Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
SCHOOLING — SCORPION-SENNA
SCHOOLING, ppr. Instructing; teaching; reproving.
SCHOOLING, n.
1. Instruction in school; tuition.
2. Compensation for instruction; price or reward paid to an instructor for teaching pupils.
3. Reproof; reprimand. He gave his son a good schooling.
SCHOOLMAID, n. [See Maid.] A girl at school.
SCHOOLMAN, n. [See Man.]
1. A man versed in the niceties of academical disputation or of school divinity.
Unlearn’d, he knew no schoolman’s subtil art.
2. A writer of scholastic divinity or philosophy.
Let subtil schoolmen teach these friends to fight.
SCHOOLMASTER, n. [See Master.]
1. The man who presides over and teaches a school; a teacher, instructor or preceptor of a school. [Applied now only or chiefly to the teachers of primary school.]
Adrian VI. was sometime schoolmaster to Charles V.
2. He or that which disciplines, instructs and leads.
The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Galatians 3:24.
SCHOOLMISTRESS, n. [See Mistress.] A woman who governs and teaches a school.
SCHOONER, n. A vessel with two masts, whose main-sail and fore- sail are suspended by gaffs, like a sloop’s main-sail, and stretched below by booms.
SCHORL. [See Shorl.]
SCIAGRAPHICAL, a. Pertaining to sciagraphy.
SCIAGRAPHY, n. [Gr. a shadow, and to describe.]
1. The art of sketching or delineating.
2. In architecture, the profile or section of a building to exhibit its interior structure.
3. In astronomy, the art of finding the hour of the day or night by the shadows of objects, caused by the sun, moon or stars; the art of dialing.
SCIATHERIC, SCIATHERICAL, a. [Gr. a shadow, and a catching.]
Belonging to a sun-dial. [Little used.]
SCIATHERICALLY, adv. After the manner of a sun-dial.
SCIATIC, SCIATICA, n. [L. sciatica, from Gr. pain in the hips, from the hip, from the loin.] Rheumatism in the hip.
SCIATIC, SCIATICAL, a.
1. Pertaining to the hip; as the sciatic artery.
2. Affecting the hip; as sciatic pains.
SCIENCE, n. [L. scientia, from scio, to know.]
1. In a general sense, knowledge, or certain knowledge; the comprehension or understanding of truth or facts by the mind. The science of God must be perfect.
2. In philosophy, a collection of the general principles or leading truths relating to any subject. Pure science, as the mathematics, is built on self-evident truths; but the term science is also applied to other subjects founded on generally acknowledged truths, as metaphysics; or on experiment and observation, as chimistry and natural philosophy; or even to an assemblage of the general principles of an art, as the science of agriculture; the science of navigation. Arts relate to practice, as painting and sculpture.
A principle in science is a rule in art.
3. Art derived from precepts or built on principles.
Science perfects genius.
4. Any art or species of knowledge.
No science doth make known the first principles on which it buildeth.
5. One of the seven liberal branches of knowledge, viz grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.
[Note - Authors have not always been careful to use the terms art and science with due discrimination and precision. Music is an art as well as a science. In general, an art is that which depends on practice or performance, and science that which depends on abstract or speculative principles. The theory of music is a science; the practice of it an art.]
SCIENT, a. [L. sciens.] Skillful. [Not used.]
SCIENTIAL, Producing science.
SCIENTIFIC, SCIENTIFICAL, a. [L. scientia and facio, to make.]
1. Producing certain knowledge or demonstration; as scientific evidence.
2. According to the rules or principles of science; as a scientific arrangement of fossils.
3. Well versed in science; as a scientific physician.
SCIENTIFICALLY, adv.
1. In such a manner as to produce knowledge.
It is easier to believe, than to be scientifically instructed.
2. According to the rules or principles of science.
SCILLITIN, n. [See Squill.] a white transparent acrid substance, extracted from squills by Vogel.
SCIMITAR, [See Cimiter.]
SCINK, n. a cast calf. [Not in use or local.]
SCINTILLANT, a. [See Scintillate.] emitting sparks or fine igneous particles; sparkling.
SCINTILLATE, v.i. [L. scintillo. This word seems to be a diminutive formed on the Teutonic scinan, Eng. to shine.]
1. To emit sparks or fine igneous particles.
Marbles do not scintillate with steel.
2. to sparkle, as the fixed stars.
SCINTILLATING, ppr. emitting sparks; sparkling.
SCINTILLATION, n. the act of emitting sparks or igneous particles; the act of sparkling.
SCIOLISM, n. [See Sciolist.] Superficial knowledge.
SCIOLIST, n. [L. sciolus, a diminutive formed on scio, to know.]
One who knows little, or who knows many things superficially; a smatterer.
These passages in that book, were enough to humble the presumption of our modern sciolists, if their pride were not as great as their ignorance.
SCIOLOUS, a. Superficially or imperfectly knowing.
SCIOMACHY, n. [Gr. a shadow, and a battle.]
A battle with a shadow. [Little used.]
SCION. [See Cion.]
SCIOPTIC, a. [Gr. shadow and to see.]
Pertaining to the camera obscura, or to the art of exhibiting images through a hole in a darkened room.
SCIOPTIC, n. A sphere or globe with a lens made to turn like the eye; used in experiments with the camera obscura.
SCIOPTICS, n. The science of exhibiting images of external objects, received through a double convex glass into a darkened room.
SCIRE FACIAS, n. [L.] In law, a judicial writ summoning a person to show cause to the court why something should not be done, as to require sureties to show cause why the plaintiff should not have execution against them for debt and damages, or to require a third person to show cause why goods in his hands by replevin, should not be delivered to satisfy the execution, etc.
SCIROC, SCIROCCO, n. In Italy, a southeast wind; a hot suffocating wind, blowing from the burning deserts of Africa. This name is given also, in the northeast of Italy, to a cold bleak wind from the Alps.
SCIRROSITY, n. [See Scirrus.] An induration of the glands.
SCIRROUS, a.
1. Indurated; hard; knotty; as a gland.
2. Proceeding from scirrus; as scirrous affections; scirrous disease.
SCIRRUS, n. [L. scirrus; Gr.]
In surgery and medicine, a hard tumor on any part of the body, usually proceeding from the induration of a gland, and often terminating in a cancer.
SCISCITATION, n. [L. sciscitor, to inquire or demand.]
The act of inquiring; inquiry; demand. [Little used.]
SCISSIBLE, a. [L. scissus, scindo, to cut.] Capable of being cut or divided by a sharp instrument; as scissible matter or bodies.
SCISSILE, a. [L. scissilis, from scindo, to cut.]
That may be cut or divided by a sharp instrument.
SCISSION, n. sizh’on. [L. scissio, scindo, to cut.]
The act of cutting or dividing by an edged instrument.
SCISSORS, n. siz’zors, plu. [L. scissor, from scindo, to cut, Gr.]
A cutting instrument resembling shears, but smaller, consisting of two cutting blades movable on a pin in the center, by which they are fastened. Hence we usually say, a pair of scissors.
SCISSURE, n. [L. scissura, from scindo, to cut.]
A longitudinal opening in a body, made by cutting. [This cannot legitimately be a crack, rent or fissure. In this use it may be an error of the press for fissure.]
SCITAMINEOUS, a. Belonging to the Scitamineae, one of Linne’s natural orders of plants.
SCLAVONIAN, SLAVONIC, a. [from Sclavi, a people of the north of Europe.]
Pertaining to the Sclavi, a people that inhabited the country between the rivers Save and Drave, or to their language. Hence the word came to denote the language which is now spoken in Poland, Russia, Hungary, Bohemia, etc.
SCLEROTIC, a. [Gr. hard; hardness.]
Hard; firm; as the sclerotic coat or tunicle of the eye.
SCLEROTIC, n.
1. The firm white outer coat of the eye.
2. A medicine which hardens and consolidates the parts to which it is applied.
SCOAT. [See Scot.]
SCOBIFORM, a. [L. scobs, saw dust, and form.]
Having the form of saw dust or raspings.
SCOBS, n. [L. from scabo, to scrape.] Raspings of ivory, hartshorn or other hard substance; dross of metals, etc.
SCOFF, v.i. [Gr. The primary sense is probably to throw. But I do not find the word in the English and Greek sense, in any modern language except the English.]
To treat with insolent ridicule, mockery or contumelious language; to manifest contempt by derision; with at. To scoff at religion and sacred things is evidence of extreme weakness and folly, as well as of wickedness.
They shall scoff at the kings. Habakkuk 1:10.
SCOFF, v.t. To treat with derision or scorn.
SCOFF, n. Derision, ridicule, mockery or reproach, expressed in language of contempt; expression of scorn or contempt.
With scoffs and scorns and contumelious taunts.
SCOFFER, n. One who scoffs; one that mocks, derides or reproaches in the language of contempt; a scorner.
There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?” 2 Peter 3:3.
SCOFFING, ppr. Deriding or mocking; treating with reproachful language.
SCOFFINGLY, adv. In mockery or contempt; by way of derision.
Aristotle applied this hemistich scoffingly to the sycophants at Athens.
SCOLD, v.i.
To find fault or rail with rude clamor; to brawl; to utter railing or harsh, rude, boisterous rebuke; with at; as, to scold at a servant. A scolding tongue, a scolding wife, a scolding husband, a scolding master, who can endure?
Pardon me, ‘tis the first time that ever I’m forc’d to scold.
SCOLD, v.t. To chide with rudeness and boisterous clamor; to rate. [The transitive use of this word is of recent origin, at least within my knowledge.]
SCOLD, n.
1. A rude, clamorous, foul-mouthed woman.
Scolds answer foul-mouth’d scolds.
2. A scolding; a brawl.
SCOLDER, n. One that scolds or rails.
SCOLDING, ppr.
1. Railing with clamor; uttering rebuke in rude and boisterous language.
2. a. Given to scolding.
SCOLDING, The uttering of rude, clamorous language by way of rebuke or railing; railing language.
SCOLDINGLY, adv. With rude clamor or railing.
SCOLLOP, n.
1. A pectinated shell. [See Scallop.]
2. An indenting or cut like those of a shell.
SCOLLOP, v.t. To form or cut with scollops.
SCOLOPENDRA, n. [Gr.]
1. A venomous serpent.
2. A genus of insects of the order of Apters, destitute of wings. These insects have as many feet on each side as there are segments in the body. There are several species.
3. A plant. [L. scolopendrium.]
SCOMM, n. [L. scomma; Gr. See Scoff.]
1. A buffoon. [Not in use.]
2. A flout; a jeer. [Not in use.]
SCONCE, n.
1. A fort or bulwark; a work for defense. Obs.
2. A hanging or projecting candlestick, generally with a mirror to reflect the light.
Golden sconces hang upon the walls.
3. The circular tube with a brim in a candlestick, into which the candle is inserted, that is, the support, the holder of the candle; and from this sense the candlestick, in the preceding definition, has its name.
4. A fixed seat or shelf. [Local.]
SCONCE, n.
1. Sense; judgment; discretion or understanding. This sense has been in vulgar use in New England within my memory.
2. The head; a low word.
3. A mulet or fine.
SCONCE, v.t. To mulet; to fine. [A low word and not in use.]
SCOOP, n.
1. A large ladle; a vessel with a long handle fastened to a dish, used for dipping liquors; also, a little hollow piece of wood for bailing boats.
2. An instrument of surgery.
3. A sweep; a stroke; a swoop.
SCOOP, v.t.
1. To lade out; properly, to take out with a scoop or with a sweeping motion.
He scoop’d the water from the crystal flood.
2. To empty by lading; as, he scooped it dry.
3. To make hollow, as a scoop or dish; to excavate; as, the Indians scoop the trunk of a tree into a canoe.
Those carbuncles the Indians will scoop, so as to hold above a pint.
4. To remove, so as to leave a place hollow.
A spectator would think this circular mount had been actually scooped out of that hollow space.
SCOOPED, pp. Taken out as with a scoop or ladle; hollowed; excavated; removed so as to leave a hollow.
SCOOPER, n. One that scoops; also, a water fowl.
SCOOPING, ppr. Lading out; making hollow; excavating; removing so as to leave a hollow.
SCOOP-NET, n. A net so formed as to sweep the bottom of a river.
SCOPE, n. [L. scopus; Gr. from to see or view; Heb. to see, to behold.] The primary sense is to stretch or extend, to reach; properly, the whole extent, space or reach, hence the whole space viewed, and hence the limit or ultimate end.
1. Space; room; amplitude of intellectual view; as a free scope for inquiry; full scope for the fancy or imagination; ample scope for genius.
2. The limit of intellectual view; the end or thing to which the mind directs its view; that which is purposed to be reached or accomplished; hence, ultimate design, aim or purpose; intention; drift. It expresses both the purpose and thing purposed.
Your scope is as mine own, so to enforce and qualify the laws, as to your soul seems good.
The scope of all their pleading against man’s authority, is to overthrow such laws and constitutions of the church -
3. Liberty; freedom from restraint; room to move in.
4. Liberty beyond just limits; license.
Give him line and scope.
5. Act of riot; sally; excess. Obs.
6. Extended quantity; as a scope of land. Obs.
7. Length; extent; sweep; as scope of cable.
SCOPIFORM, a. [L. scopa, a broom, and form.] Having the form of a broom or besom.
Zeolite, stelliform or scopiform.
SCOPPET, v.t. To lade out. [Not in use.]
SCOPTICAL, a. [Gr.] Scoffing. [Not in use.]
SCOPULOUS, a. [L. scopulosus.] Full of rocks; rocky. [Not in use.]
SCORBUTE, n. [L. scorbutus.] Scurvy. [Not in use.]
SCORBUTIC, SCORBUTICAL, a. [L. scorbutus, the scurvy. See Scurf, Scurvy.]
1. Affected or diseased with scurvy; as a scorbutic person.
2. Pertaining to scurvy, or partaking of its nature; as scorbutic complaints or symptoms.
3. Subject to scurvy; as a scorbutic habit.
SCORBUTICALLY, adv. With the scurvy, or with a tendency to it; as a woman scorbutically affected.
SCORCE. [See Scorse.]
SCORCH, v.t.
1. To burn superficially; to subject to a degree of heat that changes the color of a thing, or both the color and texture of the surface. Fire will scorch linen or cotton very speedily in extremely cold weather.
2. To burn; to affect painfully with heat. Scorched with the burning sun or burning sands of Africa.
SCORCH, v.i. To be burnt on the surface; to be parched; to be dried up.
Scatter a little mungy straw and fern among your seedlings, to prevent the roots from scorching.
SCORCHED, pp. Burnt on the surface; pained by heat.
SCORCHING, ppr. Burning on the surface; paining by heat.
SCORCHING-FENNEL, n. A plant of the genus Thapsia; deadly carrot.
SCORDIUM, n. [L.] A plant, the water-germander, a species of Teucrium.
SCORE, n.
1. A notch or incision; hence, the number twenty. Our ancestors, before the knowledge of writing, numbered and kept accounts of numbers by cutting notches on a stick or tally, and making one notch the representative of twenty. A simple mark answered the same purpose.
2. A line drawn.
3. An account or reckoning; as, he paid his score.
4. An account kept of something past; an epoch; an era.
5. Debt, or account of debt.
6. Account; reason; motive.
But left the trade, as many more have lately done on the same score.
7. Account; sake.
You act your kindness of Cydaria’s score.
8. In music, the original and entire draught of any composition, or its transcript.
To quit scores, to pay fully; to make even by giving an equivalent.
A song in score, the words with the musical notes of a song annexed.
SCORE, v.t.
1. To notch; to cut and chip for the purpose of preparing for hewing; as, to score timber.
2. To cut; to engrave.
3. To mark by a line.
4. To set down as a debt.
Madam, I know when, instead of five, you scored me ten.
5. To set down or take as an account; to charge; as, to score follies.
6. To form a score in music.
SCORED, pp. Notched; set down; marked; prepared for hewing.
In botany, a scored stem is marked with parallel lines or grooves.
SCORIA, n. [L. from the Gr. rejected matter, that which is thrown off.]
Dross; the recrement of metals in fusion, or the mass produced by melting metals and ores.
SCORIACEOUS, a. Pertaining to dross; like dross or the recrement of metals; partaking of the nature of scoria.
SCORIFICATION, n. In metallurgy, the act or operation of reducing a body, either wholly or in part, into scoria.
SCORIFIED, pp. Reduced to scoria.
SCORIFORM, a. [L. scoria and form.] Like scoria; in the form of dross.
SCORIFY, v.t. To reduce to scoria or drossy matter.
SCORIFYING, ppr. Reducing to scoria.
SCORING, ppr. Notching; marking; setting down as an account or debt; forming a score.
SCORIOUS, a. Drossy; recrementitious.
SCORN, n.
1. Extreme contempt; that disdain which springs from a person’s opinion of the meanness of an object, and a consciousness or belief of his own superiority or worth.
He thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone. Esther 3:6.
Every sullen frown and bitter scorn but fann’d the fuel that too fast did burn.
2. A subject of extreme contempt, disdain or derision; that which is treated with contempt.
Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and a derision to them that are around us. Psalm 44:13.
To think scorn, to disdain; to despise. Obs.
To laugh to scorn, to deride; to make a mock of; to ridicule as contemptible.
They laughed us to scorn. Nehemiah 2:19.
SCORN, v.t.
1. to hold in extreme contempt; to despise; to contemn; to disdain. Job 16:20.
Surely he scorneth the scorner; but he giveth grace to the lowly. Proverbs 3:34.
2. to think unworth; to disdain.
Fame that delights around the world to stray, scorns not to take our Argos in her way.
3. To slight; to disregard; to neglect.
This my long suff’rance and my day of grace, those who neglect and scorn, shall never taste.
SCORN, v.i. To scorn at, to scoff at; to treat with contumely, derision or reproach. Obs.
SCORNED, pp. Extremely contemned or despised; disdained.
SCORNER, n.
1. One that scorns; a contemner; a despiser.
They are great scorners of death.
2. A scoffer; a derider; in Scripture, one who scoffs at religion, its ordinances and teachers, and who makes a mock of sin and the judgments and threatenings of God against sinners. Proverbs 1:22; Proverbs 19:25.
SCORNFUL, a.
1. Contemptuous; disdainful; entertaining scorn; insolent.
Th’ enamor’d deity the scornful damsel shuns.
2. Acting in defiance or disregard.
Scornful of winter’s frost and summer’s sun.
3. In Scripture, holding religion in contempt; treating with disdain religion and the dispensations of God.
SCORNFULLY, adv. With extreme contempt; contemptuously; insolently.
The sacred rights of the christian church are scornfully trampled on in print -
SCORNFULNESS, n. The quality of being scornful.
SCORNING, ppr. Holding in great contempt; despising; disdaining.
SCORNING, n. The act of contemning; a treating with contempt, slight or disdain.
How long will the scorners delight in their scorning? Proverbs 1:22; Psalm 123:4.
SCORPION, n. [L. scorpio; Gr. probably altered from the Oriental.]
1. In zoology, an insect of the genus Scorpio, or rather the genus itself, containing several species, natives of southern or warm climates. This animal has eight feet, two claws in front, eight eyes, three on each side of the thorax and two on the back, and a long jointed tail ending in a pointed weapon or sting. It is found in the south of Europe, where it seldom exceeds four inches in length. In tropical climates, it grows to a foot in length, and resembles a lobster. The sting of this animal is sometimes fatal to life.
2. In Scripture, a painful scourge; a kind of whip armed with points like a scorpion’s tail. 1 Kings 12:11.
Malicious and crafty men, who delight in injuring others, are compared to scorpions. Ezekiel 2:6.
3. In astronomy, the eighth sign of the zodiac, which the sun enters, Oct. 23.
4. A sea fish. [L. scorpius.]
Water scorpion, an aquatic insect of the genus Nepa.
SCORPION-FLY, n. An insect of the genus Panorna, having a tail which resembles that of a scorpion.
SCORPION-GRASS, SCORPION’S TAIL, n. A plant of the genus Scorpiurus, with trailing herbaceous stalks, and producing a pod resembling a caterpillar, whence it is called caterpillars.
The mouse-ear scorpion-grass, is of the genus Myosotis.