Nor here the sun's meridian rays had pow'r, Nor wind sharp piercing, nor the rushing show'r, The verdant arch so close its texture kept. Pope. 14. Subtile; nice; witty; acute : of things. Such an assurance will sharpen men's desires, and quicken their endeavours for obtaining a lesser good, ought to inspire men with more vigour in pursuit of what is greater. Tillotson. 5. To make fierce or angry. Mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me. Job. Sharp and subtile discourses procure very great applause; but being laid in the balance with that which sound experience plainly delivereth, they 6. To make biting, sarcastick, or severe. are overweighed. Hooker. The instances you mention are the strongest and sharpest that can be urged. 15. [Among workmen. Hard. Digby. They make use of the sharpest sand, that being best for mortar to lay bricks and tiles in. 16. Emaçiated; lean. Moxon. To SHARF. v. a. [from the noun.] To When the whetstone sharps to eat, I live upon what 's my own; whereas your My haughty soul would swell; Smith. The mind and memory are more sharply ex ercised in comprehending another man's things than our own. Ben Jonson. 4. Afflictively; painfully. At the arrival of the English ambassadors the soldiers were sharply assailed with wants. Hayw. You contract your eye when you would see sharply; and erect your ear when you would hear attentively. Bacon The weaker their helps are, the more their need is to sharpen the edge of their own industry. Hooker. The Israelites went down to the Philistines, 5. With quickness. to sharpen every man his share and his coulter. 1 Samuel. His severe wrath shall he sharpen for a sword. Wisdom. The grating of a saw, when sharpen'd, offends so much, as it setteth the teeth on edge. Bacon. The squadron bright, sharp'ning in mooned horns It may contribute to his misery, heighten the anguish, and sharpen the sting of conscience, and so add fury to the everlasting flames, when he shall reflect upon the abuse of wealth and great ness. South. No: 't is resistance that inflames desire; Her nails are sharpen'd into pointed claws; paws. 2. To make quick, ingenious, or acute. Overmuch quickness of wit, either given by nature, or sharpened by study, doth not commonly bring greatest learning, best manners, or happiest life in the end. Ascham. 3. To make quicker of sense. The air sharpen'd his visual ray To objects distant far. 4. To make eager or hungry. Epicurean cooks 6. Judiciously; acutely; wittily, Palladius neither suffering us nor himself to take in hand the party till the afternoon; when we were to fight in troops, not differing otherwise from earnest, but that the sharpness of the weapons was taken away. Sidney. A second glance came gliding like the first; And he who saw the sharpness of the dart, Without defence receiv'd it in his heart., Dryd. 2. Not obtuseness. Force consisteth in the roundings and raisings of the work, according as the limbs do more or less require it; so as the beholder shall spy no sharpness in the bordering lines. Wotton. 3. Sourness without austereness. There is a sharpness in vinegar, and there is a sharpness in pain, in sorrow, and in reproach; there is a sharp eye, a sharp wit, and a sharp sword: but there is not one of these several sharpnesses the same as another of them; and a sharp east wind is different from them all. Watts. Provoking sweat extremely, and taking away all sharpness from whatever you put in, must be of good effect in the cure of the gout. Temple. Milton. 4. Severity of language; satirical sarcasm. There's gold for thee; Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite. Shaks. An eagle sharp-set, looking about her for her prey, spied a leveret. 2. Eager; vehemently desirous. L'Estrange. Basilius forced her to stay, though with much ado; she being sharp-set upon the fulfilling of a shrewd office, in overlooking Philoclea. Sidney. Our senses are sharp-set on pleasures. L'Estr. A comedy of Johnson's, not Ben, held seven nights; fer the town is sharp-set on new plays. Pope. SHARP-SIGHTED. adj. [sharp and sight.] Having quick sight. If she were the body's quality, Then would she be with it sick, maim'd, and blind; But we perceive, where these privations be, An healthy, perfect, and sharp-sighted, mind. Davies. 2. To dissipate; to make incapable of close and continued attention. A man of a loose, volatile, and shattered, humour, thinks only by fits and starts. Norris. TO SHA'TTER. v. n. To be broken, or to fall, by any force applied, into frag ments. SHA'TTERBRAINED. adj. [from shatSHA'TTERPATED. ter, brain, and pate.] Inattentive; not consistent. A low word. SHA'TTERY. adj. [from shatter.] Disunited; not compact; easily falling into many parts; loose of texture. A brittle shattery sort of spar, found in form of a white sand chiefly in the perpendicular fissures amongst the ores of metal. Woodward. TO SHAVE. v. a. pret. szaved; part. shaved or shaven. [rceapan, Saxon; schaeven, Dutch.] 1. To pare off with a razor. He that is to be cleansed shall shave off all his hair. Leviticis.. Zelim was the first of the Ottomans that did slave his beard: a bashaw asked. Why he altered the custom of his predecessors? He answered, Because you bashaws may not lead me by the beard, as you did them. Bacon. Dost thou not know this shaven pate? Truly it is a great man's head. Knolles. I caused the hair of his head to be shaved off. 2. To pare close to the surface. Sweet bird! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among Milton. Shaves all the surface of the waving green. Gay. 3. To skim by passing near, or slightly touching. He shaves with level wing the deep; then soars Up to the fiery concave tow'ring high. Milton. 4. To cut in thin slices. Make some medley of earth, with some other plants bruised or shaven in leaf or root. Bacon. 5. To strip; to oppress by extortion; to pillage. SHAVE-GRASS. n.s. [equisetum, Latin.] An herb. SHA'VELING.n.s. [from shave.] A man shaved; a friar, or religious. Used in contempt. Of cifes, there be no such things; only by bald friars and knavish shavelings so feigned. Spenser. SHA'VER.N. S. from shave.] 1. A man that practises the art of shaving. 2. A man closely attentive to his own interest. 1. A bundle of stalks of corn bound together, that the ears may dry. These be the sheaves that honour's harvest Knolles. bears; SHAVING. n.s. [from shave.] A thin slice pared off from any body. The seed, thy valiant acts; the world the field. Fairfax. Take lignum aloes in gross shavings, steep them in sack, changed twice, till the bitterness be drawn forth; then take the shavings forth and dry them in the shade, and beat them to powder. Bacon. By electrick bodies I do not conceive only such as take up shavings, straws, and light bodies, but such as attract all bodies palpable whatBroron. soever. The shavings are good for the fining of wine. SHAW.n.s. [rcua, Sax. schaave, Dutch; skugga, Islandick.] A thicket; a small wood. A tuft of trees near Lichfield is called Gentle shaqu. SHA'WFOWL.n.s. [shaw and fowl.] An artificial fowl made by fowlers on purpose to shoot at. SHA'WM n.s. [fromschawme, Teutonick.] A hautboy; a cornet: written likewise sbalm. With trumpets also and sharums. Psalms, Common Prayer. He beheld a field, Part arable and tilth; whereon were sheaves New-reap'd: the other part sheep-walks and folds. Milton. To shell. See SHALE. Thou art a shealed peasecod. Sbakspeare. TO SHEAR. preterit shore or sheared; part. pass. shorn. [rceapan, reynen, Saxon. This word is more frequently written sheer, but sheer cannot analogically form shore or shorn: shear, shore, shorn, as tear, tore, torn.] SHE. pronoun. In oblique cases her. [si, I. To clip or cut by interception be 2. To cut by interception. The sharp and toothed edge of the nether chap strikes into a canal cut into the bone of the upper; and the toothed protuberance of the upper into a canal in the nether: by which means he easily sheers the grass whereon he feeds. Grew. To SHEAR. v. n. [In navigation.] To make an indirect course. SHEAR. N. s. [from the verb. It is SHEARS. seldom used in the singular, but is found once in Dryden.] I. An instrument to cut, consisting of two blades moving on a pin, between which the thing cut is intercepted. Shears are a larger, and scissors a smaller, instrument of the same kind. Pope uses shears for scissors. Alas! thought Philoclea to herself, your sheers come too late to clip the bird's wings that already is flown away. Sidney. Why do you bend such solemn brows on me? Think you I bear the shears of destiny? Have I commandment on the pulse of life? Shakspeare. The fates prepar'd their sharpen'd sheers. Dryden. When the fleece is shorn, Then their defenceless limbs the brambles tear; Short of their wool, and naked from the sheer. Dryden. Prior. How happy should we be if we had the privilege of employing the sheers, for want of a mint, fowl. Thy father was a plaisterer, And thou thyself a shearman. Shakspeare. SHEA'RWATER.n.s. [laurus niger.] A Ainsworth. SHEATH, n. s. [rcade, Saxon.] The case of any thing; the scabbard of a weapon. The dead knight's sword out of his sheath he drew, With which he cut a lock off all their hair. Fairy Queen. Doth not each look a flash of lightning feel, Which spares the body's sheath, yet melts the Cleaveland. Swords by the lightning's subtile force distill'd, And the cold sheath with running metal fill'd. Addison. steel? } v. a. [from the noun.] TO SHEATH. TO SHEATHE. 1. To enclose in a sheath or scabbard; to enclose in any case. This, drawn but now against my sovereign's breast, Before 'tis sheath'd, shall give him peace and rest. Waller. In his hair one hand he wreaths, His sword the other in his bosom sheaths. Denh. Is this her hate to him, her love to me? 'T is in my breast she sheaths her dagger now. Dryden. The left foot naked, when they march to fight, But in a bull's raw hide they sheath the right. Dryden. The leopard, and all of this kind as goes, keeps the claws of his forefeet turned up from the ground, and sheathed in the skin of his toes, whereby he preserves them sharp for rapine, extending them only when he leaps at the prey. Grew. upon foreign gold, by clipping it into half-crowns! 2. [In philosophy.) To obtund any acrid Mortimer. 3. Any thing in the form of the blades of shears. 4. Wings, in Spenser. Two sharp-wing'd sheers Spenser. SHEARD. v. a. [rceard, Saxon.] A fragment. It is now commonly written shard, and applied only to fragments of earthen ware. In the bursting of it, not a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water out of the pit. Isaiah. SHEARER. N. s. [from shear.] One that clips with shears; particularly one that fleeces sheep. Of other care they little reck'ning make, Than how to scramble at the shearers feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest. Milt. Was he to be led as a lamb to the slaughter, patient and resigned as a sheep before her shearers? Rogers. SHEA'RMAN. n. s. [shear and man.] He that shears. dorrs. a sheath. With a needle put aside the short and sbeatby cases on earwigs backs, and you may draw forth two wings. Brown. SHE'CKLATΟΝ. η. S. He went to fight against the giant in his robe of shecklaton, which is that kind of gilded leather with which they use to embroider the Irish jackets. Spenser. To SHED. v. a. [rcedan, Saxon.] The painful service, and the drops of blood Shed for my thankless country, are requited But with that surname of Coriolanus. Shaksp. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear In all my miseries. Shakspeare. For this is my blood which is shed for many, for the remission of sins. Mattbero. Some think one gen'ral soul fills ev'ry brain, As the bright sun sheds light in ev'ry star. Dav. Around its entry nodding poppies grow, And all cool simples that sweet rest bestow; Night from the plants their sleepy virtue drains, And passing sheds it on the silent plains. Dryd. You seem'd to mourn another lover dead; My sighs you gave him, and my tears you shed. Dryden. Unhappy man! to break the pious laws Of nature, pleading in his children's cause: 'Tis love of honour, and his country's good; The consul, not the father, sheds the blood. Dryden. In these lone walls, their days eternal bound, These moss-grown domes with spiry turrets crown'd, Where awful arches make a noon-day night, And gleams of glory brighten'd all the day. Pope. 2. To scatter; to let fall. Trees that bring forth their leaves late, and cast them late, are more lasting than those that sprout their leaves early, or shed them betimes. So the returning year be blest, To SHED. v. n. To let fall its parts. Bacon. SHE'DDER. n. s. [from shed.] A spiller; one who sheds. A shedder of blood shall surely die. Ezekiel. SHEEN. adj. [This was probably only SHEE'NY. the old pronunciation of shine.] Bright; glittering; showy. Not in use. That lewd ribbald with vile lust advanc'd, Laid first his filthy hands on virgin clean, To spoil her dainty corse so fair and sheen. Fairy Queen. When he was all dight, he took his way Into the forest, that he might be seen Of the wild beasts, in his new glory sheen. Hubberd's Tale. Now they never meet in grove or green, By fountain clear, or spangled star-light sheen. Sbakspeare. Up rose each warrior bold and brave, Glistering in filed steel and armour sheen. Fairf. Out of the hierarchies of angels sheen, The gentle Gabriel call'd he from the rest. Fairf. By the rushy fringed bank, Where grows the willow and the osier dank, My sliding chariot stays, Which set with agat, or the azure sheen, Of turcois blue, and emerald green. Milton. Or did of late earth's sons besiege the wall Milton. Of sheeny heav'n. SHEEN.n.s. [from the adjective.] Brightness; splendour. Not used. Mercy will sit between, Thron'd in celestial sheen. Milton. Far above, in spangled sheen, Prior. SHEEP. n. 5. plural likewise sheep. [rcesp, White oats are apt to shed most as they lie, and black as they stand. Mortimer. So all our minds with his conspire to grace The Gentiles great apostle, and deface Those state-obscuring sheds, that like a chain Seem'd to confine and fetter him again. Waller. Those houses then were caves, or homely sheds 1. The animal that bears wool: remarkable for its usefulness and innocence. Fire the brambles, snare the birds, and steep In wholesome water-falls the fleecy sheep Dryd. Of substances there are two sorts of ideas; one of single substances, as they exist separately, as a man, or sheep. Locke 2. [In contempt.) A foolish silly fellow. Sbakspeare. With twining osiers fenc'd, and moss their beds. SHEE'PBITER. n. s. [from sheepbite.) A Dryden. An hospitable house they found, A homely shed; the roof, not far from ground, Was thatch'd with reeds and straw together bound. Dryden. Then out he steals, and finds where by the head Their horse hung fasten'd underneath a shed. Betterton. |