Complete Works of Samuel Johnson, page 399
Of that pretended passion;
A single witness infamously known,
Against two persons of unquestion’d fame. Dryden.
My obedient honesty was made
The pander to thy lust and black ambition. Rowe.
To Pánder. v.a. [from the noun.] To pimp; to be subservient to lust or passion.
Proclaim no shame,
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since first itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will. Shakesp. Hamlet.
Paradisíacal. adj. [from paradise.] Suiting paradise; making paradise.
The antients express the situation of paradisiacal earth in reference to the sea. Burnet’s Theory of the Earth.
Such a mediocrity of heat would be so far from exalting the earth to a more happy and paradisiacal state, that it would turn it to a barren wilderness. Woodw. Nat. Hist.
The summer is a kind of heaven, when we wander in a paradisiacal scene, among groves and gardens; but, at this season, we are like our poor first parents, turned out of that agreeable, though solitary life, and forced to look about for more people to help to bear our labours, to get into warmer houses, and hive together in cities. Pope.
Paraphernália. n.s. [Lat. paraphernaux, Fr.] Goods in the wife’s disposal. Pássive. adj. [passif, French; passivus, Latin.]
1. Receiving impression from some external agent.
High above the ground
Their march was, and the passive air upbore
Their nimble tread. Milton’s Paradise Lost.
The active informations of the intellect, filling the passive reception of the will, like form closing with matter, grew actuate into a third and distinct perfection of practice. South.
As the mind is wholly passive in the reception of all its simple ideas, so it exerts several acts of its own, whereby, out of its simple ideas, the other is formed. Locke.
The vis inertiæ is a passive principle by which bodies persist in their motion or rest, receive motion in proportion to the force impressing it, and resist as much as they are resisted: by this principle alone, there never could have been any motion in the world. Newton’s Optics.
2. Unresisting; not opposing.
Not those alone, who passive own her laws,
But who, weak rebels, more advance her cause. Dunciad.
3. Suffering; not acting.
4. [In grammar.]
A verb passive is that which signififes passion or the effect of action: as doceor, I am taught. Clarke’s Lat. Gram.
Pástern. n.s. [pasturon, French.]
1. The knee of an horse.
I will not change my horse with any that treads on four pasterns. Shakespear’s Henry V.
The colt that for a stallion is design’d,
Upright he walks on pasterns firm and straight,
His motions easy, prancing in his gait. Dryden.
Being heavy, he should not tread stiff, but have a pastern made him, to break the force of his weight; by this his body hangs on the hoof, as a coach doth by the leathers. Grew.
2. The legs of an human creature in contempt.
So straight she walk’d, and on her pasterns high:
If seeing her behind, he lik’d her pace,
Now turning short, he better lik’d her face. Dryden.
Pástil. n.s. [pastillus, Lat. pastille, Fr.] A roll of paste.
To draw with dry colours, make long pastils, by grinding red led with strong wort, and so roll them up like pencils, drying them in the sun. Peacham on Drawing.
Patéfaction. n.s. [patefactio, Latin.] Act or state of opening. Ainsworth.
Q
Is a consonant borrowed from the Latin or French, for which, though q is commonly placed in the Saxon alphabet, the Saxons generally used cƿ, cw; as cƿellan or cwellan, to quell: qu is, in English, pronounced as by the Italians and Spaniards cw; as quail, quench, except quoit, which is spoken, according to the manner of the French, coit: the name of this letter is cue, from queue, French, tail; its form being that of an O with a tail. Quab. n.s. [derived, by Skinner, from gobio, the Latin name.] A sort of fish. Quack. n.s. [from the verb.]
1. A boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand.
The change, schools and pulpits are full of quacks, jugglers and plagiaries. L’Estrange.
Some quacks in the art of teaching, pretend to make young gentlemen masters of the languages, before they can be masters of common sense. Felton on the Classicks.
2. A vain boastful pretender to physick; one who proclaims his own medical abilities in publick places.
At the first appearance that a French quack made in Paris: a little boy walked before him, publishing with a shrill voice, “My father cures all sorts of distempers;” to which the doctor added in a grave manner, “The child says true.” Addison.
3. An artful tricking practitioner in physick.
Despairing quacks with cures fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now an useless race. Pope.
To Quack. v.n. [quacken, Dutch, to cry as a goose.]
1. To cry like a duck. This word is often written quaake to represent the sound better.
Wild-ducks quack where grasshoppers did sing. King.
2. To chatter boastingly; to brag loudly; to talk ostentatiously.
Believe mechanick virtuosi
Can raise them mountains in Potosi,
Seek out for plants with signatures,
To quack of universal cures. Hudibras, p. iii.
Quáckery. n.s. [from quack.] Mean or bad acts in physick. Quácksalver. n.s. [quack and salve.] One who brags of medicines or salves; a medicaster; a charlatan.
Saltimbancoes, quacksalvers and charlatans deceive the vulgar in lower degrees; were Æsop alive, the piazza and the pont neuf could speak their fallacies. Brown.
Many poor country vicars, for want of other means, are driven to their shifts; to turn mountebanks, quacksalvers and empiricks. Burton on Melancholy.
Quadrágesimal. adj. [quadragesimal, Fr. quadragesima, Latin.] Lenten; belonging to Lent; used in Lent.
I have composed prayers out of the church collects, adventual, quadragesimal, paschal, or pentecostal. Sanderson.
Quádrangle. n.s. [quadratus and angulus, Latin.] A square; a surface with four right angles.
My choler being overblown
With walking once about the quadrangle,
I come to talk. Shakesp. Henry VI.
The escurial hath a quadrangle for every month in the year. Howel.
Quadrángular. adj. [from quadrangle.] Square; having four right angles.
Common salt shooteth into little crystals, coming near to a cube, sometimes into square plates, sometimes into short quadrangular prisms. Grew’s Cosmol.
Each environed with a crust, conforming itself to the planes, is of a figure quadrangular. Woodward.
I was placed at a quadrangular table, opposite to the macebearer. Spectator, № 617.
Quádrant. n.s. [quadrans, Lat.]
1. The fourth part; the quarter.
In sixty-three years may be lost eighteen days, omitting the intercalation of one day every fourth year, allowed for this quadrant or six hours supernumerary. Brown.
2. The quarter of a circle.
The obliquity of the ecliptick to the equator, and from thence the diurnal differences of the sun’s right ascensions, which finish their variations in each quadrant of the circle of the ecliptick, being joined to the former inequality, arising from the excentricity, makes these quarterly and seeming irregular inequalities of natural days. Holder on Time.
3. An instrument with which altitudes are taken.
Some had compasses, others quadrants. Tatler, № 81.
Thin taper sticks must from one center part;
Let these into the quadrant’s form divide. Gay.
Quadrántal. adj. [from quadrant.] Included in the fourth part of a circle.
To fill that space of dilating, proceed in strait lines, and dispose of those lines in a variety of parallels: and to do that in a quadrantal space, there appears but one way possible; to form all the intersections, which the branches make, with angles of forty-five degrees only. Derham’s Physico-Theol.
Quádrate. adj. [quadratus, Latin.]
1. Square; having four equal and parallel sides.
2. Divisible into four equal parts.
The number of ten hath been extolled, as containing even, odd, long and plain, quadrate and cubical numbers. Brown.
Some tell us, that the years Moses speaks of were somewhat above the monthly year, containing in them thirty-six days, which is a number quadrate. Hakewill on Providence.
3. [Quadrans, Lat.] Suited; applicable. This perhaps were more properly quadrant.
The word consumption, being applicable to a proper or improper consumption, requires a generical description, quadrate to both. Harvey on Consumptions.
To Quádrate. v.n. [quadro, Lat. quadrer, Fr.] To suit; to be accommodated.
Aristotle’s rules for Epick poetry, which he had drawn from his reflections upon Homer, cannot be supposed to quadrate exactly with the heroick poems, which have been made since his time; as it is plain, his rules would have been still more perfect, could he have perused the Æneid. Addison.
Quádratick. adj. Four square; belonging to a square. Dict.
Quadratick equations. In algebra, are such as retain, on the unknown side, the square of the root or the number sought: and are of two sorts; first, simple quadraticks, where the square of the unknown root is equal to the absolute number given; secondly, affected quadraticks, which are such as have, between the highest power of the unknown number and the absolute number given, some intermediate power of the unknown number. Harris.
Quadráture. n.s. [quadrature, Fr. quadratura, Latin.]
1. The act of squaring.
The speculations of algebra, the doctrine of infinites, and the quadrature of curves should not intrench upon our studies of morality. Watt’s Improvement of the Mind.
2. The first and last quarter of the moon.
It is full moon, when the earth being between the sun and moon, we see all the enlightened part of the moon; new moon, when the moon being between us and the sun, its enlightened part is turned from us; and half moon, when the moon being in the quadratures, we see but half the enlightened part. Locke.
3. The state of being square; a quadrate; a square.
All things parted by th’ empyreal bounds,
His quadrature from thy orbicular world. Milton.
Quadrénnial. adj. [quadriennium, from quatuor and annus, Latin.]
1. Comprising four years.
2. Happening once in four years.
Quádrible. adj. [from quadro, Lat.] That may be squared.
Sir Isaac Newton discovered a way of attaining the quantity of all quadrible curves analytically, by his method of fluxions, some time before the year 1688. Derham.
Quadrífid. adj. [quadrifidis, Lat.] Cloven into four divisions. Quadriláteral. adj. [quadrilatere, Fr. quatuor and latus, Lat.] Having four sides.
Tin incorporated with crystal, disposes it to shoot into a quadrilateral pyramid, sometimes placed on a quadrilateral base or column. Woodward on Fossils.
Quadriláteralness. n.s. [from quadrilateral.] The property of having four right lined sides, forming as many right angles. Dict.
R
Is called the canine letter, because it is uttered with some resemblance to the growl or snarl of a cur: it has one constant sound in English, such as it has in other languages; as red, rose, more, muriatick: in words derived from the Greek, it is followed by an h, rhapsody: r is never mute, unless the second r may be accounted mute, where two rr are used; as myrrh. To Rábate. v.n. [rabattre, Fr.] In falconry, to recover a hawk to the fist again. Ainsworth. Rábbet. n.s. [from the verb.] A joint made by paring two pieces so that they wrap over one another.
Having drove in the hooks, they set the rabbets of the door within the rabbets of the door-post. Moxon’s Mechan. Exer.
To Rábbet. v.a. [rabatre, raboter, Fr.] To pare down pieces of wood so as to fit one another.
The rabbet plane is to cut part of the upper edge of a board straight or square down, that the edge of another board, cut down in the same manner, may join into the square of the first; and this lapping over of two boards is called rabbeting. Moxon’s Mechanical Exercises.
The window frame hath every one of its lights rabbetted on its outside about half an inch into the frame, and all these rabbets, but that on the ground-fell, are groved square. Moxon’s Mechanical Exercises.
Rábbi. n.s. A doctor among the Jews.
The Hebrew rabbins say, that nature hath given man, for the pronouncing of all letters, the lips, the teeth, the tongue, the palate and throat. Camden’s Remains.
Be not ye called rabbi; for one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. Mat. xxiii. 8.
Rábbin. n.s. A doctor among the Jews.
The Hebrew rabbins say, that nature hath given man, for the pronouncing of all letters, the lips, the teeth, the tongue, the palate and throat. Camden’s Remains.
Be not ye called rabbi; for one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. Mat. xxiii. 8.
Rábbit. n.s. [robbe, robbekin, Dutch.] A furry animal that lives on plants, and burrows in the ground.
I knew a wench married, as she went to the garden for parsly to stuff a rabbit. Shakesp. Taming of the Shrew.
A company of scholars, going to catch conies, carried one with them which had not much wit, and gave in charge, that if he saw any, he should be silent for fear of scaring of them; but he no sooner espied a company of rabbits, but he cried aloud, ecce multi cuniculi; which he had no sooner said, but the conies ran to their burrows; and he being checked by them for it, answered, who would have thought that the rabbits understood Latin? Bacon’s Apophthegms.
Rábble. n.s. [rabula, Lat. rabulari, low Lat.] A tumultuous croud; an assembly of low people.
Countrymen, will ye relent, and yield to mercy,
Or let a rabble lead you to your deaths? Shakesp.
Go bring the rabble here to this place. Shakesp.
Of these his several ravishments, betrayings, and stealing away of men’s wives, came in all those ancient fables, and all that rabble of Grecian forgeries. Raleigh.
The better sort abhors scurrility,
And often censures what the rabble like. Roscommon.
That profane, atheistical, epicurean rabble, whom the whole nation so rings of, are not the wisest men in the world. South’s Sermons.
To gratify the barbarous audience, I gave them a short rabble scene, because the mob are represented by Plutarch and Polybius with the same character of baseness and cowardice. Dryden’s Preface to Cleomenes.
In change of government,
The rabble rule their great oppressors fate,
Do sov’reign justice and revenge the state. Dryden.
His enemies have been only able to make ill impressions upon the low and ignorant rabble, and to put the dregs of the people in a ferment. Addison’s Freeholder, № 24.
Rábblement. n.s. [from rabble.] Croud; tumultuous assembly of mean people.
A rude rabblement,
Whose like he never saw, he durst not bide,
But got his ready steed, and fast away ‘gan ride. Fa. Qu.
The rabblement houted, clap’d their chopt hands, and uttered a deal of stinking breath. Shakesp. Julius Cæsar.
There will be always tyrants, murderers, thieves, traitors, and other of the same rabblement. Camden’s Remains.
Rábid. adj. [rabidus, Lat.] Fierce; furious; mad. Rábinet. n.s. A kind of smaller ordnance. Ainsworth.
Race. n.s. [race, Fr. from radice, Lat.]
1. A family ascending.
2. Family descending.
He in a moment will create
Another world; out of man, a race
Of men innumerable, there to dwell. Milton.
Male he created thee, but thy consort
Female for race. Milton.
High as the mother of the gods in place,
And proud like her of an immortal race. Dryden.
Hence the long race of Alban fathers come. Dryden.
3. A generation; a collective family.
A race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds. Shakesp. Merchant of Venice.
4. A particular breed.
Instead
Of spirits malign, a better race to bring
Into their vacant room. Milton.
In the races of mankind and families of the world, there remains not to one above another the least pretence to have the right of inheritance. Locke.
5. Race of ginger. [rayz de gengibre, Spanish.] A root or sprig of ginger.
6. A particular strength or taste of wine, applied by Temple to any extraordinary natural force of intellect.
Of gardens there may be forms wholly irregular, that may have more beauty than of others; but they must owe it to some extraordinary dispositions of nature in the feat, or some great race of fancy or judgment in contrivance. Temple.
7. [Ras, Islandick.] Contest in running.
To describe races and games
Or tilting furniture. Milton.
8. Course on the feet.
The flight of many birds is swifter than the race of any beasts. Bacon.
9. Progress; course.
It suddenly fell from an excess of favour, which many examples having taught them, never stopt his race till it came to a headlong overthrow. Sidney.
My race of glory run, and race of shame. Milton.
Their ministry perform’d, and race well run. Milton.
The great light of day yet wants to run
Much of his race though steep. Milton.
He safe return’d, the race of glory past,
New to his friends embrace. Pope’s Odyssey.
10. Train; process.
An offensive war is made, which is unjust in the aggressor; the prosecution and race of the war carrieth the defendant to invade the ancient patrimony of the first aggressor, who is now turned defendant; shall he sit down, and not put himself in defence? Bacon.
The race of this war fell upon the loss of Urbin, which he re-obtained. Bacon.
Rácehorse. n.s. [race and horse.] Horse bred to run for prizes.
