ACK being composed of pointed particles, affect the ACIDITY n. s. [from acid.] The quality sourness. Fishes, by the help of a dissolvent liquor, corrode and reduce their meat, skin, bones, and all, into a chylus or cremor; and yet this liquor manifests nothing of acidity to the taste. Ray. When the taste of the mouth is bitter, it is a sign of a redundance of a bilious alkali, and demands a quite different diet from the case of acidity or sourness. Arbuthnot on Aliments. A'CIDNESS. n. s. [from acid.] The quality of being acid; acidity. ACIDITY. See ACIDULE. n. s. [that is, aquæ acidule.] Medicinal springs impregnated with sharp particles, as all the nitrous, chalybeate, and alum springs are. The acidula, or medical springs, emit a greater Quincy. quantity of their minerals than usual; and even the ordinary sy rings, which were before clear, fresh, and limpid, become thick and turbid, and are impregnated with sulphur and other minerals, as long as the earthquake lasts. Woodward. To ACIDULATE. v. a. [aciduler, Fr.] To impregnate or tinge with acids in a slight degree. A diet of fresh unsalted things, watery liquors acidulated, farinaceous emollient substances, sour milk, butter, and acid fruits. Arbuthnot. To ACKNOWLEDGE. v. a. [a word formed, as it seems, between the Latin and English, from agnosco, and knowledge, which is deduced from the Saxon cnapan, to know.]. 1. To own the knowledge of; to own any thing or person in a particular charac ter. АСО He has shewn his hero acknowledging and un grateful, compassionate and hard-hearted; but, at the bottom, fickle and self-interested. Dryden's Virgil. ACKNOWLEDGMENT. n. s. [from acknowledge.] I. Concession of any character in another; as, existence, superiority. The due contemplation of the human nature doth, by a necessary connexion and chain of causes, carry us up to the unavoidable acknowledgment of the Deity; because it carries every thinking man to an original of every successive individual. Hale's Origin of Mankind. 2. Concession of the truth of any position. Immediately upon the acknowledgment of the christian faith, the eunuch was baptized by Philip. Hooker. 3. Confession of a fault. 4. Confession of a benefit received; gratitude. 5. Act of attestation to any concession such as homage. 6. There be many wide countries in Ireland, in which the laws of England were never established, nor any acknowledgment of subjection made. Something given or done in confession Spenser's State of Ireland. of a benefit received. The second is an acknowledgment to his ma jesty for the leave of fishing upon his coasts; and though this may not be grounded upon any treaty, yet, if it appear to be an ancient right on our side, and custom on theirs, not determined or extinguished by any treaty between us, it may with justice be insisted on. Temple's Miscel AC'ME. n. s. [ann, Gr.] The height of any thing; more especially used to denote the height of a distemper, which is divided into four periods. I. The arche, the beginning or first attack. 2. Anabasis, the growth. 3. Acme, the height. And 4. Paraeme, which is the declension of the distemper. Quincy. ACO'LOTHIST. n. s. [axineDiv.] One of the lowest order in the Romish church, whose office is to prepare the elements for the offices, to light the church, &e. It is a duty, according to the papal law, when the bishop sings mass, to order all the inferior clergy to appear in their proper habits; and to see that all the offices of the church be rightly performed; to ordain the acolotbist, to keep the sacred vessels. Ayliffe's Parergen, A'COLYTE. n. s. The same with ACOLO THIST. A'CONITE. n. s. [aconitum, Lat.] Properly Our land is from the rage of tygers freed, Or grows unknown, or is, when known, re-. Despair, that aconite does prove And certain death to others' love, That poison never yet withstood, Does nourish mine, and turns to blood. Grane. A'CORN. n. s. [æconn, Sax. from ac, an oak, and conn, corn or grain; that is, the grain or fruit of the oak.] The seed or fruit born by the oak. Errours, such as are but acorns in our younger brows, grow oaks in our older heads, and become inflexible. Brown. Content with food which nature freely bred, On wildings and on strawberries they fed; Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest, And falling acorns furnish'd out a feast. Dryd He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. Locke. ACORNED. adj. [from acorn.] Stored with acorns. Like a full acorn'd boar. Shaksp. Áco'USTICKS. n. s, [axxçin, of ȧxáw, to hear.] 1. The doctrine or theory of sounds. 2. Medicines to help the hearing. Quincy. To ACQUAINT. v. a. [accointer, Fr.] 1. To make familiar with: applied either to persons or things. It has with before. the object. We that acquaint ourselves with ev'ry zone, And pass the tropicks, and behold each pole, When we come home, are to ourselves unknown, And unacquainted still with our own soul. Davies. There with thee, new welcome saint, Like fortunes may her soul acquaint. Milton. Before a man can speak on any subject, it is necessary to be acquainted with it. Locke on Ed. Acquaint yourselves with things ancient and modern, natural, civil, and religious, domestic and rational; things of your own and foreign countries: and, above all, be well acquainted with God and yourselves; learn animal nature, and the workings of your own spirits. Watts. a. To inform. With is more in use before the object than of. But for some other reasons, my grave sir, Which is not fit you know, I not acquaint My father of this business. Shakspeare. A friend in the country acquaints me, that two or three men of the town are got among them, and have brought words and phrases, which were never before in those parts. "Tatler. ACQUAINTANCE. n. s. [accointance, Fr.] 1. The state of being acquainted with; familiarity; knowledge. It is applied as well to persons as things, with the particle with. Nor was his acquaintance less with the famous poets of his age, than with the noblemen and ladies. Dryden. Our admiration of a, famous man lessens upon our gearer acquaintance with him; and we seldom hear of a celebrated person, without a catalogue of some notorious weaknesses and infirmities. must be partakers of a divine nature, in order to partake of this high privilege and alliance. Atterbury. 2. Familiar knowledge, simply without a preposition. Brave soldier, pardon me, That any accent breaking from my tongue Should 'scape the true acquaintance of mine ear. Shakspeare. This keeps the understanding long in converse with an object, and long converse brings acquaintance. 3. South. In what manner he lived with those who were of his neighbourhood and acquaintance, how obliging his carriage was to them, what kind offices he did, and was always ready to do them, I forbear particularly to say. Atterbury. A slight or initial knowledge, short of friendship, as applied to persons. I hope I am pretty near seeing you; and therefore I would cultivate an acquaintance; because if you do not know me when we meet, you need only keep one of my letters, and compare it with my face; for my face and letters are counterparts of my heart. Swift to Pope. A long noviciate of acquaintance should precede the vows of friendship. Bolingbrote. 4. The person with whom we are acquainted; him of whom we have some knowledge, without the intimacy of friendship. In this sense the plural is, in some authors, acquaintance, in others acquaintances. But she, all vow'd unto the red-cross knight, His wand'ring peril closely did lament, Ne in this new acquaintance could delight, But her dear heart with anguish did torment. Fairy Queen. That young men travel under some tutor, I allow well, so that he be such a one that may be, able to tell them, what acquaintances they are to seek, what exercises or discipline the place yieldeth. Bacon, This, my lord, has justly acquired you as many friends, as there are persons who have the honour to be known to you; mere acquaintance you have none, you have drawn them all into a nearer line; and they who have conversed with you, are for ever after inviolably yours. Dryd. We see he is ashamed of his nearest acquaintBoyle against Bentley. ACQUAINTED. adj. [from acquaint.] Familiar; well known; not new. ances. Sbak. Now call we our high court of parliament; That war or peace, or both at once, may be As things acquainted and familiar to us. ACQUE'ST. n. s. [acquest, Fr. from arquerir; written by some acquist, with a view to the word acquire, or acquisita.] Attainment; acquisition; the thing gained. New acquests are more burden than strength. Mud reposed near the ostea of rivers, makes continual additions to the land, thereby exclud ing the sea, and preserving these shells as trophies and signs of its new acquests and encroachWoodward. ments. To ACQUIE'SCE. v. n. [acquiescer, Fr. acquiescere, Lat.] To rest in, or remain satisfied with, without opposition or discontent. It has in before the object. Others will, upon account of the receivedness of the proposed opinion, think it rather worthy to be examined than acquiesced in. Boyle. Neither a bare approbation of, nor a mere wishing, nor unactive complacency in; nor, lastly, a natural inclination to things virtuous and good, can pass before God for a man's willing of such things; and consequently, if men, upon this account, will needs take up and acquiesce in an airy ungrounded persuasion, that they will those things which really they not will, they fall thereby into a gross and fatal delusion. South. He hath employed his transcendent wisdom and power, that by these he might make way for his benignity, as the end wherein they ultimately acquiesce. ACQUIESCENCE. n. s. [from acquiesce.] 1. A silent appearance of content, distinguished on one side from avowed consent, on the other from opposition. Grew. Neither from any of the nobility, nor of the clergy, who were thought most averse from it, there appeared any sign of contradiction to that; but an entire acquiescence in all the bishops thought fit to do. Clarendon. 2. Satisfaction; rest; content. Many indeed have given over their pursuits after fame, either from disappointment, or from experience of the little pleasure which attends it, or the better informations or natural coldness of old age; but seldom from a full satisfaction and acquiescence, in their present enjoyments of it. Addison. 3. Submission; confidence. The greatest part of the world take up their persuasions concerning good and evil, by an implicit faith, and a full acquiescence, in the word of those, who shall represent things to them under these characters. South. ACQUIRABLE. adj. [from acquire.] That may be acquired or obtained; attainable. Those rational instincts, the connate principles engraven in the human soul, though they are truths acquirable and deducible by rational consequence and argumentation, yet seem to be inscribed in the very crasis and texture of the soul, antecedent to any acquisition by industry, or the exercise of the discursive faculty, in man. Hale's Origin of Mankind. If the powers of cogitation, and volition, and sensation, are neither inherent in matter as such, nor acquirable to matter by any motion or modification of it; it necessarily follows, that they proceed from some cogitative substance, some incorporeal inhabitant within us, which we call spirit and soul. Bentley. To ACQUIRE. v. a. [acquerir, Fr. acquiro, Lat.] 3. To gain by one's own labour or power; to obtain what is not received from nature, or transmitted by inheritance. Better to leave undone, than by our deed Acquire too high a fame, while he, we serve, 's away. Shakspeare's Ant, and Cleop. 2. To come to; to attain. Motion cannot be perceived without the perception of its terms, viz. the parts of space which it immediately left, and those which it next acquires, Glanville's Scepsis. ACQUIRED. particip. adj. [from acquire.] Gained by one's self, in opposition to those things which are bestowed by nature. We are seldom at ease, and free enough from the solicitation of our natural or adopted desires; but a constant succession of uneasinesses, out of that stock which natural wants, or acquired habits, have heaped up, take the will in their turns. Locke. ACQUIREMENT. n. s. [from acquire.] That which is acquired; gain; attainment. The word may be properly used in opposition to the gifts of nature. These his acquirements, by industry, were ex ceedingly both enriched and enlarged by many excellent endowments of nature. Hayward. By a content and acquiescence in every species of truth, we embrace the shadow thereof; or so much as may palliate its just and substantial ac quirements. Brown's Vulgar Errours. It is very difficult to lay down rules for the acquirement of a taste. The faculty must, in ACQUIREK. n. s. [from acquire.] The some degree, be born with us. Addison. person that acquires; a gainer. ACQUISITION. n. s. [acquisitio, Lat.] The act of acquiring or gaining. 1. Each man has but a limited right to the good things of the world; and the natural allowed way, by which he is to compass the possession of these things, is by his own industrious acquisition of them. South. 2. The thing gained; acquirement. Denham's Sophy. A state can never arrive to its period in a more deplorable crisis, than when some prince lies hovering like a vulture to dismember its dying carcase; by which means it becomes only an acqui sition to some mighty monarchy, without hopes ACQUISITIVE. adj. [acquisitivus, Lat.] of a resurrection. Swift. That is acquired or gained. He died not in his acquisitive but in his native soil; nature herself, as it were, claiming a final interest in his body, when fortune had done with him, Wolton ACQUI'ST. n. s. [See ACQUEST.] AC quirement; attainment; gain. Not in use. If sin, then thou markest me, and thou wilt not acquit me from mine iniquity. Job. By the suffrage of the most and best he is already acquitted, and, by the sentence of some, condemned. Dryden. He that judges, without informing himself to the utmost that he is capable, cannot acquit himself of judging amiss. Locke. Neither do I reflect upon the memory of his majesty, whom I entirely acquit of any imputSwift. ation. 3. To clear from any obligation. Steady to my principles, and not dispirited with my afflictions, I have, by the blessing of God on my endeavours, overcome all difficulties; and, in some measure, acquitted myself of the debt which I owed the publick, when I undertook this work. Dryden. 4. In a similar sense, it is said, The man bath acquitted himself well; that is, he hath discharged his duty. ACQUI'TMENT. n. s. [from acquit.] The state of being acquitted, or act of acquitting. South. The word imports properly an acquitment or discharge of a man upon some precedent accusation, and a full trial and cognizance of his cause had thereupon. ACQUITTAL. n. s. In law, is a deliverance and setting free from the suspicion or guiltiness of an offence. Corvell. The constant design of both these orators, was to drive some one particular point, either the condemnation or acquittal of an accused person. Swift. To ACQUITTANCE. v. a. To procure an Shakspeare. Forbearance, no acquittance, ere day end You can produce acquittances Donne. The same man bought and sold to himself, paid the money, and gave the acquittance. Arb. A'CRE. n. s. [æcɲe, Sax.] A quantity of land containing in length forty perches, and four in breadth, or four thousand eight hundred and forty square yards. Dict. Search every acre in the high-grown field, And bring him to our eye. Shakspeare. ACRID. adj. [acer, Lat.] Of a hot biting taste; bitter; so as to leave a painful heat upon the organs of taste. Bitter and acrid differ only by the sharp particles of the first being involved in a greater quantity of oil than those of the last. Arbuth ACRIMONIOUS. adj. Abounding with acrimony; sharp; corrosive. If gall cannot be rendered acrimonious, and bitter of itself, then whatever acrimony or amaritude redounds in it, must be from the admixture of melancholy. Harvey on Consumptions. A'CRIMONY. n. s. [acrimonia, Lat.] 1. Sharpness; corrosiveness. There be plants that have a milk in them when they are cut; as figs, old lettuce, sowthistles, spurge. The cause may be an inception of putrefaction: for those milks have all an acrimony, though one would think they should be lenitive. Bacon's Natural History. The chymists define salt, from some of its properties, to be a body fusible in the fire, congealable again by cold into brittle glebes or crystals, soluble in water, so as to disappear, not malleable, and having something in it which affects the organs of taste with a sensation of acrimony or sharpness. Arbuthnot. 2. Sharpness of temper; severity; bitterness of thought or language. John the Baptist set himself, with much acrimony and indignation, to baffle this senseless arrogant conceit of theirs, which made them huff at the doctrine of repentance, as a thing below them, and not at all belonging to them. South. A'CRITUDE. n. s. [from acrid.] An acrid taste; a biting heat on the palate. In green vitriol, with its astringent and sweetish ACRO'NYCAL. adj. [from an &, summus, He is tempestuous in the summer, when he rises heliacally, and rainy in the winter, when he rises acronycally. Dryden. A'CROSPIRE. n. s. [from ang and orig.] A shoot or sprout from the end of seeds before they are put in the ground. Many corns will smilt, or have their pulp turned into a substance like thick cream; and will send forth their substance in an acrospire. Mort. A'CROSPIRED.part. adj. Having sprouts, or having shot out. For want of turning, when the malt is spread on the floor, it comes and sprouts at both ends, which is called acrospired, and is fit only for swine. Mortimer. ACRO'SS, adv. [from a for at, or the The harp hath the concave not along the strings, but across the strings; and no harp hath the sound so melting and prolonged as the Irish harp. Bacon. 'This view'd, but not enjoy'd, with arms across He stood, reflecting on his country's loss. Dryd There is a set of artisans, who, by the help of several poles, which they lay across each others shoulders, build themselves up into a kind of pyramid; so that you see a pile of men in the air of four or five rows rising one above another. Addison. ACRO'STICK. n. s. [fromax; ands1x& ] ̧ A poem in which the first letter of every line being taken, makes up the name of the person or thing on which the poem is written. ACRO'STICK. adj. 1. That relates to an acrostick. 2. That contains acrosticks. Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command S. Some peaceful province in acrostick land: There thou may'st wings display, and altars raise, And torture one poor word ten thousand ways. Dryden. A'CROTERS, or ACROTE'RIA. n. [from ax, the extremity of any body.] Little pedestals without bases, placed at the middle and the two extremes of pediments, sometimes serving to support statues. To ACT. v. n. [ago, actum, Lat.] 1. To be in action; not to rest. He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest. Pope. 2. To perform the proper functions. Albeit the will is not capable of being compelled to any of its actings, yet it is capable of being made to act with more or less difficulty, according to the different impressions it receives from motives or objects. South. 3. To practise arts or duties; to conduct one's self. "Tis plain that she, who for a kingdom now a throne. Dryden's Conquest of Granada. The desire of happiness, and the constraint it puts upon us to act for it, no body accounts an abridgment of liberty. Locke. The splendor of his office, is the token of that sacred character which he inwardly bears: and one of these ought constantly to put him in mind of the other, and excite him to act up to it, through the whole course of his administration. Atterbury's Sermons. It is our part and duty to co-operate with this grace, vigorously to exert those powers, and act up to those advantages to which it restores us. He has given eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. Rogers' Sermons. 4. To produce effects in some passive subject. Hence 'tis we wait the wond'rous cause to find How body acts upon impassive mind. Garth. The stomach, the intestines, the muscles of the lower belly, all act upon the aliment; besides the chyle is not sucked, but squeezed into the mouths of the lacteals, by the action of the fibres of the guts. Arbuthnot on Aliments. То Аст. v. a. 1. To bear a borrowed character, as a stage-player. Honour and shame from no condition rise; 2. To counterfeit; to feign by action. His former trembling once again renew'd, With acted fear the villain thus pursued. Dryd 3. To actuate; to put in motion; to regulate the movements. Most people in the world are acted by levity and humour, by strange and irrational changes. South Perhaps they are as proud as Lucifer, as covetous as Demas, as false as Judas, and in the whole course of their conversation act, and are acted, not by devotion, but design. South. We suppose two distinct, incommunicable consciousnesses acting the same body, the one constantly by day, the other by night; and, on the other side, the same consciousness acting by intervals two distinct bodies. ACT. n. s. [actum, Lat.] Locke 1. Something done; a deed; an exploit, whether good or ill. A lower place, not well, May make too great an act: Better to leave undone, than by our deed Acquire too high a fame. Shakspeare The conscious wretch must all his acts reveal; Loth to confess, unable to conceal; From the first moment of his vital breath, To his last hour of unrepenting death. Dryden. 2. Agency; the power of producing an effect. I will try the forces Of these thy compounds on such creatures as We count not worth the hanging; but none hu man; To try the vigour of them, and apply Shaksp 3. Action; the performance of exploits; production of effects. 'Tis so much in your nature to do good, that your life is but one continued act of placing benefits on many, as the sun is always carrying his light to some part or other of the world. Who forth from nothing call'd this comely His will and act, his word and work, the same. 4. The doing of some particular thing; a 5. That this remotion of the duke and her, Is practice only. A state of reality; effect. Shakspeare The seeds of herbs and plants at the first are not in act, but in possibility, that which they afterwards grow to be. Hooker. God alone excepted, who actually and everlastingly is whatsoever he may be, and which cannot hereafter be that which now he is not; all other things besides are somewhat in possibi lity, which as yet they are not in act. Hooker |