n. [OE. brewis, brouwys, browesse, brewet, OF. brouet, - s being the OF. ending of the nom. sing. and acc. pl.; dim. of OHG. brod. √93. See Broth, and cf. Brose.] 1. Broth or pottage. [


daff me? Thou hast killed my child.

Shak.
 Daff, n. [See Daft.] A stupid, blockish fellow; a numskull. [Obs.]
 Chaucer.
 Daff (df), v. i. To act foolishly; to be foolish or sportive; to toy. [Scot.] Jamieson.
 Daff, v. t. To daunt. [Prov. Eng.] Grose.
 Daf"fo*dil (df"f*dl), n. [OE. affodylle, prop., the asphodel, fr. LL. affodillus (cf. D. affodille or OF. asphodile, aphodille, F. asphodèle), L. asphodelus, fr.
 Gr. 'asfo'delos. The initial d in English is not satisfactorily explained. See Asphodel.] (Bot.) (a) A plant of the genus Asphodelus.
 (b) A plant of the genus Narcissus (N. Pseudo-narcissus).
 It has a bulbous root and beautiful flowers, usually of a yellow hue.
 Called also daffodilly, daffadilly, daffadowndilly, daffydowndilly, etc.

 With damask roses and daffadillies set.

Spenser.
 Strow me the ground with daffadowndillies, And cowslips, and kingcups, and loved lilies.

Spenser.
 A college gown That clad her like an April daffodilly.

Tennyson And chance-sown daffodil.

Whittier.
 Daft (dft), a. [OE. daft, deft, deft, stupid; prob. the same word as E. deft. See Deft.] 1. Stupid; foolish; idiotic; also, delirious; insane; as, he has gone daft.

 Let us think no more of this daft business Sir W. Scott.
2. Gay; playful; frolicsome. [Scot.] Jamieson.
 Daft"ness, n. The quality of being daft.

 Dag (dg), n. [Cf. F. dague, LL. daga, D. dagge (fr. French); all prob. fr. Celtic; Cf. Gael. dag a pistol, Armor.
 dag dagger, W. dager, dagr, Ir. daigear. Cf.
 Dagger.] 1. A dagger; a poniard. [Obs.] Johnson.
2. A large pistol formerly used. [Obs.]

 The Spaniards discharged their dags, and hurt some.

Foxe.
 A sort of pistol, called dag, was used about the same time as hand guns and harquebuts.

Grose.
3. (Zoöl.) The unbranched antler of a young deer.

 Dag, n. [Of Scand. origin; cf. Sw. dagg, Icel. dögg.
 √71. See Dew.] A misty shower; dew. [Obs.]

 Dag, n. [OE. dagge (cf. Dagger); or cf. AS. dg what is dangling.] A loose end; a dangling shred.

 Daglocks, clotted locks hanging in dags or jags at a sheep's tail.

Wedgwood.
 Dag, v. t. [1, from Dag dew. 2, from Dag a loose end.] 1. To daggle or bemire. [Prov. Eng.] Johnson.
2. To cut into jags or points; to slash; as, to dag a garment. [Obs.] Wright.
 Dag, v. i. To be misty; to drizzle. [Prov. Eng.]

 Dag"ger (-gr), n. [Cf. OE. daggen to pierce, F. daguer.
 See Dag a dagger.] 1. A short weapon used for stabbing. This is the general term: cf. Poniard, Stiletto, Bowie knife, Dirk, Misericorde, Anlace.

2. (Print.) A mark of reference in the form of a dagger [†].
 It is the second in order when more than one reference occurs on a page; -- called also obelisk.

Dagger moth (Zoöl.), any moth of the genus Apatalea.
 The larvæ are often destructive to the foliage of fruit trees, etc.
 -- Dagger of lath, the wooden weapon given to the Vice in the old Moralities. Shak. -- Double dagger, a mark of reference [‡] which comes next in order after the dagger. -- To look, or speak, daggers, to look or speak fiercely or reproachfully.

 Dag"ger, v. t. To pierce with a dagger; to stab. [Obs.]

 Dag"ger, n. [Perh. from diagonal.] A timber placed diagonally in a ship's frame. Knight.
 Dagges (dgz), n. pl. [OE. See Dag a loose end.] An ornamental cutting of the edges of garments, introduced about a. d. 1346, according to the Chronicles of St Albans. [Obs.] Halliwell.
 Dag"gle (dg"g'l), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Daggled (-g'ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Daggling (-glng).] [Freq. of dag, v. t., 1.] To trail, so as to wet or befoul; to make wet and limp; to moisten.

 The warrior's very plume, I say, Was daggled by the dashing spray.

Sir W. Scott.
 Dag"gle, v. i. To run, go, or trail one's self through water, mud, or slush; to draggle.

 Nor, like a puppy [have I] daggled through the town.

Pope.
 { Dag"gle-tail' (dg"g'l-tl'), Dag"gletailed' (-tld'), } a. Having the lower ends of garments defiled by trailing in mire or filth; draggletailed.

 Dag"gle-tail' (-tl'), n. A slovenly woman; a slattern; a draggle-tail.

 Dag"lock' (-lk'), n. [Dag a loose end + lock.] A dirty or clotted lock of wool on a sheep; a taglock.

 Da"go (d"g), n.; pl. Dagos (-gz). [Cf. Sp. Diego, E. James.] A nickname given to a person of Spanish (or, by extension, Portuguese or Italian) descent. [U. S.]

 ||Da*go"ba (d*g"b), n. [Singhalese dgoba.] A domeshaped structure built over relics of Buddha or some Buddhist saint. [East Indies] Da"gon (d"gn), [Heb. Dgon, fr. dag a fish: cf. Gr. Dagw'n.]
 The national god of the Philistines, represented with the face and hands and upper part of a man, and the tail of a fish. W. Smith.
 This day a solemn feast the people hold To Dagon, their sea idol.

Milton.
 They brought it into the house of Dagon.

1 Sam. v. 2.
 Dag"on (dg"n), n. [See Dag a loose end.] A slip or piece. [Obs.] Chaucer.
 Dag"swain' (?), n. [From Dag a loose end?] A coarse woolen fabric made of daglocks, or the refuse of wool. "Under coverlets made of dagswain."
 Holinshed.
 Dag"-tailed' (?), a. [Dag a loose end + tail.]
 Daggle-tailed; having the tail clogged with daglocks. "Dag-tailed sheep." Bp. Hall.
 { Da*guer"re*an (d*gr"*an), Da*guerre"i*an (?), } a.


a bug in sendmail that causes it to generate bogus headers." "That's not a bug, that's pilot error. His sendmail.cf is hosed."
Node:ping, Next:Ping O' Death, Previous:pilot error, Up:= P = ping [from the submariners' term for a sonar pulse] 1. n. Slang term for a small network message (ICMP ECHO) sent by a computer to check for the presence and alertness of another. The Unix command ping(8) can be used to do this manually (note that ping(8)'s author denies the widespread folk etymology that the name was ever intended as acronym for 'Packet INternet Groper'). Occasionally used as a phone greeting.
See ACK, also ENQ. 2. vt. To verify the presence of. 3. vt. To get the attention of. 4. vt. To send a message to all members of a mailing list requesting an ACK (in order to verify that everybody's addresses are reachable). "We haven't heard much of anything from Geoff, but he did respond with an ACK both times I pinged jargon-friends." 5. n. A quantum packet of happiness.
People who are very happy tend to exude pings; furthermore, one can intentionally create pings and aim them at a needy party (e.g., a depressed person). This sense of ping may appear as an exclamation; "Ping!" (I'm happy; I am emitting a quantum of happiness; I have been struck by a quantum of happiness). The form "pingfulness", which is used to describe people who exude pings, also occurs. (In the standard abuse of language, "pingfulness" can also be used as an exclamation, in which case it's a much stronger exclamation than just "ping"!). Oppose blargh.
The funniest use of 'ping' to date was described in January 1991 by Steve Hayman on the Usenet group comp.sys.next. He was trying to isolate a faulty cable segment on a TCP/IP Ethernet hooked up to a NeXT machine, and got tired of having to run back to his console after each cabling tweak to see if the ping packets were getting through. So he used the sound-recording feature on the NeXT, then wrote a script that repeatedly invoked ping(8), listened for an echo, and played back the recording on each returned packet. Result? A program that caused the machine to repeat, over and over, "Ping... ping... ping..." as long as the network was up. He turned the volume to maximum, ferreted through the building with one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee connector in no time.
Node:Ping O' Death, Next:ping storm, Previous:ping, Up:= P = Ping O' Death n. A notorious exploit that (when first discovered) could be easily used to crash a wide variety of machines by overunning size limits in their TCP/IP stacks. First revealed in late 1996. The open-source Unix community patched its systems to remove the vulnerability within days or weeks, the closed-source OS vendors generally took months. While the difference in response times repeated a pattern familiar from other security incidents, the accompanying glare of Web-fueled publicity proved unusually embarrassing to the OS vendors and so passed into history and myth. The term is now used to refer to any nudge delivered by network wizards over the network that causes bad things to happen on the system being nudged. For the full story on the original exploit, see _URL_
Compare with 'kamikaze packet,' 'Finger of Death' and 'Chernobyl packet.'
Node:ping storm, Next:pink wire, Previous:Ping O' Death, Up:= P = ping storm n. A form of DoS attack consisting of a flood of ping requests (normally used to check network conditions) designed to disrupt the normal activity of a system. This act is sometimes called 'ping lashing' or 'ping flood'. Compare mail storm, broadcast storm.
Node:pink wire, Next:pipe, Previous:ping storm, Up:= P = pink wire n.
[from the pink PTFE wire used in military equipment] As blue wire, but used in military applications. 2. vi. To add a pink wire to a board.
Node:pipe, Next:pistol, Previous:pink wire, Up:= P = pipe n.
[common] Idiomatically, one's connection to the Internet; in context, the expansion "bit pipe" is understood. A "fat pipe" is a line with T1 or higher capacity. A person with a 28.8 modem might be heard to complain "I need a bigger pipe".
Node:pistol, Next:pixel sort, Previous:pipe, Up:= P = pistol n.
[IBM] A tool that makes it all too easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. "Unix rm * makes such a nice pistol!"
Node:pixel sort, Next:pizza box, Previous:pistol, Up:= P = pixel sort n.
[Commodore users] Any compression routine which irretrievably loses valuable data in the process of crunching it. Disparagingly used for 'lossy' methods such as JPEG. The theory, of course, is that these methods are only used on photographic images in which minor loss-of-data is not visible to the human eye. The term 'pixel sort' implies distrust of this theory. Compare bogo-sort.
Node:pizza box, Next:plaid screen, Previous:pixel sort, Up:= P = pizza box n.
[Sun] The largish thin box housing the electronics in (especially Sun) desktop workstations, so named because of its size and shape and the dimpled pattern that looks like air holes.
Two meg single-platter removable disk packs used to be called pizzas, and the huge drive they were stuck into was referred to as a pizza oven. It's an index of progress that in the old days just the disk was pizza-sized, while now the entire computer is.
Node:plaid screen, Next:plain-ASCII, Previous:pizza box, Up:= P = plaid screen n.
[XEROX PARC] A 'special effect' that occurs when certain kinds of memory smashes overwrite the control blocks or image memory of a bit-mapped display. The term "salt and pepper" may refer to a different pattern of similar origin. Though the term as coined at PARC refers to the result of an error, some of the X demos induce plaid-screen effects deliberately as a display hack.
Node:plain-ASCII, Next:plan file, Previous:plaid screen, Up:= P = plain-ASCII /playn-as'kee/ Syn. flat-ASCII.
Node:plan file, Next:platinum-iridium, Previous:plain-ASCII, Up:= P = plan file n.
[Unix] On systems that support finger, the '.plan' file in a user's home directory is displayed when the user is fingered. This feature was originally intended to be used to keep potential fingerers apprised of one's location and near-future plans, but has been turned almost universally to humorous and self-expressive purposes (like a sig block).
See also Hacking X for Y. A recent innovation in plan files has been the introduction of "scrolling plan files" which are one-dimensional animations made using only the printable ASCII character set, carriage return and line feed, avoiding terminal specific escape sequences, since the finger command will (for security reasons; see letterbomb) not pass the escape character.
Scrolling.plan files have become art forms in miniature, and some sites have started competitions to find who can create the longest running, funniest, and most original animations. Various animation characters include: Centipede: mmmmme Lorry/Truck: oo-oP Andalusian Video Snail: _@/ and a compiler (ASP) is available on Usenet for producing them. See also twirling baton.
Node:platinum-iridium, Next:playpen, Previous:plan file, Up:= P = platinum-iridium adj.
Standard, against which all others of the same category are measured. Usage: silly. The notion is that one of whatever it is has actually been cast in platinum-iridium alloy and placed in the vault beside the Standard Kilogram at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures


) completely thwart a theoretically efficient binary tree or hash table implementation. (The error here involves the difference between expected and worst case behaviors of an algorithm.)
Node:fiber-seeking backhoe, Next:FidoNet, Previous:fencepost error, Up:= F = fiber-seeking backhoe [common among backbone ISP personnel] Any of a genus of large, disruptive machines which routinely cut critical backbone links, creating Internet outages and packet over air problems.
Node:FidoNet, Next:field circus, Previous:fiber-seeking backhoe, Up:= F = FidoNet n. A worldwide hobbyist network of personal computers which exchanges mail, discussion groups, and files. Founded in 1984 and originally consisting only of IBM PCs and compatibles, FidoNet now includes such diverse machines as Apple ][s, Ataris, Amigas, and Unix systems. For years FidoNet actually grew faster than Usenet, but the advent of cheap Internet access probably means its days are numbered. In early 1999 Fidonet has approximately 30,000 nodes, down from 38K in 1996.
Node:field circus, Next:field servoid, Previous:FidoNet, Up:= F = field circus n.
[a derogatory pun on 'field service'] The field service organization of any hardware manufacturer, but originally DEC. There is an entire genre of jokes about field circus engineers: [See Easter egging for additional insight on these jokes.]
There is also the 'Field Circus Cheer' (from the old plan file for DEC on MIT-AI): (DEC's service HQ, still extant under the Compaq regime, is located in Maynard, Massachusetts.)
Node:field servoid, Next:Fight-o-net, Previous:field circus, Up:= F = field servoid [play on 'android'] /fee'ld ser'voyd/ n. Representative of a field service organization (see field circus). This has many of the implications of droid.
Node:Fight-o-net, Next:File Attach, Previous:field servoid, Up:= F = Fight-o-net n.
[FidoNet] Deliberate distortion of FidoNet, often applied after a flurry of flamage in a particular echo, especially the SYSOP echo or Fidonews (see 'Snooze).
Node:File Attach, Next:File Request, Previous:Fight-o-net, Up:= F = File Attach [FidoNet] 1. n. A file sent along with a mail message from one FidoNet to another. 2. vt. Sending someone a file by using the File Attach option in a FidoNet mailer.
Node:File Request, Next:file signature, Previous:File Attach, Up:= F = File Request [FidoNet] 1. n. The FidoNet equivalent of FTP, in which one FidoNet system automatically dials another and snarfs one or more files. Often abbreviated 'FReq'; files are often announced as being "available for FReq" in the same way that files are announced as being "available for/by anonymous FTP" on the Internet. 2. vt. The act of getting a copy of a file by using the File Request option of the FidoNet mailer.
Node:file signature, Next:filk, Previous:File Request, Up:= F = file signature n. A magic number, sense 3.
Node:filk, Next:film at 11, Previous:file signature, Up:= F = filk /filk/ n.,v.
[from SF fandom, where a typo for 'folk' was adopted as a new word] A popular or folk song with lyrics revised or completely new lyrics and/or music, intended for humorous effect when read, and/or to be sung late at night at SF conventions. There is a flourishing subgenre of these called 'computer filks', written by hackers and often containing rather sophisticated technical humor. See double bucky for an example. Compare grilf, hing, pr0n, and newsfroup.
Node:film at 11, Next:filter, Previous:filk, Up:= F = film at 11 [MIT: in parody of TV newscasters] 1. Used in conversation to announce ordinary events, with a sarcastic implication that these events are earth-shattering. "ITS crashes; film at 11." "Bug found in scheduler; film at 11." 2.
Also widely used outside MIT to indicate that additional information will be available at some future time, without the implication of anything particularly ordinary about the referenced event. For example, "The mail file server died this morning; we found garbage all over the root directory. Film at 11." would indicate that a major failure had occurred but that the people working on it have no additional information about it as yet; use of the phrase in this way suggests gently that the problem is liable to be fixed more quickly if the people doing the fixing can spend time doing the fixing rather than responding to questions, the answers to which will appear on the normal "11:00 news", if people will just be patient.
The variant "MPEGs at 11" has recently been cited (MPEG is a digital-video format.)
Node:filter, Next:Finagle's Law, Previous:film at 11, Up:= F = filter n.
[very common; orig. Unix, now also in MS-DOS] A program that processes an input data stream into an output data stream in some well-defined way, and does no I/O to anywhere else except possibly on error conditions; one designed to be used as a stage in a 'pipeline' (see plumbing).
Compare sponge.
Node:Finagle's Law, Next:fine, Previous:filter, Up:= F = Finagle's Law n. The generalized or 'folk' version of Murphy's Law, fully named "Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives" and usually rendered "Anything that can go wrong, will". One variant favored among hackers is "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum" (but see also Hanlon's Razor). The label 'Finagle's Law' was popularized by SF author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this 'Belter' culture professed a religion and/or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy. Some technical and scientific cultures (e.g., paleontologists) know it under the name 'Sod's Law'; this usage may be more common in Great Britain.
Node:fine, Next:finger, Previous:Finagle's Law, Up:= F = fine adj.
[WPI] Good, but not good enough to be cuspy. The word 'fine' is used elsewhere, of course, but without the implicit comparison to the higher level implied by cuspy.
Node:finger, Next:finger trouble, Previous:fine, Up:= F = finger [WAITS, via BSD Unix] 1. n. A program that displays information about a particular user or all users logged on the system, or a remote system. Typically shows full name, last login time, idle time, terminal line, and terminal location (where applicable). May also display a plan file left by the user (see also Hacking X for Y). 2. vt. To apply finger to a username. 3. vt. By extension, to check a human's current state by any means. "Foodp?" "T!" "OK, finger Lisa and see if she's idle." 4. Any picture (composed of ASCII characters) depicting 'the finger'. Originally a humorous component of one's plan file to deter the curious fingerer (sense 2), it has entered the arsenal of some flamers.
Node:finger trouble, Next:finger-pointing syndrome, Previous:finger, Up:= F = finger trouble n. Mistyping, typos, or generalized keyboard incompetence (this is surprisingly common among hackers, given the amount of time they spend at keyboards). "I keep putting colons at the end of statements instead of semicolons", "Finger trouble again, eh?".
Node:finger-pointing syndrome, Next:finn, Previous:finger trouble, Up:= F = finger-pointing syndrome n. All-too-frequent result of bugs, esp. in new or experimental configurations. The hardware vendor points a finger at the software. The software vendor points a finger at the hardware.
All the poor users get is the finger.
Node:finn, Next


of a cow. Was this probably the drawing-room? All of the front half of the house from the ground up seemed to be occupied by the people, the cows, and the chickens, and all the rear half by draught-animals and hay. But the chief feature, all around this house, was the big heaps of manure.

 We became very familiar with the fertilizer in the Forest. We fell unconsciously into the habit of judging of a man's station in life by this outward and eloquent sign. Sometimes we said, "Here is a poor devil, this is manifest." When we saw a stately accumulation, we said, "Here is a banker." When we encountered a country-seat surrounded by an Alpine pomp of manure, we said, "Doubtless a duke lives here." The importance of this feature has not been properly magnified in the Black Forest stories. Manure is evidently the Black-Forester's main treasure—his coin, his jewel, his pride, his Old Master, his ceramics, his bric-a-brac, his darling, his title to public consideration, envy, veneration, and his first solicitude when he gets ready to make his will. The true Black Forest novel, if it is ever written, will be skeletoned somewhat in this way: SKELETON FOR A BLACK FOREST NOVEL Rich old farmer, named Huss.
p211c.jpg (10K) Has inherited great wealth of manure, and by diligence has added to it. It is double-starred in Baedeker. [1] The Black forest artist paints it—his masterpiece. The king comes to see it. Gretchen Huss, daughter and heiress. Paul Hoch, young neighbor, suitor for Gretchen's hand—ostensibly; he really wants the manure.
p211d.jpg (15K) Hoch has a good many cart-loads of the Black Forest currency himself, and therefore is a good catch; but he is sordid, mean, and without sentiment, whereas Gretchen is all sentiment and poetry. Hans Schmidt, young neighbor, full of sentiment, full of poetry, loves Gretchen, Gretchen loves him. But he has no manure. Old Huss forbids him in the house. His heart breaks, he goes away to die in the woods, far from the cruel world—for he says, bitterly, "What is man, without manure?" 1. When Baedeker's guide-books mention a thing and put two stars (**) after it, it means well worth visiting. M.T.

 [Interval of six months.]
p212a.jpg (11K) Paul Hoch comes to old Huss and says, "I am at last as rich as you required—come and view the pile." Old Huss views it and says, "It is sufficient—take her and be happy,"—meaning Gretchen.

 [Interval of two weeks.]

 Wedding party assembled in old Huss's drawing-room. Hoch placid and content, Gretchen weeping over her hard fate. Enter old Huss's head bookkeeper. Huss says fiercely, "I gave you three weeks to find out why your books don't balance, and to prove that you are not a defaulter; the time is up—find me the missing property or you go to prison as a thief." Bookkeeper: "I have found it." "Where?" Bookkeeper (sternly—tragically): "In the bridegroom's pile!—behold the thief—see him blench and tremble!" [Sensation.] Paul Hoch: "Lost, lost!"—falls over the cow in a swoon and is handcuffed. Gretchen: "Saved!" Falls over the calf in a swoon of joy, but is caught in the arms of Hans Schmidt, who springs in at that moment. Old Huss: "What, you here, varlet? Unhand the maid and quit the place." Hans (still supporting the insensible girl): "Never! Cruel old man, know that I come with claims which even you cannot despise."
p212b.jpg (14K) Huss: "What? Name them." Hans: "Listen then. The world has forsaken me, I forsook the world, I wandered in the solitude of the forest, longing for death but finding none. I fed upon roots, and in my bitterness I dug for the bitterest, loathing the sweeter kind. Digging, three days agone, I struck a manure mine!—a Golconda, a limitless Bonanza, of solid manure! I can buy you all, and have mountain ranges of manure left! Ha-ha, now thou smilest a smile!" [Immense sensation.] Exhibition of specimens from the mine. Old Huss (enthusiastically): "Wake her up, shake her up, noble young man, she is yours!" Wedding takes place on the spot; bookkeeper restored to his office and emoluments; Paul Hoch led off to jail. The Bonanza king of the Black Forest lives to a good old age, blessed with the love of his wife and of his twenty-seven children, and the still sweeter envy of everybody around.

 We took our noon meal of fried trout one day at the Plow Inn, in a very pretty village (Ottenhoefen), and then went into the public room to rest and smoke. There we found nine or ten Black Forest grandees assembled around a table. They were the Common Council of the parish. They had gathered there at eight o'clock that morning to elect a new member, and they had now been drinking beer four hours at the new member's expense.
p213.jpg (63K) They were men of fifty or sixty years of age, with grave good-natured faces, and were all dressed in the costume made familiar to us by the Black Forest stories; broad, round-topped black felt hats with the brims curled up all round; long red waistcoats with large metal buttons, black alpaca coats with the waists up between the shoulders. There were no speeches, there was but little talk, there were no frivolities; the Council filled themselves gradually, steadily, but surely, with beer, and conducted themselves with sedate decorum, as became men of position, men of influence, men of manure.

 We had a hot afternoon tramp up the valley, along the grassy bank of a rushing stream of clear water, past farmhouses, water-mills, and no end of wayside crucifixes and saints and Virgins. These crucifixes, etc., are set up in memory of departed friends, by survivors, and are almost as frequent as telegraph-poles are in other lands.

 We followed the carriage-road, and had our usual luck; we traveled under a beating sun, and always saw the shade leave the shady places before we could get to them. In all our wanderings we seldom managed to strike a piece of road at its time for being shady. We had a particularly hot time of it on that particular afternoon, and with no comfort but what we could get out of the fact that the peasants at work away up on the steep mountainsides above our heads were even worse off than we were. By and by it became impossible to endure the intolerable glare and heat any longer; so we struck across the ravine and entered the deep cool twilight of the forest, to hunt for what the guide-book called the "old road." We found an old road, and it proved eventually to be the right one, though we followed it at the time with the conviction that it was the wrong one.
 If it was the wrong one there could be no use in hurrying; therefore we did not hurry, but sat down frequently on the soft moss and enjoyed the restful quiet and shade of the forest solitudes. There had been distractions in the carriage-road—school-children, peasants


. Starboard, Stern, n.] To direct the course of; to guide; to govern; -- applied especially to a vessel in the water.

 That with a staff his feeble steps did steer.

Spenser.
 Steer, v. i. 1. To direct a vessel in its course; to direct one's course. "No helmsman steers." Tennyson.
2. To be directed and governed; to take a direction, or course; to obey the helm; as, the boat steers easily.

 Where the wind Veers oft, as oft [a ship] so steers, and shifts her sail.

Milton.
3. To conduct one's self; to take or pursue a course of action.

 Steer, n. [AS. steór, stiór; akin to D. stuur, G. steuer, Icel. st&?;ri. √186. See Steer, v. t.] [Written also stere.] A rudder or helm. [Obs.]
 Chaucer.
 Steer, n. [AS. steóra. See Steer a rudder.] A helmsman, a pilot. [Obs.] Chaucer.
 Steer"a*ble (?), a. Capable of being steered; dirigible.

 Steer"age (?), n. 1. The act or practice of steering, or directing; as, the steerage of a ship.

 He left the city, and, in a most tempestuous season, forsook the helm and steerage of the common wealth.

Milton.
2. (Naut.) (a) The effect of the helm on a ship; the manner in which an individual ship is affected by the helm. (b) The hinder part of a vessel; the stern. [R.] Swift. (c) Properly, the space in the after part of a vessel, under the cabin, but used generally to indicate any part of a vessel having the poorest accommodations and occupied by passengers paying the lowest rate of fare.

3. Direction; regulation; management; guidance.

 He that hath the steerage of my course.

Shak.
4. That by which a course is directed. [R.]

 Here he hung on high, The steerage of his wings.

Dryden.
Steerage passenger, a passenger who takes passage in the steerage of a vessel.

 Steer"age*way' (?), n. (Naut.) A rate of motion through the water sufficient to render a vessel governable by the helm.

 Steer"er (?), n. One who steers; as, a boat steerer.

 Steer"ing, a. & n. from Steer, v. Steering wheel (Naut.), the wheel by means of which the rudder of a vessel is turned and the vessel is steered.

 Steer"less, a. Having no rudder. [Obs.] Chaucer.
 Steer"ling (?), n. A young or small steer.

 Steers"man (strz"man), n.; pl. Steersmen (-men).
 [Steer a rudder + man: cf. AS. steórmann.] One who steers; the helmsman of a vessel. Milton.
 Steers"mate (-mt'), n. [Steer a rudder + mate a companion.] One who steers; steersman. [Obs.] Milton.
 Steeve (stv), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Steeved (?); p. pr.
 & vb. n. Steeving.] [Cf. OD. steve staff, E. stem, n.] (Shipbuilding) To project upward, or make an angle with the horizon or with the line of a vessel's keel; -- said of the bowsprit, etc.

 Steeve, v. t. 1. (Shipbuilding) To elevate or fix at an angle with the horizon; -- said of the bowsprit, etc.

2. To stow, as bales in a vessel's hold, by means of a steeve. See Steeve, n. (b).

 Steeve, n. (Naut.) (a) The angle which a bowsprit makes with the horizon, or with the line of the vessel's keel; -- called also steeving. (b) A spar, with a block at one end, used in stowing cotton bales, and similar kinds of cargo which need to be packed tightly.

 Steev"ing, n. 1. The act or practice of one who steeves.

2. (Naut.) See Steeve, n. (a).

 Steg (stg), n. [Icel. steggr the male of several animals.
 Cf. Stag.] (Zoöl.) A gander. [Written also stag.]
 [Prov. Eng.] Halliwell.
 Steg'a*nog"ra*phist (?), n. One skilled in steganography; a cryptographer.

 Steg'a*nog"ra*phy (?), n. [Gr. &?; covered (fr. &?; to cover closely) + -graphy.] The art of writing in cipher, or in characters which are not intelligible except to persons who have the key; cryptography.

 ||Steg'a*noph*thal"ma*ta (?), n. pl. [NL., from Gr. &?; covered + &?; the eye.] (Zoöl.) The Discophora, or Phanerocarpæ.
 Called also Steganophthalmia.

 Ste*gan"o*pod (?), n. (Zoöl.) One of the Steganopodes.

 ||Steg'a*nop"o*des (?), n. pl. [NL., fr. Gr. &?;, &?;, web-footed; &?; covered + &?; foot.] (Zoöl.) A division of swimming birds in which all four toes are united by a broad web. It includes the pelicans, cormorants, gannets, and others.

 Steg'a*nop"o*dous (?), a. (Zoöl.) Having all four toes webbed together.

 ||Steg*no"sis (?), n. [NL., fr. Gr. &?;. See Stegnotic.] (Med.)
 Constipation; also, constriction of the vessels or ducts.

 Steg*no"tic (?), a. [Gr. &?;, fr. &?; to cover, to make costive, fr. &?;, &?;, covered, closed.] (Med.) Tending to render costive, or to diminish excretions or discharges generally. -- n. A stegnotic medicine; an astringent.

 ||Steg'o*ceph"a*la (stg'*sf"*l), n. pl. [NL., fr. Gr. ste'gh roof + kefalh' head.] (Paleon.) An extinct order of amphibians found fossil in the Mesozoic rocks; called also Stegocephali, and Labyrinthodonta.

 Their teeth, in transverse sections, usually show a labyrinthiform arrangement of the cement and dentine. The under side of the body was covered with bony plates. Some of the Stegocephala were of very large size, and the form of the body varied from short, stout forms to others that were as slender as serpents.

 ||Steg'o*sau"ri*a (-s"r*), n. pl. [NL. See Stegosaurus.] (Paleon.)
 An extinct order of herbivorous dinosaurs, including the genera Stegosaurus, Omosaurus, and their allies.

 ||Steg'o*sau"rus (-rs), n. [NL., fr. Gr. ste'gh roof + say^ros a lizard.] (Paleon.) A genus of large Jurassic dinosaurs remarkable for a powerful dermal armature of plates and spines.

 Steik (?), v. t. See Steek. [Scot.]

 Stein (?), n. & v. See Steen.

 Stein"bock' (?), n. [G. stein stone + bock buck, D. bok. Cf. Steenbok.] (Zoöl.) (a) The European ibex. (b) A small South African antelope (Nanotragus


unequal length, by which a liquid can be transferred to a lower level, as from one vessel to another, over an intermediate elevation, by the action of the pressure of the atmosphere in forcing the liquid up the shorter branch of the pipe immersed in it, while the continued excess of weight of the liquid in the longer branch (when once filled) causes a continuous flow. The flow takes place only when the discharging extremity of the pipe ia lower than the higher liquid surface, and when no part of the pipe is higher above the surface than the same liquid will rise by atmospheric pressure; that is, about 33 feet for water, and 30 inches for mercury, near the sea level.

2. (Zoöl.) (a) One of the tubes or folds of the mantle border of a bivalve or gastropod mollusk by which water is conducted into the gill cavity. See Illust. under Mya, and Lamellibranchiata. (b) The anterior prolongation of the margin of any gastropod shell for the protection of the soft siphon. (c) The tubular organ through which water is ejected from the gill cavity of a cephaloid. It serves as a locomotive organ, by guiding and confining the jet of water. Called also siphuncle. See Illust. under Loligo, and Dibranchiata. (d) The siphuncle of a cephalopod shell.
 (e) The sucking proboscis of certain parasitic insects and crustaceans. (f) A sproutlike prolongation in front of the mouth of many gephyreans. (g) A tubular organ connected both with the esophagus and the intestine of certain sea urchins and annelids.

3. A siphon bottle.

Inverted siphon, a tube bent like a siphon, but having the branches turned upward; specifically (Hydraulic Engineering), a pipe for conducting water beneath a depressed place, as from one hill to another across an intervening valley, following the depression of the ground. -- Siphon barometer. See under Barometer. -- Siphon bottle, a bottle for holding aërated water, which is driven out through a bent tube in the neck by the gas within the bottle when a valve in the tube is opened; -- called also gazogene, and siphoid. -- Siphon condenser, a condenser for a steam engine, in which the vacuum is maintained by the downward flow of water through a vertical pipe of great height. -- Siphon cup, a cup with a siphon attached for carrying off any liquid in it; specifically (Mach.), an oil cup in which oil is carried over the edge of a tube in a cotton wick, and so reaches the surface to be lubricated. -- Siphon gauge. See under Gauge. -- Siphon pump, a jet pump. See under Jet, n. Si"phon (?), v. t. (Chem.) To convey, or draw off, by means of a siphon, as a liquid from one vessel to another at a lower level.

 Si"phon*age (?), n. The action of a siphon.

 Si"phon*al (?), a. Of or pertaining to a siphon; resembling a siphon.

Siphonal stomach (Zoöl.), a stomach which is tubular and bent back upon itself, like a siphon, as in the salmon.

 Si'pho*na"rid (?), n. (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of limpet-shaped pulmonate gastropods of the genus Siphonaria.
 They cling to rocks between high and low water marks and have both lunglike organs and gills. -- Si'pho*na"rid, a.
 ||Si'pho*na"ta (?), n. pl. [NL.] (Zoöl.) A tribe of bivalve mollusks in which the posterior mantle border is prolonged into two tubes or siphons. Called also Siphoniata. See Siphon, 2 (a), and Quahaug.

 Si"phon*ate (?), a. 1. Having a siphon or siphons.

2. (Zoöl.) Belonging to the Siphonata.

 Si"phon*et (?), n. (Zoöl.) One of the two dorsal tubular organs on the hinder part of the abdomen of aphids. They give exit to the honeydew. See Illust. under Aphis.

 ||Si*pho"ni*a (?), n. [NL.] (Bot.) A former name for a euphorbiaceous genus (Hevea) of South American trees, the principal source of caoutchouc.

 ||Si*pho'ni*a"ta (?), n. pl. [NL.] (Zoöl.) Same as Siphonata.

 Si*phon"ic (?), a. Of or pertaining to a siphon.

 Si*phon"i*fer (?), n. [NL., fr. L. sipho, -onis, siphon + ferre to bear.] (Zoöl.) Any cephalopod having a siphonate shell.

 Si"phon*if"er*ous (?), a. [Siphon + -ferous.] (Zoöl.)
 Siphon-bearing, as the shell of the nautilus and other cephalopods.

 ||Si*pho"ni*um (?), n.; pl. Siphonia (#). [NL., from Gr. &?;&?;&?;&?;, dim. of &?;&?;&?;&?;.
 See Siphon.] (Anat.) A bony tube which, in some birds, connects the tympanium with the air chambers of the articular piece of the mandible.

 ||Si'pho*no*bran'chi*a"ta (?), n. pl. [NL. See Siphon, and Branchia.]
 (Zoöl.) A tribe of gastropods having the mantle border, on one or both sides, prolonged in the form of a spout through which water enters the gill cavity. The shell itself is not always siphonostomatous in this group.

 Si'pho*no*bran"chi*ate (?), a. (Zoöl.) Having a siphon, or siphons, to convey water to the gills; belonging or pertaining to the Siphonobranchiata. -- n. One of the Siphonobranchiata.

 Si'pho*nog"ly*phe (?), n. [Siphon + Gr. &?;&?;&?; to engrave.] (Zoöl.) A gonidium.

 ||Si'pho*noph"o*ra (?), n. pl. [NL., fr. Gr. &?;&?;&?; a siphon + &?;&?;&?;&?; to bear.] (Zoöl.) An order of pelagic Hydrozoa including species which form complex free-swimming communities composed of numerous zooids of various kinds, some of which act as floats or as swimming organs, others as feeding or nutritive zooids, and others as reproductive zooids. See Illust.
 under Physallia, and Porpita.

 Si'pho*noph"o*ran (?), a. (Zoöl.) Belonging to the Siphonophora. -- n. One of the Siphonophora.

 Si*phon"o*phore (?), n. (Zoöl.) One of the Siphonophora.

 ||Si'pho*nop"o*da (?), n. pl. [NL. See Siphon, and -poda.] (Zoöl.)
 A division of Scaphopoda including those in which the foot terminates in a circular disk.

 ||Si'pho*no*stom"a*ta (?), n. pl. [NL. See Siphon, and Stoma.] (Zoöl.)
(a) A tribe of parasitic copepod Crustacea including a large number of species that are parasites of fishes, as the lerneans. They have a mouth adapted to suck blood. (b) An artificial division of gastropods including those that have siphonostomatous shells.

 Si'pho*no*stom


A BOOK OF STRIFE IN THE FORM OF THE DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL by George MacDonald Published in 1880.

 Contents DEDICATION THE DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL.
 JANUARY.
 FEBRUARY.
 MARCH.
 APRIL.
 MAY.
 JUNE.
 JULY.
 AUGUST.
 SEPTEMBER.
 OCTOBER.
 NOVEMBER DECEMBER.

 DEDICATION THE DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL.

 JANUARY.

 FEBRUARY.

 MARCH.

 APRIL.

 MAY.

 JUNE.

 JULY.

 AUGUST.

 SEPTEMBER.

 OCTOBER.

 NOVEMBER DECEMBER.