There are beside Lascivious meeters, to whose venom'd sound The open ear of youth doth always listen. Shakspeare. MEETING. n.5. [from meet.] 1. An assembly; a convention. If the fathers and husbands of those, whose relief this your meeting intends, were of the houshold of faith, then their relicts and children ought not to be strangers to the good that is done in it, if they want it. Spratt's Sermons. Since the ladies have been left out of all meetings except parties at play, our conversation hath degenerated. Swift. 1. An interview. Let's be revenged on him; let's appoint him a meeting, and lead him on with a fine baited delay. Shakspeare. 3. A conventicle; an assembly of dissen ters. + A conflux: as, the meeting of two rivers. MEETING-HOUSE. n. s. [meeting and bouse.] Place where dissenters assemble to worship. His heart misgave him that the churches were so many meeting-houses; but I soon made him easy. Addison. MEETLY. adv. [from the adjective.] Fitly; properly. MEETNESS. . . [from meet.] Fitness; propriety. ME GRIM. n. s. [from hemicrany, migrain, megrim, hungaria.] Disorder of the head. In every megrim or vertigo there is an obtenepration joined with a semblance of turning round. Bacon There screen'd in shades from day's detested glare, Spleen sighs for ever on her pensive bed, Pain at her side, and megrim at her head. Pope. To MEINE, v. a. fo mingle. Ainsw. MEINY. n. s. [menizu, Sax. See MANY. Mesnie, Fr.] A retinue; domestick servants. They summon'd up their meiny; strait took horse; Commanded me to follow, and attend. Shaksp. MELANAGOGUES. n. s. [from a and yw.] Such medicines as are supposed particularly to purge off black choler. MELANCHOLICK. adj. [from melancholy.] 1. Disordered with melancholy; fanciful; hypochondriacal; gloomy. If he be mad or angry, or melancholick, or sprightly, he will paint whatsoever is proportionable to any one. Dryden The commentators on old Ari- Sees fleets and armies in the sky. Prior. 2. Unhappy; unfortunate; causing sør row. The king found himself at the head of his army, after so many accidents and melancholick perplexities. Clarendon MELANCHOʻLY. n. s. {melancolie, Fr. from μέλανος and χολή.] 1. A disease supposed to proceed from a redundance of black bile; but it is better known to arise from too heavy and too viscid blood: its cure is in evacuation, nervous medicines, and powerful stimuli. Quincy. 2. A kind of madness, in which the mind is always fixed on one object. 3. I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politick; nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these; but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness. Shakspeare. Moonstruck madness, moping melancholy. Milton. A gloomy, pensive, discontented temper. He protested, that he had only been to seek solitary places by an extreme melancholy that had possessed him. Eidney. All these gifts come from him; and if we murmur here, we may at the next melancholy be troubled that God did not make us angels. How now, sweet Frank; art thou melancholy? He observes Lamech more melancholy than usual, and imagines it to be froin a suspicion Le has of his wife Adah, whom he loved. Locke. MELICE'RIS. n. s. [μελικηρίς.] Meliceris is a tumour inclosed in a cystis, and consisting of matter like honey. If the matter resembles milk curds, the tumour is called atheroma; if like honey, meliceris; and if composed of fat, or a suety substance, steatoma. Shurp. ME LILOT. n. s. [melilot, Fr. melilotus, Lat.] A plant. TO ME LIORATE. v. a. [meliorer, Fr. from melior.] To better; to improve. Grafting meliorates the fruit; for that the nourishment is better prepared in the stock than in the crude earth. Bacon. But on we graft, or buds inoculate, Nature by art we nobly meliorate. Denbam. A man ought by no means to think that he should be able so much as to alter or meliorate the humour of an ungrateful person by any acts of kindness. South. Castration serves to meliorate the flesh of those beasts that suffer it. Graunt. Much labour is requir'd in trees; Well must the ground be digg'd and better dress'd, New soil to make, and meliorate the rest. Dryd. MELIORATION. n. s. [melioration, Fr. from meliorate.] Improvement; act of bettering. For the melioration of musick there is much left, in this point of exquisite consorts to yet try. Bacon. MELIOʻRITY, H.s. [from melior.] State of being better. A word very elegant, but not used. Men incline unto them which are softest, and least in their way, in despight of them that hold them hardest to it; so that this colour of meliority and pre-eminence is a sign of weakness. Bacon. The order and beauty of the inanimate of the world, the discernible ends of them, the parts meliority above what was necessary to be, do evince, by a reflex argument, that it is the workmanship not of blind mechanism, but of an intelligent and benign agent. Bentley. To MELL. v. n. [meler, se meler, French.] To mix; to meddle. Obsolete. It fathers tits not with such things to mell, Here is a great deal of good matter I ost for lack of telling: Spenser. Spenser. Now I see thou dost but clatter, Dict. In judging of the air, many things besides the weather ought to be observed: in some counties, the silence of grass-hoppers, and want of mellification in bees. Arbuthnot. MELLIFLUENCE. n. s. [mel and fuo, ness. MELLI FLUENT. adj. [mel and fiuo, Lat.] A mellifluous voice, as I am a true knight. 2. To soften. They plow in the wheat stubble in December; and if the weather prove frosty to mellor it, they do not plow it again till April. Mortimer. 3. To mature to perfection, This episode, now the most pleasing enter- Though no stone tell thee what I was, yet thou 1. Maturity of fruits; ripeness; softness My reason can consider greenness, mellowness, sweetness, or coldness, singly, and without rela tion to any other quality that is painted in me by the same apple. Digby of Bodies. The spring, like youth, fresh blossoms doth produce, But Autumn makes them ripe, and fit for use: So age a mature mellereness doth set On the green promises of youthful heat. Denb. 2. Maturity; full age. MELOCO TON. n. s. [melocotone, Spanish ; malum cotoneum, Lat.] A quince. Obsolete. In apricots, peaches, or melocotones, upon a wall, the greatest fruits are towards the bottom. Bacon. MELODIOUS. adj. [from melody.] Musical; harmonious. Fountains! and ye that warble, as ye flow, Melodious murmurs; warbling tune his praise. Milton. And oft with holy hymns he charm'd their ears; A musick more melodious than the spheres. Dryden. MELO ́DIOUSLY. adv. [from melodious.] Musically; harmoniously. MELO DIOUSNESS. 'n. s. [from melodious.] Harmoniousness; musicalness. MELODY. n. s. [μελωδία.] Musick ; harmony of sound. The prophet David having singular knowledge not in poetry alone but in musick also, judging them both to be things most necessary for the house of God, left behind him a number of divinely indited poems, and was farther the author of adding unto poetry milody in publick prayer, melody both vocal and instrumental, for the raising up of men's hearts, and the sweetening of their affections towards God. Hooker. Singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, And husht with buzzing night flies to thy slumber; Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great, Shakspeare. The flower of the melon consists of one leaf, which is of the expanded bell shape, cut into several segments, and exactly like those of the cucumber: some of these flowers are barren, not adhering to the embrio; others are fruitful, growing upon the embrio, which is afterwards changed into a fruit, for the most part of an oval shape, smooth or wrinkled, and divided into three seminal apartments, which seem to be cut into two parts, and contain many oblong seeds, Miller. 2. The fruit. We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers and the melons. Numbers, MELON-THISTLE. n. s. [melococtus, Lat.] The whole plant of the melon-thistle hath a singular appearance. Miller. To MELT. v. a. [meltan, Sax.] 1. To dissolve; to make liquid; commonly by heat. How they would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boats with me! Shakspeare. When the melting fire burneth, the fire causIsaiah. eth the waters to boil. This price, which is given above the value of the silver in our coin, is given only to preserve our coin from being melted down. Locke. The rock's high summit in the temple's shade, If your butter when melted tastes of brass, it is your master's fault, who will not allow you a silver saucepan. Swift. 2. To dissolve; to break in pieces. 3. To take in pieces this frame of nature, and melt it down into its first principles; and then to observe how the divine wisdom wrought all these things into that beautiful composition; is a kind of joy, which pierceth the mind. Burnet. To soften to love or tenderness., The mighty master smil'd to see That love was in the next degree: 'Twas but a kindred sound to move, For pity melts the mind to love. 3. 4. Of stronger earth than others. Shakspeare. Dighton and Forrest; Alheit, they were flesht villains, bloody dogs, Melting with tenderness and mild compassion, Wept like two children in their death's sad story. Shakspeare This said; the mov'd assistants melt in tears. Beauty is a witch, Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. Shakspeare. To be subdued by affliction. My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me. Psalms. MELTER. n. s. [from melt.] One that melts metals. Miso and Mopsa, like a couple of foreswat melters, were getting the pure silver of their bodies out of the ore of their garments. Sidney. This the author attributes to the remissness of the former melters, in not exhausting the ore. Derbam. MELTINGLY. adv. [from melting.] Like something melting. Zelmane lay upon a bank, that her tears falling into the water, one might have thought she be gan meltingly to be metamorphosed to the running river. Sidney. MEMBER. n. s. [membre, Fr. membrum, My going to demand justice upon the five members, my enemies loaded with obloquies. King Charles. Mean as I am, yet have the Muses made Me free, a member of the tuneful trade. Dryd. Sienna is adorned with many towers of brick, which, in the time of the commonwealth, were erected to such of the members as had done service to their country. Addison. MEMBRANE. n. s. [membrane, Fr. mem-brana, Lat.] A web of several sorts of fibres, interwoven together for the covering and wrapping up some parts: the fibres of the membranes give them an elasticity, whereby they can contract, and closely grasp the parts they contain, and their nervous fibres give them an exquisite sense, which is the cause of their contraction; they can, therefore, scarcely suffer the sharpness of medicines, and are difficultly united when wounded. Quincy. The chorion, a thick membrane obscuring the formation, the dam doth after tear asunder. Our master, for his learning and piety, is not only a precedent to his own subjects, but to foreign princes; yet he is but a man, and seasonable memento's may be useful. Bacon. Is not the frequent spectacle of other people's deaths a memento sufficient to make you think of 'your own? L'Estrange. MEMOIR. . . [memoire, Fr.] 1. An account of transactions familiarly written. Be our great master's fature charge To write his own memoirs, and leave his heirs High schemes of government and plans of wars. Prior. 2. Hint; notice; account of any thing. There is not in any author a computation of the revenues of the Roman empire, and hardly any memoirs from whence it might be collected. Arbuthnet. MEMORABLE. adj. [memorable, Fr. memorabilis, Lat.] Worthy of memory; not to be forgotten. Nothing I so much delight to recount, as the memorable friendship that grew betwixt the two princes. Sidney. From this desire, that main desire proceeds, Which all men have surviving fame to gain, By tombs, by books, by memorable deeds, For she that this desires doth still remain. Dav. Dares Ulysses for the prize contend, In sight of what he durst not once defend; But basely filed that memorable day, When I from Hector's hands redeem'd the flamMEMORABLY. adv. [from memorable.] ing prey? Dryden. In a manner worthy of memory. MEMORANDUM. n. s. [Lat.] A note to help the memory. I resolved to new pave every street, and entered a memorandum in my pocket-book ac cordingly. Guardian. Nature's fair table-hook, our tender souls We scrawl all o'er with old and empty rules, Stale memorandums of the schools. Swift. MEMORIAL. adj. [memorial, Fr. memarialis, Latin.] 1. Preservative of memory. Thy master now lies thinking in his bed Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove And gives memorial dainty kisses to it. Shaksp May I, at the conclusion of a work, which is a kind of monument of Pope's partiality to me, place the following lines as an inscription meme rial of it. Broome. The tomb with manly arms and trophies raise; There high in air memorial of my name Fix the smooth oar, and bid me live to fame. Medals are so many monuments consigned ever to eternity, that may last when all other memorials of the same age are worn out or lost. Addison. 2. Hint to assist the memory. He was a prince sad, serious, and full of thoughts and secret observations, and full of notes and memorials of his own hand touching persons. Bacon. Memorials written with king Edward's hand shall be the ground of this history. Hayward. 3. An address; reminding of services and soliciting reward. MEMORIALIST. n. s. [from memorial.] One who writes memorials. I must not omit a memorial setting forth, that the memorialist had, with great dispatch, carried a letter from a certain lord to a certain lord. Spectator. To MEMORIZE. v. a. [from memory.] 3. To record; to commit to memory by writing. They neglect to memorize their conquest of the Indians, especially in those times in which thesame was supposed. Spenser. Let their names that were bravely lost be rather memorized in the full table of time; for my part, I love no ambitious pains in an eloquent description of miseries. Wotton. 2. To cause to be remembered. They meant To memorize another Golgotha. Shakspeare. MEMORY. n. s. [memoire, Fr. memoria, Lat.] 1. The power of retaining or recollecting things past; retention; reminiscence; recollection. Memory is the power to revive again in our minds these ideas which after imprinting have disappeared, or have been laid aside out of sight. Locke. The memory is perpetually looking back, when we have nothing present to entertain us: it is like those repositories in animals that are filled with stores of food, on which they may ruminate, when their present pasture fails. Addison. 2. Exemption from oblivion. That ever-living man of memory, Henry the Fifth! 3. Time of knowledge. Shakspeare. Thy request think now fulfill'd, that ask'd How first this world, and face of things, began, And what, before thy memory, was done. Milton. 4. Memorial; monumental record. 1 Be better suited; These weeds are memories of those worser hours: 1 pr'ythee put them off. Shakspeare. Aswan in memory of Cycnus shines; The mourning sisters weep in wat'ry signs. Addison. MEN-PLEASER. n. s. [men and pleaser.] One too careful to please others. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters: not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Ephesians To MENACE. v. a. [menacer, Fr.] To threaten; to threat. Whoever knew the heavens menace so? Shake. My master knows not but I am gone hence, Peep'd harms that menac'd him. Shakspeare. What shou'd he do? 'Twas death to go away, And the god menac'd if he dar'd to stay. Dryden. MENACE. n. s. [menace, Fr. from the verb.] Threat. He that would not believe the menace of God at first, it may be doubted whether, before an ocular example, he believed the curse at last. Brozon. 3. Name a new play and he's the poet's friend; Nay, show'd his faults-but when would poets mend? Pope Their opinion of Wood, and his project, is not mended. To help; to advance. Swift. Whatever is new is unlook'd for; and ever it mends some, and impairs others: and he that is holpen takes it for a fortune, and he that is hurt for a wrong. Bacon If, to avoid succession in eternal existence, they recur to the punctum stans of the schools, They will thereby very little mend the matter, or help us to a more positive idea of infinite duration. Locke. Though in some lands the grass is but short, yet it mands garden herbs and fruit. Mortimer. |