It imports the misrepresentation of the qualities of things and actions, to the common appre hensions of men, abusing their minds with false notions; and so, by this artifice, making evil pass for good, and good for evil, in all the great concerns of life. South's Sermons.

Nor be with all these tempting words abus'd; These tempting words were all to Sappho us'd." Pope. 4. To treat with rudeness; to reproach. I am no strumpet, but of life as honest As you that thus abuse me. Shakspeare. But he mocked them, and laughed at them, and abused them shamefully, and spake proudly. 1 Mac.

Some praise at morning what they blame at
night,

But always think the last opinion right.
A muse by these is like a mistress us'd;
This hour she's idoliz'd, the next abus'd.

Pope's Essay on Criticism. The next criticism seems to be introduced for no other reason, but to mention Mr. Bickerstaff, whom the author every where endeavours to Addison. imitate and abuse.

ABU'SE. n. s. [from the verb abuse.] 1. The ill use of any thing.

The casting away things profitable for the sustenance of man's life, is an unthankful abuse of the fruits of God's good providence towards mankind. Hooker.

Little knows Any, but God alone, to value right The good before him, but perverts best things To worst abuse, or to their meanest use.

Paradise Lost.

1. A corrupt practice; a bad custom. The nature of things is such, that, if abuses be not remedied, they will certainly increase. Sevift for Advancement of Religion.

3. Seducement.

Was it not enough for him to have deceived me, and through the deceit abused me, and after the abuse forsaken me, but that he must now, of all the company, and before all the company, lay want of beauty to my charge? Sidney. 4. Unjust censure; rude reproach; contumely.

I dark in light, expos'd To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong. Milton's Samson Agonistes. ABU'SER. n. s. [from the verb abuse.] 1. He that makes an ill use.

2. He that deceives.

Next thou, the abuser of thy prince's ear.

Denbam's Sophy.

3. He that reproaches with rudeness.
4. A ravisher; a violater.
ABU'SIVE. adj. [from abuse.]

1. Practising abuse.

The tongue mov'd gently first, and speech was low,

Till wrangling science taught it noise and show, And wicked wit arose, thy most abusive foe. Pope's Miscel

Dame Nature, as the learned show,

Provides each animal its foe;

Hounds hunt the hare, the wily fox

Devours your geese, the wolf your flocks.

Thus envy pleads a natural claim

To persecute the muse's fame;

On poets in all times abusive,

2. Containing abuse; as, an abusive lam poon.

Next, Comedy appear'd with great applause, Till her licentious and abusive tongue Waken'd the magistrate's coercive power.

Roscommon. 3. Deceitful a sense little used, yet not improper.

It is verified by a Number of examples, that whatsoever is gained by an abusive treaty, ought to be restored in integrum. Bacon

ABU'SIVELY. adv. [from abuse.] 1. Improperly; by a wrong use.

The oil, abusively called spirit of roses, swims at the top of the water, in the form of a white butter; which I remember not to have observed in any other oil drawn in any limbeck.. Boyle's Sceptical Chymist.

2. Reproachfully. ABU'SIVENESS. n. s. [from abuse.] The quality of being abusive; foulness of language.

Pick out of mirth, like stones out of thy ground,

Profaneness, filthiness, abusiveness.

These are the scum with which coarse wits abound:

The fine may spare these well, yet not go less. Herberts To ABU'T. v. n. obsolete. [aboutir, to touch at the end, Fr.] To end at; to border upon; to meet, or approach to, with the particle upon.

Two mighty monarchies, Whose high upreared and abutting fronts The narrow perilous ocean parts asunder. Shaks.

The Looes are two several corporations, distinguished by the addition of east and west, abuting upon a navigable creek, and joined by a fair Carew bridge of many arches.

ABUTMENT. n. s. [from abut.] That which abuts, or borders upon another, ABUTTAL. n. s. [from abut.] The butting or boundaries of any land. A writing declaring on what lands, highways, or other places, it does abut. ABY'SM. n. s. [abysme, old Fr. now written contractedly abime.] A gulf; the same with abyss.

Dict.

My good stars, that were my former guides, Have empty left their orbs, and shot their fires Into the abysm of hell. Shaksp. Ant, and Cleop ABY'SS. n. s. [abyssus, Latin; 67 bottomless.]

1. A depth without bottom.

Who shall tempt with wand'ring feet The dark, unbottom'd, infinite abyss, And, through the palpable obscure, find out This uncouth way? Milton's Paradise Lest Thy throne is darkness in th' abyss of light, A blaze of glory that forbids the sight; O teach me to believe thee thus conceal'd, And search no farther than thyself reveal'd! Drydens

Jove was not more pleas'd With infant nature, when his spacious hand Had rounded this huge ball of earth and seas To give it the first push, and see it roll Along the vast abyss. Addison's Guardian.

Roscommon.

5. In the language of divines, hell. From that insatiable abyss, Where Rames devour, and serpents hiss, Promote me to thy seat of bliss. Ac, AK, or ARE, being initials in the names of places, as Acton, signify an oak, from the Saxon ac, an oak. ACACIA. n. s. [Lat.]

1. A drug brought from Egypt, which, being supposed the inspissated juice of a tree, is imitated by the juice of sloes,

boiled to the same consistence.

Dictionnaire de Comm. Savary. Trevoux. 2. A tree commonly so called here, though different from that which produces the true acacia; and therefore termed pseudocacia, or Virginian acacia. Miller. ACADEMIAL. adj. [from academy.] Relating to an academy; belonging to an academy.

ACADEMIAN. n. s. [from academy.] A scholar of an academy or university; a member of an university. Wood, in his Athena Oxonienses, mentions a great feast made for the academians. ACADEMICAL. adj. [academicus, Lat.] Belonging to an university.

He drew him first into the fatal circle, from a kind of resolved privateness; where, after the academical life, he had taken such a taste of the rural, as I have heard him say, that he could well have bent his mind to a retired course.

Wotton. ACADEMICIAN. n. s. [academicien, Fr.] The member of an academy. It is generally used in speaking of the professors in the academies of France. ACADEMICK. n. s. [from academy.] A student of an university.

A young academic shall dwell upon a journal that treats of trade and be lavish in the praise of the author; while persons skilled in those subjects hear the tattle with contempt. Watts. ACADEMICK. adj. [academicus, Lat.] Relating to an university.

While through poctic scenes the genius roves, Or wanders wild in academic groves. Pobe. A'CADEMIST. 2. S. [from academy.] The

member of an academy. often used.

This is not

It is observed by the Parisian academists, that some amphibious quadrupeds, particularly the sea-calf or seal, hath his epiglottis extraordinarily large. A'CADEMY. n. s. [anciently, and proRay on the Creation. perly, with the accent on the first syllable, now frequently on the second. Academia, Lat. from Academus of Athens, whose house was turned into a school, from whom the Groves of Academe in Milton.]

1. An assembly or society of men, uniting for the promction of some art. Our court shall be a little academy, Still and contemplative in living arts. Shaksp. 2. The place where sciences are taught. Amongst the academies, which were composed by the rare genius of those great men, these four are reckoned as the principal; namely, the Athenian school, that of Sicyon, that of Rhodes, and that of Corinth. "Dryden's Dufresnoy. 3. An university.

4. A place of education, in contradistinction to the universities or public schools. The thing, and therefore the name, is modern.

ACANTHUS. n. s. [Lat.] The name of

the herb bears-breech, remarkable for being the model of the foliage on the Corinthian chapiter.

Milton.

On either side Acanthus, and each od'rous bushy shrub, Fenc'd up the verdant wall. ACATALECTIC. n. 5. [ἀκαταληκτικΘ.] A verse which has the complete number of syllables, without defect or superfluity.

To ACCE'DE. v. n. [accedo, Lat.] To be added to; to come to: generally used in political accounts; as, another power has acceded to the treaty; that is, has become a party.

To ACCELERATE. v. a. [accelero, Lat.] 1. To make quick; to hasten; to quicken motion; to give a continual impulse to motion, so as perpetually to increase.

Take new beer, and put in some quantity of stale beer into it; and see whether it will not accelerate the clarification, by opening the body of the beer, whereby the grosser parts may fall Bacon's Nat. Hist.

down into lees.

By a skilful application of those notices, may be gained the accelerating and bettering of fruits, and the emptying of mines, at much more easy rates than by the common methods. Glanville. If the rays endeavour to recede from the densest part of the vibration, they may be alternately accelerated and retarded by the vibrations overtaking them. Newton's Opticks.

Spices quicken the pulse, and accelerate the motion of the blood, and dissipate the fluids; from whence leanness, pains in the stomach, loathings, and fevers. Arbuthnot on Aliments. Lo! from the dread immensity of space Returning, with accelerated course,

The rushing comer to the sun descends. Thomson.

a. It is generally applied to matter, and used chiefly in philosophical language; but it is sometimes used on other occasions.

In which council the king himself, whose continual vigilancy did suck in sometimes causeless suspicions, which few else knew, inclined to the accelerating a battle. Bacon's Henry VII.

Perhaps it may point out to a student, now and then, what may employ the most useful labours of his thoughts, and accelerate his diligence in the most momentous enquiries. Watts. ACCELERATION. n. s. [acceleratio, Lat.] 1. The act of quickening motion.

The law of the acceleration of falling bodies, discovered first by Galileo, is, that the velocities acquired by falling, being as the time in which the body falls, the spaces through which it passes will be as the squares of the velocities, and the velocity and time taken together, as in a quadruplicate ratio of the spaces.

2. The state of the body accelerated, or quickened in its motion.

The degrees of acceleration of motion, the gravitation of the air, the existence or non-existence of empty spaces, either coacervate or interspersed, and many the like, have taken up the thoughts and times of men in disputes concerning them. Hale's Origin of Mankind.

3. The act of hastening.

Considering the languor ensuing that action in some, and the visible acceleration it maketh of age in most, we cannot but think venery much abridgeth our days. Brown.

To ACCE'ND. v. a. [accendo, Lat.] To kindle; to set on fire: a word very rarely used.

sort.

Our devotion, if sufficiently accended, would, as theirs, burn up innumerable books of this Decay of Piety. ACCE'NSION. n. s. [accensio, Lat.] The act of kindling, or the state of being kindled.

The fulminating damp will take fire at a candle, or other flame, and upon its accension, gives a crack or report, like the discharge of a gun, and makes an explosion so forcible as sometimes to kill the miners, shake the earth, and force bodies, of great weight and bulk, from the bottom of the pit or mine. Woodward's Nat. Hist. A'CCENT. n. s. [accentus, Lat.]

1. The manner of speaking or pronouncing, with regard either to force or elegance.

I know, sir, I am no flatterer; he that beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain knave; which, for my part, will not be. Shaksp. 2. The sound given to the syllable pronounced.

Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling. Sbaksp. 3. In grammar, the marks made upon syllables, to regulate their pronunciation.

Accent, as in the Greek names and usage, seems to have regarded the tune of the voice; the acute accent raising the voice in some certain syllables to a higher, i. e. more acute pitch or tone, and the grave depressing it lower; and both having some emphasis, i. e. more vigorous pronunciation. Holder.

4. Poetically, language or words.

How many ages hence

Shall this our lofty scene be acted o'er,

In states unborn, and accents yet unknown! Shakspeare. Winds on your wings to heav'n her accents

bear;

Such words as heav'n alone is fit to hear. Dryd 5. A modification of the voice, expressive of the passions or sentiments.

The tender accent of a woman's cry Will pass unheard, will unregarded die; When the rough seaman's louder shouts prevail, When fair occasion shews the springing gale. Prior. To ACCENT. v. a. [from accentus, Lat. formerly elevated at the second syllable, now at the first.]

1. To pronounce; to speak words with particular regard to the grammatical marks or rules.

Having got somebody to mark the last syllable but one, where it is long, in words above two syllables (which is enough to regulate her pronunciation, and accenting the words) let her read daily in the gospels, and avoid understanding them in Latin if she can.

Locke.

2. In poetry, to pronounce or utter in general.

O my unhappy lines! you that before Have serv'd my youth to vent some wanton cries, And, now congeal'd with grief, can scarce implore

Strength to accent, Here my Albertus lies. Wotton.

3. To write or note the accents. To ACCENTUATE, v. a. [accentuer, Fr.] To place the proper accents over the vowels.

ACCENTUATION. n. s. [from accentuate.] 1. The act of placing the accent in pronunciation.

2. Marking the accent in writing. To ACCEPT. v. a. [accipio, Lat. accep ter, Fr.]

1. To take with pleasure; to receive kindly; to admit with approbation. It is distinguished from receive, as specific from general; noting a particular manner of receiving.

Neither do ye kindle fire on my altar for nought; I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. Malachi

God is no respecter of persons: but, in every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh righte ousness, is accepted with him. Acts.

You have been graciously pleased to accept this tender of my duty. Dryden

Charm by accepting, by submitting sway,
Yet have your humour most when you obey.
Pope.

2. It is used in a kind of juridical sense; as, to accept terms, accept a treaty.

They slaughter'd many of the gentry, for whom no sex or age could be accepted for excuse. Sidney

His promise Palamon accepts, but pray'd
To keep it better than the first he made. Dryd
Those who have defended the proceedings of
our negociators at the treaty of Gertruydenburgh,

dwell upon their zeal and patience in endeavour ing to work the French up to their demands, but say nothing of the probability that France would ever accept them.

Swift. 3. In the language of the Bible, to accept persons, is to act with personal and partial regard.

He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons. Job. 4. It is sometimes used with the particle of.

I will appease him with the present that goeth before me, and afterward I will see his face; peradventure he will accept of me... Genesis. ACCEPTABILITY. n. s. The quality of being acceptable. See ACCEPTABLE. He hath given us his natural blood to be shed, for the remission of our sins, and for the obtaining the grace and acceptability of repentance.

Taylor's Worthy Comixuricant, ACCEPTABLE. adj. [acceptable, dr. front the Latin.] It is pronounced by some with the accent on the first syllable, as by Milton; by others, with the accent on the second, which is more analogical. 7. That is likely to be accepted; grateful; pleasing. It is used with the particle to before the person accepting This woman, whom thou mad'st to be my help,

And gav'st me as thy perfect gift, so good,
So fit, so acceptable, 30 divine,

That from her hand I could expect no ill.

Paradise Lost.

I do not see any other method left for men of that function to take, in order to reform the world, than by using all honest arts to make themselves acceptable to the laity.. Swift.

After he had made a peace so acceptable to the church, and so honourable to himself, he died with an extraordinary reputation of sanctity. Addison on Italy. ACCEPTABLENESS. n. s. [from acceptable.]-The quality of being acceptable.

It will thereby take away the acceptableness of that conjunction. Grev's Cosmologia Sacra, ACCEPTABLY. adv. [from acceptable.] In an acceptable manner; so as to please with the particle to.

Do not omit thy prayers, for want of a good oratory; for he that prayeth upon God's account, cares not what he suffers, so he be the friend of Christ; nor where nor when he prays, so he may do it frequently, fervently, and acceptably.

Taylor.

If you can teach them to love and respect other people, they will, as their age requires it, find ways to express it acceptably to every one. Locke on Education.

ACCEPTANCE. n. s. [acceptance, Fr.] 1. Reception with approbation.

By that acceptance of his sovereignty, they also accepted of his laws; why then should any other laws now be used amongst them? Spenser. If he tells us his noble deeds, we must also tell him our noble acceptance of them. Shaksp. Thus I imbolden'd spake, and freedom us'd' Permissive, and acceptance found. Par. Lest. Some men cannot be fools with so good acceptance as others. South's Serment.

2. The meaning of a word, as it is re ceived or understood: acceptation is the word now commonly used.

That pleasure is man's chiefest good, because indeed it is the perception of good that is properly pleasure, is an assertion most certainly true, though, under the common acceptance of it, not only false, but odious: for, according to this, pleasure and sensuality pass for terms equivalent; and therefore he, who takes it in this sense, alSouth. ters the subject of the discourse. ACCEPTANCE. [In law.] The receiving of a rent, whereby the giver binds himself, for ever, to allow a former act done by another, whether it be in itself good or not. Cowell.

ACCEPTATION. n. s. [from accept.] 1. Reception, whether good or bad. This large sense seems now wholly out of use.

2.

Yet, poor soul! knows he no other, but that I do suspect, neglect, yea, and detest him? For, every day, he finds one way or other to set forth himself unto me; but all are rewarded with like coldness of acceptation. Sidney. What is new finds better acceptation than what is good or great. Denham's Sophy. Good reception; acceptance.

Cain, envious of the acceptation of his brother's prayer and sacrifice, slew him; making himself the first manslayer, and his brother the first martyr. Raleigh's History of the World. 3. The state of being acceptable; regard. Some things, although not so required of necessity, that, to leave them undone, excludeth from salvation, are, notwithstanding, of so great dignity, and acceptation with God, that most ample reward in heaven is laid up for them.

Hooker.

They have those enjoyments only as the consequences of the state of esteem and acceptation they are in with their parents and governors. Locke on Education.

4. Acceptance, in the juridical sense. This sense occurs rarely.

5.

As, in order to the passing away a thing by gift, there is required a surrender of all right on his part that gives; so there is required also an acceptation on his part to whom it is given. South's Sermons.

The meaning of a word, as it is commonly received.

Thereupon the earl of Lauderdale made a discourse upon the several questions, and what aeceptation these words and expressions had. Clarendon.

All matter is either fluid or solid, in a large acceptation of the words, that they may comprehend even all the middle degrees between extreme fixedness and coherency, and the most rapid intestine motion of the particles of bodies. Bentley's Sermans. ACCEPTER. n. s. [from accept.] The person that accepts. ACCEPTILATION.n.s. [acceptilatio, Lat.] A term of the civil law, importing the remission of a debt by an acquittance from the creditor, testifying the receipt of money which has never been paid. ACCEPTION. 7. s. [acception, Fr. from ac

ceptio, Lat.] The received sense of a word; the meaning. Not in use.

That this hath been esteemed the due and proper acception of this word, I shall testify by one evidence, which gave me the first hint of this notion. Hammond en Fundamentals.

ACCE'SS. n. s. [In some of its senses, it seems derived from accessus ; in others, from accessio, Lat. acces, Fr.] 1. The way by which any thing may be

approached.

The access of the town was only by a neck of land. Bacon.

There remained very advantageous accesses for temptations to enter and invade men, the fortifications being very slender, little knowledge of immortality, or any thing beyond this life, and no assurance that repentance would be admitted for sin. Hammond on Fundamentals.

And here th' access a gloomy grove defends; And here th' unnavigable lake extends, O'er whose unhappy waters, void of light, No bird presumes to steer his airy fight. Dryd. a. The means, or liberty, of approach. ing either to things or men.

When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs,

We are deny'd access unto his person, Ev'n by those men that most have done us wrong.

Shakspeare.

They go commission'd to require a peace, And carry presents to procure access.

Dryden.

He grants what they besought; Instructed, that to God is no access Without Mediator, whose high office now Moses in figure bears. Milton's Par. Lost. 3. Increase; enlargement; addition.

The gold was accumulated, and store treasures, for the most part; but the silver is still growing. Besides, infinite is the access of territory and empire by the same enterprize.

Bacon.

Nor think superfluous their aid; I, from the influence of thy looks, receive Access in every virtue; in thy sight More wise, more watchful, stronger. Par. Lost.

Although to opinion, there be many gods, may seem an access in religion, and such as cannot at all consist with atheism, yet doth it deductively, and upon inference, include the same; for unity is the inseparable and essential attri bute of Deity. Brown's Vulgar Ervours. The réputation Of virtuous actions past, if not kept up With an access and fresh supply of new ones, Is lost and soon forgotten. Denham's Sophy. 4. It is sometimes used after the French, to signify the returns or fits of a distemper; but this sense seems yet scarcely received into our language.

For as relapses make diseases

More desperate than their first accesses. Hudib. ACCESSARINESS. n. s. [from accessary.] The state of being accessary.

Perhaps this will draw us into a negative ac Gerariness to the mischiefs. Decay of Picty. ACCESSARY. adj. [A corruption, as it seems, of the word accessory, which see; but now more commonly used than the proper word.] That contributes to a crime, without being the chief constiVOL. L

tuent of it.

But it had formerly a

good and general sense.

As for those things that are accessary hereunto, those things that so belong to the way of sal vation, . Hooker.

He had taken upon him the government of Hull, without any apprehension or imagination, that it would ever make him accessary to rebellion. Clarendon.

ACCESSIBLE. adj. [accessibilis, Lat. accessible, Fr.] That may be approached; that we may reach or arrive at. It is applied both to persons and things, with the particle to.

Some lie more open to our senses and daily ob servation, others are more occult and hidden, and though accessible, in some measure, to our .senses, yet not without great search and scrutiny, or some happy accident. Hale's Orig, of Man. Those things, which were indeed inexortable, have been rack'd and tortured to discover themselves; while the plainer and acces truths as if despicable while easy, and and obscured. Luay of Liry,

As an island, we are accessile or extres and exposed to perpetual invasions; against vill. it is impossible to fortify ourselves suthcienty without a power at sea. Addison's Freeholder.

In conversation, the tempers of men are open and accessible, their attention is awake, and their minds disposed to receive the strongest impressions; and what is spoken is generally more affecting, and more apposite to particular occa sions. Rogers. ACCESSION. n. s. [accessio, Lat. accession, Fr.]

1. Increase by something added; enlarge. ment; augmentation.

Nor could all the king's bounties, nor his own large accessions, raise a fortune to his heir; but after vast sums of money and great wealth got Clarendon ten, he died unlamented.

There would not have been found the difference here set down betwixt the force of the air, when expanded, and what that force should have been according to the theory, but that the included inch of air received some accession during the trial. Boyle's Spring of the Air.

The wisest among the nobles began to appre hend the growing power of the people; and therefore, knowing what an accession thereof would accrue to them, by such an addition of property, used all means to prevent it. Swift.

Charity, indeed, and works of munificence, are the proper discharge of such over-propor tioned accessions, and the only virtuous enjoyment of them. Rogers' Sermans.

2. The act of coming to, or joining one's self to; as, accession to a confederacy.

Beside, what wise objections he prepares Against my late accession to the wars! Does not the fool perceive his argument Is with more force against Achilles bent? Dryden. 3. The act of arriving at; as, the king's accession to the throne.

A'CCESSORILY. adv. [from accessory.] In the manner of an accessory.

CCESSORY. adj. Joined to another thing, so as to increase it; additional. In this kind there is not the least action, bur

D