Yet looks he like a king: behold his eye, As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth Controlling majesty. Shakspeare's Richard II. 3. To fall; to light. [from light.] O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us, as we do put our trust in thee. Common Prayer. TO LIGHTEN. v. a. [from light.] 1. To illuminate; to enlighten. Upon his bloody finger he doth wear A precious ring, that lightens all the hole. Sbaks. O light, which mak'st the light which makes the day, Which sett'st the eye without, and mind within; Lighten my spirit with one clear heav'nly ray, Which now to view itself doth first begin. Dav. A key of fire ran all along the shore, And ligbten'd all the river with a blaze. Dryden. Shines out afresh; and through the lighten'd air Thomson's Summer. In offices of love how we may lighten Each other's burden. 4. To exhilarate; to cheer. Milton. Milton. A trusty villain, very oft, When I am dull with care and melancholy, Lightens my humour with his merry jest. Shaks. The audience are grown weary of continued melancholy scenes; and few tragedies shall succeed in this age, if they are not lightened with a course of mirth. Dryden. LIGHTER. N. s. [from light, to make light.] A heavy boat into which ships are lightened or unloaded. They have cock boats for passengers, and lighters for burthen. Carew. He climb'd a stranded lighter's height, Shot to the black abyss, and plung'd downright. Pope. LIGHTERMAN. n. s. [lighter and man.] One who manages a lighter. Child. Where much shipping is employed, whatever becomes of the merchant, multitudes of people will be gainers; as shipwrights, butchers, carmen, and lightermen. LIGHTFINGERED. adj. [light and finger.] Nimble at conveyance; thievish. LIGHTFOOT. adj. [light and foot.] Nimble in running or dancing; active. Him so far had born his lightfoot steed, Pricked with wrath and fiery herce disdain, That him to follow was but fruitless pain. Fairy Queen. And all the troop of lightfoot Naïades Flock all about to see her lovely face. Spenser. LIGHTFOOT.n.s. Venison. A cant word. LIGHTHE ADED. adj. (light and bead.]. 1. Unsteady; loose; thoughtless; weak. The English Liturgy, how piously and wisely soever framed, had found great opposition; the ceremonies had wrought only upon lightheaded, weak men, yet learned men excepted against some particulars. Clarendon. 2. Delirious; disordered in the mind by disease. LIGHTHEADEDNESS.n.s. Deliriousness; disorder of the mind. LIGHTHEARTED. adj. [light and heart.] Gay; merry; airy; cheerful. LIGHTHOUSE. n.s. [light and house.] A high building, at the top of which lights are hung to guide ships at sea. He charged himself with the risque of such vessels as carried corn in winter; and built a pharos or lighthouse. Arbuthnot. LIGHTLEGGED. adj. [light and leg.1 Nimble; swift. Light legged Pas has got the middle space. Sidn. LIGHTLESS. adj. [trom light.] Wanting light; dark. LIGHTLY.adv. [from light.] 1. Without weight. This grave partakes the fleshly birth, Which cover lightly, gentle earth. Ben Jonson. 2. Without deep impression. Priora The soft ideas of the cheerful note, Lightly receiv'd, were easily forgot. 3. Easily; readily; without difficulty; of course. Believe 't not lightly that your son Shakspeare's Coriolanus. Short summer lightly has a forward spring. 4. Without reason. Flatter not the rich; neither do thou willingly or lightly appear before great personages. Tayl. Let every man that hath a calling be diligent in pursuance of its employment, so as not lightly, or without reasonable occasion, to neglect it. Taylor. 5. Without dejection; cheerfully. Bid that welcome Which comes to punish us, and we punish it, Seeming to bear it lightly. Shak. Ant. and Cleop. 6. Not chastely. If I were lightly disposed, I could still perhaps have offers, that some, who hold their heads higher, would be glad to accept. Swift. 7. Nimbly; with agility; not heavily or tardily. Methought I stood on a wide river's bank; When on a sudden, Torismond appear'd, Gave me his hand, and led me lightly o'er; Leaping and bounding on the billows heads, Till safely we had reach'd the farther shore. Drydens 8. Gayly; airily; with levity; without He that is hasty to give credit is lightminded. LIGHTNESS.n.s. [from light.] Some are for masts of ships, as fir and pine, because of their length, straightness, and lightness. Bacon's Natural History. Suppose many degrees of littleness and lightness in particles, so as many might float in the air a good while before they fell, Burnet. Fa 2. Inconstancy; unsteadiness. For, unto knight there is no greater shame, Than lightness and inconstancy in love. Fairy Queen. The sun His course exalted through the ram had run, Through Taurus, and the lightsome realms of Dryden. love. Of two things they must chuse one; namely, 2. Gay; airy; having the power to ex whether they would, to their endless disgrace, with ridiculous lightness, dismiss him, whose restitution they had in so importunate manner desired, or else condescend unto that demand. Sense thinks the lightning born before the thunder; What tells us then they both together are? Salmoneus, suff ring cruel pains I found No warning of the approach of flame, Dryden. Glanville. 2. Mitigation; abatement. [from to lighten, to make less heavy.] How oft when men are at the point of death, Have they been merry? which their keepers call A lightning before death. Shak. Romeo and Juliet. We were once in hopes of his recovery, upon a kind message from the widow; but this only proved a lightning before death. Spectator. LIGHTS. n. s. [supposed to be called so from their lightness in proportion to their bulk.] The lungs, the organs of breathing: we say, lights of other animals, and lungs of men. The complaint was chiefly from the lights, a part as of no quick sense, so no seat for any sharp disease. Hayward. LIGHTSOME. adj. [from light.] 3. Luminous; not dark; not obscure; not opake. Neither the sun, nor any thing sensible is that light itself, which is the cause that things are lightsome, though it make itself, and all things else, visible; but a body most enlightened, by whom the neighbouring region, which the Greeks call æther, the place of the supposed element of fire, is affected and qualified. Raleigh. White walls make rooms more lightsome than Bacon. black. Equal posture, and quick spirits, are required to make colours lightsame. Bacon's Nat. Hist. hilarate. LIGHTSOMENESS.n.s. [from lightsome.] 1. Luminousness; not opacity; not obscurity; not darksomeness. It is to atmosphere that the variety of colours, which are painted on the skies, the lightsomeness of our air, and the twilight, are owing. Cheyne. 2. Cheerfulness; merriment; levity. LIGNA LOES. n. s. [lignum aloes, Lat.] Aloes wood. The vallies spread forth as gardens by the river's side, as the trees of lignaloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the Numbers. water. LIGNEOUS. adj. [ligneus, Latin; ligneux, French.] Made of wood; wooden; resembling wood. It should be tried with shoots of vines, and roots of red roses; for it may be they, being of a more ligneous nature, will incorporate with the tree itself. Bacon's Nat. History. Ten thousand seeds of the plant harts-tongue, hardly make the bulk of a pepper-corn: now the covers, and the true body of each seed, the parenchymous and ligneous part of both, and the fibres of those parts, multiplied one by another, afford a hundred thousand millions of formed atoms, but how many more we cannot define. Grew, LIGNUMVITÆ. n. s. (Latin.) Guiacum; a very hard wood. LIGURE. n. 5. A precious stone. The third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst. LIKE. adj. [lic, Saxon; liik, Dutch.] Exoduse 1. Resembling; having resemblance. Whom art thou like in thy greatness! Ezck. His son, or one of his illustrious name, How like the former, and almost the same! Dryden. As the earth was designed for the being of men, why might not all other planets be created for the like uses, each for their own inhabitants? Bentley. This plan, as laid down by him, looks liker an universal art than a distinct logick. Baker. 2. Equal; of the same quantity. More clergymen were impoverished by the late war, than ever in the like space before. 3. [for likely.] Probable; credible. Spratt. The trials were made, and it is like that the experiment would have been effectual. Bacon. 4. Likely; in a state that gives probable expectations. This is, I think, an improper, though frequent, use. If the duke continues these favours towards you, you are like to be much advanced. Shaksp. He is Ake to die for hunger, for there is ne more bread. Jeremiah. The yearly value thereof is already increasent double of that it was within these few years, 1. To choose with some degree of pre and is like daily to rise higher till it amount to the price of our land in England. Davies. Hopton resolved to visit Waller's quarters, that he might judge whether he were like to pursue his purpose. Clarendon. Many were not easy to be governed, nor like to conform themselves to strict rules. Clarendon. If his rules of reason be not better suited to the mind than his rules for health are fitted to our bodies, he is not like to be much followed. ference. I have lik'd several women; never any Shakspeare's Tempest. I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye; That lil'd, but had a rougher task in hand Than to drive liking to the name of love. Shak. Scarce any man passes to a liking of sin in others, but by first practising it himself. South. Beasts can like, but not distinguish too, Nor their own liking by reflection know. Dryd. 3. To please; to be agreeable to. Now disused. Well hoped he, ere long that hardy guest, If ever covetous hand, or lustful eye, Or lips he laid on thing that lik'd him best, Should be his prey. Spenser's Fairy Queen. Say, my fair brother now, if this device Dolike you, or may you to like entice. Hubberd, This desire being recommended to her majesty, it liked her to include the same within one entire lease. Bacon. He shall dwell where it liketh him best. Deut. God and Messiah. To LIKE. v. n. 1. To be pleased with: with of before the thing approved. Obsolete. Of any thing more than of God they could not by any means lile, as long as whatsoever they knew besides God, they apprehended it not in itself without dependency upon God. Hooker. The young soldiers did with such cheerfulness like of this resolution, that they thought two days a long delay. Knolles. Locke. 2. To choose; to list; to be pleased. The man likes not to take his brother's wife. Deuteronomy. He that has the prison doors set open is perfectly at liberty, because he may either go or stay, as he best likes. LIKELIHOOD. LIKELINESS. 1. Appearance; show. Obsolete. What of his heart perceive you in his face, By any likelihood he show'd to-day? -That with no man here he is offended. Shak. 2. Resemblance; likeness. Obsolete. } n. s. [from likely.] The mayor and all his brethren in best sort, Like to the senators of antique Rome, Go forth and fetch their conqu'ring Cæsar in. As by a low, but loving likelihood, Were now the general of our gracious empress, As in good time he may, from Ireland coming, How many would the peaceful city quit I like the work well; ere it be demanded, As like enough it will, I'd have it copied. Shak. TO LIKE. v. a. [lican, Sax. liiken, Dut.] 7 To welcome him? Shakspeare's Henry v. There is no likelihood between pure light and black darkness, or between righteousness and reprobation. Raleigh. 3. Probability; verisimilitude; appear- 3. One who resembles another; a copy; 寶 ance of truth. As it noteth one such to have been in that age, so had there been more, it would by likelibood as well have noted many. Hooker. Many of likelihood informed me of this before, which hung so tottering in the balance, that I could neither believe nor misdoubt. Shaksp. It never yet did hurt, To lay down likelihood, and forms of hope. Shak. As there is no likelihood that the place could be so altered, so there is no probability that these rivers were turned out of their courses. Raleigh. Where things are least to be put to the venture, as the eternal interests of the other world ought to be; there every, even the least, probability, or likelibood of danger, should be provided against. South. There are predictions of our Saviour recorded by the evangelists, which were not completed till after their deaths, and had no likelihood of being so when they were pronounced by our blessed Saviour. Addison. Thus, in all likelihood, would it be with a libertine, who should have a visit from the other world: the first horror it raised would go off, as new diversions come on. Atterbury. LIKELY. adj. [from like.] 1. Such as may be liked; such as may please. Obsolete. These young companions make themselves believe they love at the first looking of a likely beauty. Sidney. Sir John, they are your likeliest men; I would have you served with the best. a counterpart. Poor Cupid, sobbing, scarce could speak, Prior. Jesus said unto them, I also will ask one thing, which if ye tell me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things. Matthew. So was it in the decay of the Roman empire, and likewise in the empire of Almaigne, after Charles the Great, every bird taking a feather. Bacon. Spirit of vitriol poured to pure unmixed serum, coagulates as if it had been boiled. Spirit of seasalt makes a perfect coagulation of the serum likewise, but with some different phænomena. Arbuthnet. LIKING. adj. (perhaps because plumpness is agreeable to the sight.] Plump; in a state of plumpness. I fear my lord the king, who hath appointed your meat and your drink; for why should he see your faces worse liking, than the children which are of your sort? Daniel. LÍKING. n. 5. [from like.] 1. Good state of body; plumpness. I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I'm in some liking; I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. Sbaksp. Their young ones are in good liking; they grow up with corn. Shaksp. 2. Probable; such as may in reason be thought or believed; such as may be thought more reasonably than the contrary: as, a likely story, that is, a credible story. LIKELY. adv. Probably; as may reasonably be thought. While man was innocent, he was likely ignorant of nothing that imported him to know. Glanville. To LIKEN. v. a. [from like.] To repre- The prince broke your head for likening him LIKENESS. n. s. [from like.] They all do live, and moved are To multiply the likeness of their kind. Spenser. A translator is to make his author appear as charming as he can, provided he maintains his character, and makes him not unlike himself. Translation is a kind of drawing after the life, where there is a double sort of likeness, a good one and a bad one. Dryden. There will be found a better likeness, and a worse; and the better is constantly to be chosen. Dryden. 3. Form; appearance. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace; for trouble being gone, comfort should remain. Sbakspeare. It is safer to stand upon our guard against an enemy in the likeness of a friend, than to embrace any man for a friend in the likeness of an enemy. L'Estrange Job. Cappadocian slaves were famous for their lus The royal soul, that, like the lab'ring moon, 3. Inclination. Dryden. Why do you longer feed on loathed light, Fairy Queen. LIKING. n. 5. (from the verb.] Delight in; pleasure in: with to. There are limits to be set betwixt the boldness and rashness of a poet; but he must understand those limits who pretends to judge, as well as he who undertakes to write and he who has no liking to the whole, ought in reason to be excluded from censuring of the parts. Dryden, LILACH. n. s. [lilac, lilas, Fr.] A tree. The white thorn is in leaf, and the lilach tree, Bacon. LI'LIED. adj. (from lily.) Embellished Nymphs and shepherds dance no more LILY. n. s. [lilium, Latin.] Milton. There are thirty-two species of this plant, including white lilies, orange lilies, and martagons of various sorts. Miller. Oh! had the monster seen those lily hands Shipwreck'd upon a kingdom where no pity! 1 For her the lilies hang their heads, and die. Pope. LILY-DAFFODIL. n. s. [lilio-narcissus.] A foreign flower. LILY-HYACINTH. n. s. [lilio-hyacinthus.] It hath a lily flower, composed of six leaves, shaped like the flower of hyacinth: the roots are scaly, and shaped like those of the lily. There are three species of this plant; one with a blue flower, another white, and a third red. Miller. LILY of the Valley, or May lily. n.s. [lilium convallium.] 'The flower consists of one leaf, is shaped like a bell, and divided at the top into six segments; the ovary hecomes a soft globular fruit, containing several round seeds. It is very common in shady woods. Miller. Lily of the valley has a strong root that runs into the ground. Mortimer's Husbandry. LILYLIVERED. adj. [lily and liver.] Whitelivered; cowardly. A base, lilylivered, action-taking knave. Shak. LIMATURE. N.s. [limatura, Latin.] Filings of any metal; the particles rubbed off by a file. LIMB. n. s. [lim, Sax. and Scot. lem, Dan.] 1. A member; a jointed or articulated part of animals. A second Hector, for his grim aspect, And large proportion of his strong knit limbs. Shakspeare. O! that I had her here, to tear her limb meal! Now am I come each limb to survey, If thy appearance answer loud report. Milton. 2. [limbe, Fr. limbus, Lat.) An edge; a border: a philosophical word. By moving the prisms about, the colours again emerged out of the whiteness, the violet and the blue at its inward limb, and at its outward limb the red and yellow. To LIMB. v. a. [from the noun.] 1. To supply with limbs. As they please, Neruton. They limb themselves, and colour, shape, and size Assume, as likes them best, condense, or rare. Milton. 2. To tear asunder; to dismember. LIMBECK. N. S. [corrupted by popular pronunciation from alembick.] A still. Her cheeks, on which this streaming nectar fell, Still'd through the limbeck of her diamond eyes. Fairfax. Fires of Spain, and the line, Whose countrles limbecks to our bodies be, Canst thou for gain bear? Donne. Call up, unbound, Milton. The earth, by secret conveyances, lets in the sea, and sends it back fresh, her bowels serving for a limbeck. Horvel. He first survey'd the charge with careful eyes, Yet judg'd, like vapours that from limbecks rise, It would in richer showers descend again. Dryd. The warm limbeck draws Salubrious waters from the nocent brood. Pbil. LIMBED. adj. [from limb.] Formed with regard to limbs. A steer of five years age, large limb'd, and fed, To Jove's high altars Agamemnon led. Pope. LIMBER. adj. Flexible; easily bent; pliant; lithe. You put me off with limber vows. Shaksp. I wonder how, among these jealousies of court and state, Edward Atheling could subsist, being the indubitate heir of the Saxon line: but he had tried, and found him a prince of limber virtues; so as though he might have some place in hia caution, yet he reckoned him beneath his fear. Wotton. At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, Insect, or worm: those wav'd their limber fans For wings; and smallest lineaments exact In all the liveries deck'd of summer's pride. Milton. She durst never stand at the bay, having no thing but her long soft limber ears to defend her. More. The muscles were strong on both sides of the aspera arteria, but on the under side, opposite to that of the œsophagus, very limber. Ray. LIMBERNESS. n.s. [from limber.] Flexibility; pliancy. LIMBO. n.s. [Eo quod sit limbus inferorum. Du Cange.] 1. A region bordering upon hell, in which there is neither pleasure nor pain. Popularly hell. No, he is in tartar limbo, worse than hell, A devil in an everlasting garment hath him, One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel. Shakspeare. Oh what a sympathy of woe is this! As far from help as limbo is from bliss. Shaksp. All these up-whirl'd aloft Fly o'er the backside of the world far off, Into a limbo large, and broad, since call'd The paradise of fools. Milton's Par. Lost. 2. Any place of misery and restraint. For he no sooner was at large, But Trulla straight brought on the charge; Hudibras. Friar, thou art come off thyself, but poor I am left in limbo. Dryden's Spanish Fryar. LIME. n. s. [lim, zelyman, Sax. to glue.] 1. A viscous substance drawn over twigs, which catches and entangles the wings of birds that light upon it. Poor bird! thou'dst never fear the net or lime, The pitfall, nor the gin. Sbaksp. Macbeth. You must lay lime, to tangle her desires, By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhimes Should be full fraught with serviceable vows. Sbakspearg. Jollier of this state Than are new-benefic'd ministers, he throws, Like nets or lime twigs, wheresoe'er he goes, His title of barrister on every wench. Donne. A thrush was taken with a bush of lime twigs. L'Estrange. Then toils for beasts, and lime for birds were found, And deep-mouth'd dogs did forest walks surround, Dryden. |