1 Providence hath confined these human arts, that what any invention hath in the strength of Its motion, is abated in the slowness of it; and what it hath in the extraordinary quickness of its motion, must be allowed for in the great strength that is required unto it. Wilkins. Motion is the absolute mode of a body, but 2. Length of time in which any thing acts 3. Dulness to admit conviction or affec tion. To SLU'BBER. v. a. [probably from lub- 1. To do any thing lazily, imperfectly, or Nature shewed she doth not like men who ease. 2. To stain; to daub. This seems to be You must be content to sluiber the gloss of your new fortunes with this more stubborn and, boisterous expedition. Shakspeare. 3. To cover coarsely or carelessly. This is now not in use, otherwise than as a low colloquial word. A man of secret ambitious ends, and proportionate counsels, smothered under the habit of a scholar, and slubbered over with a certain rude and clownish fashion, that had the semblance of integrity. Wotton. SLU'BBERDEGULLION. n. 5. [I suppose Quoth she, although thou hast deserv'd, Hudibras. water. The earth I made a mere soft sludge or mud. SLUG. n. 5. (slug, Danish, and slock, 1. An idler; a drone; a slow, heavy, sleepy, lazy, wretch, 4. [rlecz, a hammerhead, Sax.] А суlindrical or oval piece of metal shot from a gun. When fractures are made with bullets or slugs, there the scalp and cranium are driven in together. Wiseman. As, forc'd from wind-guns, lead itself can fly, And pond'rous slugs cut swiftly thro' the sky. To SLUG. v. n. [from the noun.] To Pope. lie idle; to play the drone; to move slowly. All he did was to deceive good knights, He lay not all night slugging in a cabin under his mantle, but used cominonly to keep others waking to defend their lives. Spenser. One went slugging on with a thousand cares. L'Estrange. That you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here. This mightier sound shall make Shakspeare. And open tombs and open eyes, vain: Cooley. Up, up, says Avarice; thou snor'st again, Rather see the wonders of the world abroad, slow; inactive; inert. Sluggish idleness, the nurse of sin, ertness, The most of mankind are inclined by her thither, if they would take the pains; no less than birds to fly, and horses to run: which if they lose, it is through their own sluggishness, and by that means become her prodigies, not her children. Ben Jonson. It is of great moment to teach the mind to shake off its sluggishness, and vigorously employ itself about what reason shall direct. Locke. SLUICE. n. s. [sluyse, Dutch; escluse, Fr. sclusa, Italian.) A watergate; a floodgate, avent for water. Two other precious drops, that ready stood Each in their crystal sluice, he, ere they fell, Kiss'd, as the gracious signs of sweet remorse, And pious awe, that fear'd to have offended. Milton. Divine Alpheus, who, by secret sluice, Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse. Milton. If we receive them all, they were more than seven; if only the natural sluices, they were fewer. Brorun. As waters from her sluices, flow'd Unbounded sorrow from her eyes. Prior. Each sluice of affluent fortune open'd soon, And wealth flow'd in at morning, night, and Harte. noon. Boy! Lucius! fast asleep? It is no matter; Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber. Shaks. Ev'n lust and envy sleep, but love denies Rest to my soul, and slumber to my eyes: Three days I promis'd to attend my doom, And two long days and nights are yet to come. Dryden. SLUMBEROUS.) To SLUICE, v. a. (from the noun.] To SLU'MBERY. emit by floodgates. Like a traitor coward, Sluic'd out his inn'cent soul through streams of blood. Shaksprare. Veins of liquid ore sluic'd from the lake. Milton. You wrong me, if you think I'll sell one drop Within these veins for pageants; but let honour Call for my blood, I'll sluice it into streams; Turn fortune loose again to my pursuit, And let me hunt her through embattled foes, In dusty plains; there will I be the first. Dryd. SLU'ICY. adj. [from sluice.] Falling in streams as from a sluice or floodgate. And oft whole sheets descend of sluicy rain, Suck'd by the spungy clouds from off the main: The lofty skies at once come pouring down, The promis'd crop and golden labours drown. Dryden. To SLU'MBER. v. n. [rlumepan, Sax. slugmeren, Dutch.] } adj. [from slumber.] 1. Inviting to sleep; soporiferous; causing sleep. The timely dew of sleep, Now falling with soft slumb'rous weight, inclines Our eyelids. Milton. While pensive in the silent slumb'rous shade, Sleep's gentle pow'rs her drooping eyes invade; Minerva, life-like, on embodied air Impress'd the form of Iphthema. Pope. There every eye with slumb'rous chains she bound, And dash'd the flowing goblets to the ground. 2. Sleepy; not waking. Pope. A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching: in this slumbery agitation, what have you heard her say? Shakspeare. SLUNG. The pret. and part. pass. of sling. SLUNK. The pret. and part. pass. of slink. Silence accompany'd; for beast, and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk. Milton. To SLUR. v. a. [sloorig, Dutch, nasty; nor sleep. Psalms. sloore, a slut.] Milton. 1. To sully; to soil; to contaminate. 2. To pass lightly; to balk; to miss. Conscience wakes despair that slumber'd. 2. To sleep; to repose. Sleep and slumber are often confounded. God speaketh, yet man perceiveth it not: in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed. Have ye chosen this place, Jub. Milton. 3. To be in a state of negligence and supineness. Why slumbers Pope, who leads the tuneful train, Nor hears that virtue which he loves complain? TO SLUMBER. v. a. 1. To lay to sleep. 2. To stupify; to stun. Young. Then up he took the slum'er dsenseless corse, VOL. IV. The atheists laugh in their sleeves, and not a little triumph, to see the cause of theism thus betrayed by its professed friends, and the grand argument slurred by them, and so their work done to their hands. Cudworth. Studious to please the genius of the times, With periods, points, and tropes, he sturs his crimes; He robb'd not, but he borrow'd from the poor, And took but with intention to restore. Dryden. 3. To cheat; to trick. What was the publick faith found out for, But to slur men of what they fought for? Come, seven 's the main, Cries Ganymede: the usual trick : Seven, slur a six; eleven, a nick. SLUR. n. s. [from the verb.] proach; slight disgrace. Hudibras. Prior. Faint re Here is an ape made a king for shewing 1. Nasty; not nice; not cleanly; dirty; indecently negligent of cleanliness. All preparations both for food and lodging, such as would make one detest niggardness, it is so sluttish a vice. Albeit the mariners do covet store of cabSidney. bins, yet indeed they are but sluttish dens that breed sickness in peace, serving to cover stealths, and in fight are dangerous to tear men with their splinters. Raleigh. Prior. The nastiness of that nation, and sluttish course of life, hath much promoted the opinion, occasioned by their servile condition at first, and inferior ways of parsimony ever since. Brown. Słothful disorder fill'd his stable, And sluttish plenty deck'd her table. 2. It is used sometimes for meretricious. She got a legacy by sluttish tricks. Holiday. SLUTTISHLY. adv. [from sluttish.] In a sluttish manner; nastily; dirtily. SLUTTISHNESS. n. s. [from sluttish.] The qualities or practice of a slut; nastiness; dirtiness. That is only suitable in laying-a foul complexion upon a filthy favour, setting forth both Sidney. in sluttishness. I look on the instinct of this noisome and troublesome creature, the louse, of searching out toul and nasty clothes to harbour and breed in, as an effect of divine providence, designed to deter men and women from sluttishness and sordidness, and to provoke them to cleanliness and neatness. Ray. SLY. adj. [rid, Sax. slippery, and metaphorically deceitful; slagur, Island He is but a bastard to the time, That doth not smack of observation. Sbakspeare. 3. To make a noise by separation of the lips strongly pressed together, as after a taste. She kiss'd with smacking lip the snoring lout; For such a kiss demands a pair of gloves. Gay. 4. To kiss with a close compression of the lips, so as to be heard when they separate. To SMACK, v. α. 1. To kiss. Pope. So careless flow'rs, strow'd on the water's face, The curled whirlpools suck, smack, and embrace, Yet drown them. Donne. 2. To make to emit any quick smart noise. More than one steed must Delia's empire feel, Who sits triumphant o'er the flying wheel; And, as she guides it through th' admiring throng, With what an air she smacks the silken thong! Young. SMACK. n. S. [smaeck, Dutch; from the verb.] 1. Taste; savour. 2. Tincture; quality from somethingmixed. The child, that sucketh the milk of the nurse, learns his first speech of her; the which, being the first inured to his tongue, is ever after most pleasing unto him; insomuch, that though he afterwards be taught English, yet the smack of the first will always abide with him. Your lordship, though not clean past your Spenser. youth, hath yèt some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time, and have a care of your health. It caused the neighbours to rue, that a petty Shakspeare. smack only of popery opened a gap to the oppression of the whole. Her garment was cut after such a fashion, that though the length of it reached to the ancles, yet in her going one might sometimes discern the small of her leg. Sidney. Into her legs I'd have love's issues fall, And all her calf into a gouty small. Suckling. His excellency, having mounted on the small of my leg, advanced forwards. Gulliver. SMAʼLLAGE. n. s. [from small age, because it soon withers. Skinner. Eleoselinon, Lat.] A plant. It is a species of parsley, and a common weed by the sides of ditches and brooks. Miler. Smallage is raised by slips or seed, which is reddish, and pretty big, of a roundish oval figure; a little more full and rising on one side than the other, and streaked from one end to the other. Mortimer. SMAʼLLCOAL. n.s. [small and coal.] Lit tle wood coals used to light fires. A smallcoal man, by waking one of these distressed gentlemen, saved him from ten years imprisonment. Spectator. When smallcoal murmurs in the hoarser throat, From smutty dangers guard thy threaten'd coat. Gay. SMA'LLCRAFT, n. s. [small and craft.] A little vessel below the denomination of a ship. Shall he before me sign, whom t' other day A smallcraft vessel hither did convey; Where stain'd with prunes and rotten figs he lay? Dryden. SMAʼLLNESS.n.s. [from small.] 1. Littleness; not greatness. The parts in glass are evenly spread, but are not so close as in gold; as we see by the easy admission of light, and by the smallness of the weight. Bacon. 2. Littleness; want of bulk; minuteness; exility. Whatsoever is invisible, in respect of the fineness of the body, or the smallness of the parts, or subtilty of the motion, is little enquired. Bacon. The smallness of the rays of light may contribute very much to the power of the agent by which they are refracted, Neroton, 3. Want of strength; weakness. SMALLPOX. n. s. [small and por.] An eruptive distemper of great malignity; variola. To make a light purple, mingle ceruse with logwood water; and moreover turnsoil with lac mingled with smalt of bice. Pracham. SMA'RAGDINE. adj. [smaragdinus, Lat.] Made of emerald; resembling emerald. SMART. n.s. [rmsonta, Saxon; snert, Dutch; smarta, Swedish.] 1. Quick, pungent, lively, pain. That day was spent in smart skirmishes, in which many fell. Clarendon. This sound proceeded from the nimble and smart percussions of the ambient air, made by the swift and irregular motions of the particles of the liquors. Boyle. 3. Producing any effect with force and vigour. After show'rs That stars shine smarter, and the moon adorns, As with unborrow'd beams, her sharpen'd horns. Dryden. 4. Acute; witty. It was a smart reply that Augustus made to one that ministred this comfort of the fatality of things: this was so far from giving any ease to his mind, that it was the very thing that troubled him. s. Brisk; vivacious; lively. Tillotson. You may see a smart rhetorician turning his hat in his hands, during the whole course of his harangue. A deaf man would think he was cheapening a beaver. Addison. Who, for the poor renown of being smart, Would leave a sting within a brother's heart? Young. SMART. M. 5. A fellow affecting briskness and vivacity. A cant word. SMA'RTLY. adv. [from smart.] After a smart manner; sharply; briskly; vigorously; wittily. The art, order, and gravity, of those proceedings, where short, severe, constant, rules were set, and smartly pursued, made them less taken notice of. Clarendon. SMARTNESS. n. s. [from smart.] 1. The quality of being smart; quickness; vigour. What interest such a smartness in striking the air hath in the production of sound, may in some measure appear by the motion of a bullet, and that of a switch or other wand, which produce no sound, if they do but slowly pass through the air; whereas, if the one do smartly strike the air, and the other be shot out of a gun, the celerity of their percussions on the air puts it into an undulating motion, which, reaching the ear, produces an audible noise. 2. Liveliness; briskness; wittiness. Boyle. I defy all the clubs to invent a new phrase, equal in wit, humour, smartness, or politeness, to my set. Swift. SMATCH. n. 5. corrupted from smack.] 1. Taste; tincture; twang. Thou art a fellow of a good respect; Thy life hath had some smatch of honour in 't. Sbakspeare. Some nations have a peculiar guttural or nasal smatch in their language. Holder. These salts have somewhat of a nitrous taste, Grew. but mixt with a smatch of a vitriolick. 2. [cæruleo, Latin. A bird. To SMA'TTER. v. n. [It is supposed to be corrupted from smack or taste.] 1. To have a slight taste; to have a slight, superficial, and imperfect, knowledge. Such a practice gives a slight smattering of several sciences, without any solid knowledge. Watts. Since, by a little smattering in learning, and great conceit of himself, he has lost his religion, may he find it again by harder study and an humbler mind. Bentley. 2. To talk superficially or ignorantly. Of state affairs you cannot smatter; Are aukward when you try to flatter. SMA'TTER. n. 5. [from the verb.] SuperSwift. ficial or slight knowledge. All other sciences were extinguished during this empire, excepting only a smatter of judicial astrology. Temple. SMA'TTERER. n. s. [from smatter.] One who has a slight or superficial knowledge. These few who preserve any rudiments of learning, are, except one or two smatterers, the clergy's friends. Swift. To SMEAR.v.a. [rmeran, Saxon; smeer en, Dutch.] 1. To overspread with something viscous and adhesive; to besmear. If any such be here, that love this painting, Wherein you see me smear'd, If any think brave death outweighs bad life, Let him wave thus. Sbakspeare. Then from the mountain hewing timber tall, Began to build a vessel of huge bulk, Smear'd round with pitch. Milton. Smear'd as she was with black Gorgonean blood, The fury sprang above the Stygian flood. Dry. 2. To soil; to contaminate. Why had I not, with charitable hand, Took up a beggar's issue at my gates? Who smeared thus, and mir'd with infamy, I might have said no part of it SMEAR. n. s. [from the verb.] An ointis mine. Sbaksp, ment; any fat liquor or juice. SMEA'RY. adhesive. adj. [from smear.] Dauby; A smeary foam works o'er my grinding jaws, And utmost anguish shakes my lab'ring frame, Rume SMEATH. ns. A seafowl |